This past Tuesday, one could see Oswego State students all across campus wearing neon green shirts proclaiming either their support for the Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender community or a proud statement of their homosexuality. This was a forward-thinking display of those who have put aside sexual differences in favor of the wholeness of the human race.

While there have been significant steps forward for the LGBT community, especially since most of us as New York residents have recently had access to legal gay marriage, there are still those roadblocks and stigmas that threaten safety and equality of homosexual humans. The ideology of the opponents of homosexual beings is that what they are and what they believe in are against nature, morality, and religion. In essence, they think that homosexuality goes against every aspect of humanity.

Long has the fight been for rights in this country. The attraction of the same sex has never been about religion, race, evolution, or morality; it has only been demonized. As Homo sapiens, our one biological calling is to procreate, and it is a calling that has been changed with birth control, abstinence, and simple choice. We have used those minds that create and destroy civilizations to decide what we want out of life. To many, heterosexual and homosexual and everything in-between, the choice of giving life is declined. So if we have already forced our biological prerogatives to obey our human wills, the objective of gay marriage should be null.

“We may as well legalise marriage with animals, crude I concede but no apology.”

This statement, released just this week by UK Tory politician James Malliff over Twitter, should remind us all of the current socio-cultural awareness of homosexuality in our world. He doesn’t just equate marriage to something only belonging to higher beings, and therefore not homosexual, he justifies gays as no more civilized than animals.

This ignorant tweet is reminiscent of Pastor Martin Ssempa. Ssempa is infamous for his views on homosexuals in Uganda and elsewhere, the politest of which is that they should repent for their sins. Last year at a press conference, the pro-family clergyman showed a room full of journalists scatological fetish pornography, enthusiastically proclaiming the homosexual desire for eating feces. According to him, it is what they do and indeed what they love to do. This statement, the mere idea that someone believes this about a group of people, is absolutely horrid. Let’s not forget that Michelle Bachmann, whose husband runs one of those “pray-away-the-gay” centers, has an adviser who is close personal friends with this man. What this man is spreading is no better than what the Nazis thought of the Jews, and indeed it’s probably close to what they thought of homosexuals as well.

Also, the social stigma of homosexuals as pedophiles needs to end. How many “Law & Order” episodes have we seen where the homosexual man just can’t stay away from those little boys? Just as many as we’ve seen of that heterosexual man who can’t resist little girls, although the homosexual is still the first suspect for pedophilia. Pedophilia is a completely different situation than homosexuality; it can affect men and women, heterosexual and homosexual. It is a sick corruption of the innocent, whereas homosexuality is the intimate bond of love between those of the same gender. Don’t confuse the two.

Let’s not forget the blaming of AIDS on the homosexual community. As The Oswegonian mentioned in a previous issue, the Red Cross continues to defer any man who has had sex with another man from donating blood to those in need; citing fear of AIDS as their rationale. AIDS is not a homosexual disease; is it a human disease. Education and protection have slowed its growth in some areas, but in any area Martin Ssempa would still burn your condoms.

While we continue to strive for LGBT rights in this country, we must never forget the struggle elsewhere. The unabashed destruction of those outside the social norm is still prevalent. This week marks 13 years since Matthew Shepard was violently murdered because of his homosexuality. Homosexual teens are killing themselves to escape torture from their peers and it’s only been 42 years since the Stonewall Inn beatings. The killing of those pertaining to a certain group should sound familiar: it’s called genocide. We’ve already gotten past the definition of an “us” and a “them,” propaganda, dehumanization and even some extermination. According to those against them, homosexuals are sinners, animals, diseased and going to hell. All they need now are the secret police.