In Wednesday’s letter to the editor (“Sick of LGBTAA’s same old whining”), Jake Brumfield states that “The last I looked they (LGBT people) were not excluded from any of the constitutional rights that I have.” This statement is incorrect in the state of Iowa. Currently it is legal to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation.

As long as this discrimination is legal, members of the LGBT community do not have the freedom of speech that is guaranteed to them under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. When a person has to worry that they might lose their job, their home or their children because of who they choose to say “I love you” to, they do not have the same constitutional rights of the heterosexual population.

Emily Hurm

Graduate student

Higher education administration