As a straight, white, suburban-middle-class, Christian male, I know exactly nothing about life as a minority. Yet, I pride myself on my somewhat pathetic attempts to put myself in the shoes of the countless demographics that don’t get a fair shake.

Despite America’s incredible progress spanning more than 200 years, our inability to

treat minorities the way we claim we will is, quite frankly, embarrassing.

In the 1800s, we fought a war over the rights of African Americans. In the early 1900s, women and immigrants were the next groups to fight for equal rights. In the 1940s we placed millions of Asian Americans in internment camps. The ’60s brought the civil rights movement, despite the fact African-Americans had been “free” for almost a century. Now, in the 2000s, we are living in the next era of American discrimination.

Several states have passed bans on gay marriage. This issue, for whatever reason, has become a really big deal. To be honest, I don’t understand why, as a nation, we lack the ability to learn from what history has repeatedly taught us. The issue of gay marriage is a non-issue on at least two levels, both of which I will attempt to summarize in the hopes the ridiculousness of the issue becomes clear.

First and foremost, marriage is a religious institution. We claim to “separate church and state,” yet our government wants to regulate it. If the government wanted to make it illegal for a blonde to be baptized, the bill would be laughed all the way out of DC. Why can’t we simply allow the LGBT community to have “civil unions” and eliminate the term “marriage” from all laws and tax-codes? That way, as far as Uncle Sam is concerned, Adam and Eve are no different from Adam and Steve.

Second, we have failed to realize that history is repeating itself. If the issue at hand was whether or not a gay person should get 3/5 of a vote, we wouldn’t even consider it, but as soon as the discussion changes to marriage, basic reasoning leaves the building and fear takes over.

Unfortunately, that’s the issue at hand: fear. Whenever this country is afraid of something, we overreact. In World War II, the Asian community paid the price for our fear. Maybe persecution is the cost of progress. In the end, I can only ask myself what Martin Luther King would think about the restriction of the rights of the LGBT community by our government. If the government doesn’t treat someone fairly, why

should anybody else?

Are we going to live in fear, or challenge ourselves to be better? I firmly believe that 40 years from now, history will judge our treatment of the gay community as harshly as we judge those who fought against women’s suffrage. The true measure of equality lives on: If a gay man ran for president, could he be elected? Until the answer changes from “yes” to “I don’t see why that would even be a problem,” the US can only claim “all men are created equal,” not prove it.

David Riegner

Sophomore

Materials Engineering