blog post #7

LGBT people have been behind the scenes in history. They were not really focused on during history. African Americans were really focused on with slavery, civil rights, and more, but not LGBT people. In history there were obviously gay people in the world. Having gay people in our world did not just pop out of no where. Now our world is totally focusing on them. A way we focus on gay people is disusing the issue of don't Ask Don't Tell. Many people also discuss if it's okay if gay people can get marriage in certain states. Now gay people are so similar to African Americans because they were both focused on in life about really important things. Like the Civil War and Don't Ask Don't Tell. An issue Gay people had was not being able to marry each other. I know that this is still a current problem, but it has gotten better for them because some states are allowing it.

blog post #6.

1. Julian Bond
2. Eric P. Lee - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/11gay.html
3. Gerry Studds- first openly gay person in congress.

I picked Eric P. Lee. He is the president of its Los Angeles chapter. He admitted that he supported same sex marriage and created lots of tension. Now all the other members of their group don’t want him as the president of their group because he supports same sex-marriage. I thought he was really important because he didn’t want to deny a civil right to a certain group of people that other people have, and because he was standing up for what he believed in. This is what he said, “But it was clear to me,” he added, “that any time you deny one group of people the same right that other groups have, that is a clear violation of civil rights and I have to speak up on that.” I thought that was very important and brave for him to say that. A connection I have to this is one time I was watching this show and there was a court case weather or not this “handsome” guy on a book cover was guilty or not, but Fran the main character said he was not guilty but everyone else said he was. This is really similar to the situation because Fran is just like Eric because they both stood up for what they believed in and what was right. 
Question:  What do you feel about don't ask don't tell?

Work Cited

STEINHAUER, JENNIFER. "Civil Rights Leader Under Fire for Supporting Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 June 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/us/11gay.html>.

5th Blog Post

Generally the effects of stereotypes are: people judging other people, people hating other people, it stops us from knowing the real facts about people, and people believe these stereotypes. An example of when people believe these stereotypes are how people think women are supposes to be really skinny. A lot of women do believe this so they feel bad about them selves and it makes them feel self-conscious. There are many effects of stereotyping on gay people. Some of these are, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. When people start to stereotype on gay people, gay people get hurt and start to believe that what ever they say is true. For example, a stereotype that lesbians were given was that they have short cut hair. When they hear this it might make them want to do that even if they don’t want to because they think they are suppose to just because they are lesbians. A connection I have to this is one time my friend got glasses and people made stereotypes that said if you have glasses then you must be smart. When she got these glasses she tried to be really smart and not slack off and kept pushing her self because she knew that people with glasses are smart. Even though people with glasses can be smart that does not mean that they are very intelligent and have to be when they get glasses, but she didn’t realize that then. This is related to the effects of stereotyping about gay people because it proves that people do follow these stereotypes because they think it is the right think to do or because in their mind they are forced to.         

Current Events

I read the article Gay marriage gains, but fight isn't over. This article is about people in America. This article talks about what is happening in America with gay marriages. It talks about how 5 states and the district of Colombia  are allowing gay marriages but not every state. So again it shows that the law is slowly forming for every state to follow. This article shows how many people think it should be allowed for may people to marry each other. Another way they showed this is when they showed the percentage of people who agree with gay marriages 15 years ago and now. 15 years ago it was 27% and now it is 53%. The topic in this article is happening throughout America. This is still a current issue but the article was written on May 26, 2011. I am pretty sure this article was written to inform people about the recent news about gay marriages. I also think it was written to make people allow gay marriages because I thought it was a little bit bias. For example, " The good news is that changing sentiments have already begun to alter the traditional conception of wedlock. Five states and the District of Columbia now allow gay marriage." When they said "The good news..." that made me think it was bias. A clarifying question I had was, what are the 5 states that are allowing gay marriages? My open ended question was, why do you think over 15 years the percentage for people who agree with gay marriages went up so high?
A connection I have to this is in 5th grade I was running for president. In the beging I didnt have a lot of followers but torwrads the end I did. This is so similar to this article because

Gay Civil Rights 4th Blog

The London's gay men chorus group has done lots of work in making homosexual people feel better about themselves. When this chorus was formed it gave gay men a chance to be part of something. More then that, but it gave them the chance to meet new people and to make friends. Often people who are gay have trouble finding people like them to date or even just to be friends and talk to each other about what their feeling and other things that they would feel more comfortable telling a homosexual guy then a straight guy, so with this chorus it is a great chance to do all those things. To help achieve the goal of getting more gay men to join the London chorus I think the leaders of the group should advertise this chorus. They could go to some high schools and talk a little about the chorus and what they do. This would help because it would spread the word about their chorus. Even if no one is gay at the school people would still talk about it and the students might even tell their other friends or family members who are gay and see if they would want to join. A connection I have to this is like the Shepaug newspaper. This is just like the men chorus because in both situations there is a group with people doing the same thing that they both like to do. But instead of singing this group makes newspapers for a school. In the newspaper club the people in it  get to know each other more then they would with out it and it goes the same for the London gay men chorus.

Work Cited

"BBC - London Video Nation - Liam Myron - Gay Chorus." BBC - Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/videonation/london_gaychoir.shtml>.


"London Gay Men's Chorus - home." London Gay Men's Chorus - home. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2011. <http://www.lgmc.org.uk/>.

Cvil rights blog post #3

Wonderful

2nd civil rights blog

Lady Gaga delivered this speech on September 20, 2010.


Part of Speech:
"So what this means is, that they're saying that straight soldiers feel uncomfortable around gay soldiers, and sometimes it causes tension, hostility and possible performance inadequacies for straight soldiers who are homophobic."

This means that if a gay person joins the military other people in the military will be uncomfortable. When soldiers are uncomfortable then they will not do as good of a job as they would have with out them being there, according to this sentence of this speech. So having gay people join the military, they are saying it will be awkward between soldiers. I chose this part of the speech because I could clearly understand it and it was explaining the "don't ask, don't tell" law.  It explains why the law was created and how the majority of straight soldiers would probably feel about the issue . I think that we should be thinking of the other soldiers, too, not just the gay people who want to join the army. For example, if I was a straight soldier in the army and an openly gay person joined the army, then I would feel uncomfortable being naked in a shower with him and other stuff. Just because straight people are not all comfortable doing some things with gay people does not mean they are homophobic of gay people. I think many people can still accept gay people, even though there might be a bit of awkwardness.  That is why I chose this part of the speech. This also leads to the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" law, because people realized that gay people still deserve their rights, despite of the obstacles.