By Joyce Nguyen, ELP Student

Have you ever asked yourself what would it be like if you couldn’t marry the one that you love?

To be honest, I used to be terrified of gay people when I was a little kid, because my relatives told me that being gay was just wrong. Growing up, I became conscious of what was happening in my life. There was a significant thing that I learned, which was I couldn’t judge gay people because they were living a life that they belonged. There is no one to interrupt our lives; we could live a life whatever we want, but why couldn’t gay people live a life that they were born with?

During the time when I was in elementary school, I saw my friend, who is gay, being abused by another student. At that moment, I realized that I couldn’t watch my friend be abused just because of his gender, and I understood that I didn’t have the courage to see my fellow-creature being unequally treated also. We are all human, not only thinking by our head but also thinking by our heart. Although people all over the world have fought for human rights for many years, there are still some of those people who cannot bear gay people. Aren’t gay people human, too?

Yes, they are. The red blood is running in their body the same as us. They are normal; they are working hard to be parents. When it comes to being able to get a home, earning a place to live, being served by business, they should be treated like anyone else. As ex-president Barack Obama states, “We live in an America where all of us are treated more equally, because visiting hours in hospital are no longer depend on who you are and insurance companies can no longer turn somebody away simply because of who you love.” The knowledge about the LGBT community is and has been understood in the wrong way. Most people think being gay is a mental illness that should be treated by medicine or they need to meet a psychologist to become a normal person. Therefore, education plays an important role to heighten public awareness of the LGBT community.

Imagine that you were born with yellow skin. In everyone’s awareness, people who have yellow skin type are inferior, or have “mental illness”, or “something needs to be cured”. You use a ton of specialist cream to change your original skin into another color that you think could help you look like “a normal person”. You can tell the world that you are an ordinary person now, but you cannot change the fact that you are a yellow-skinned person. Think carefully, it must be extremely hurtful to hide who you are because nobody likes it.

I gave you this example to show that it feels painful, devastating to become someone else and not yourself. Could you imagine what would happen if you get married with someone that you don’t love? I could imagine that it feels awfully dreadful; I will live a wasted life, harassing myself for the rest of my life, watching the one I love from behind, I may want to ask myself just one question “What am I trying for?” Not only will it hurt me, but also the one that I don’t love will also feel awful. Normally, people can’t help who they fall in love with, so it’s unimaginable to say the LGBT community is not allowed to love people who have the same gender.

In conclusion, the LGBT community is not disease; they are trying hard to achieve their dreams the same as normal people. I have a dream that my children will be able to live in a world that I don’t need to tell them please treat your gay friends, your gay neighbors the same as us. Gay marriage becomes common day by day, and we should adjust ourselves to adapt it. It doesn’t feel right to get married to someone that you don’t love. Not only can gay people can feel how much it hurts, but also the normal people can feel hurt, too.