Sexual Preference: Consider or Ignore?

Prompt: Human Rights or Majority Rule

In regard to the situation that started in Miami and spread across the nation, I do not believe that individuals should be discriminated against based on their sexual preference. While we all have our own views regarding homosexuality, discrimination is still discrimination. Although I don’t agree with or condone homosexuality, I am sure that there are many well educated professors out there, that are more than capable of running a classroom, that happen to be gay. To me this fact should not prevent them from getting a job. I guess I a somewhat biased in this statement because I am speaking from a college student’s point of view. I think that college students are mature enough and educated enough to not be bothered by whether or not their teacher is gay.

If I were a parent would I want my elementary aged child in a classroom with a homosexual teacher? At first I’m sure this fact would bother me, but after thinking the situation through I suppose I would be OK with it. It’s not like the teacher is there to promote homosexuality or influence children in one way or another, they are there to teach math, science, history, or whatever and as long as they do a good job at this, I don’t see a problem with it.

A similar example of this happened to my family in the summer of 2000. While building a new home, my mom was faced with hiring an interior decorator. The guy she ended up hiring was gay. Despite the fact that he was gay, my dad (who is usually against any form of homosexuality) was not concerned with this issue. This didn’t bother him because the guy did a great job for a good price and was very professional. Although my dad didn’t agree with the guy’s lifestyle or sexual preference, this was ignored because of the professional setting. People who do not ignore this type of thing in professional settings, may be missing out on a lot of quality employees that may happen to be gay.

Overall, I guess society should be more concerned about human rights than the will of the majority. If I were a member of the “minority” I would hope that my interests were considered, not just ignored because I wasn’t following the mainstream.