As a member of the LGBT community, I’m quite surprised that Jake Brumfield seems to “know” that we want extra rights. He also seems to believe that the Awareness Week poster campaign was an attempt to force something he doesn’t approve onto him.

LGBT individuals do not have all of the same rights that heterosexual people do. The right, which is most prevalent in my mind, is the right to marriage. As a gay man in a committed relationship, I cannot marry my partner if I want to. There are approximately 1,049 benefits afforded to a married couple, which a single individual would never get. At least a heterosexual person could choose to partake of these benefits if they had that desire. Even if we don’t have the right to marriage, because of some religious “problem” with it, we should be allowed to have some equitable form of union.

And where were the posters of the homosexuals “making out,” by the way? I saw posters of people kissing, lip to lip, with no gratuitous sexual actions. Plus, while I did see two homosexual couples on these posters, I also saw a heterosexual couple. Thus the message of the entire week, “Everyone has a right to love.”

So yes, we are pushing for equal rights. But where in the Constitution does it say that you have the right to never see or hear an opinion that you don’t agree with?

Frank Rowen

Sophomore

Psychology