I am getting married next month and I've been thinking recently what it is like to be an LGBT person. I myself am 100% straight and haven't really had that much contact with the LGBT community, however I am also an open minded person and I can imagine what it is like to be in other people's shoes. And given that I am seeing more and more LGBT issues in the news, I started thinking about this.
Only a small percent of the world recognizes LGBT rights, other countries either don't recognize it, make it illegal, or quite behead people for engaging in such activities. Now here we have an obvious problem (Muslim world).
Not just that but in the more tolerable countries this limits the rights of free association, which is recognized by the UN, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
But of course property rights are also recognized there, that doesn't mean that the government just wont steal 90% of your income because of it.
So yes this is a human rights issue, you can't have it both ways, either people have rights or they don't, there are no "limited rights". That's like saying a burglar will only steal your TV, but will leave your sofa.
History
Historically LGBT wasn't even an issue. Most of Greece, Rome, Ancient Egypt and their territories were open about LGBT. The Spartan soldiers were basically all gay. There were orgy services in Rome, and the Greeks were all open about it.
There wasn't even an issue historically with LGBT, until Christianity spread around. Christianity was a brutal religion initially, and can be compared to radical Islam. The inquisitions have slaughtered many innocent people, and these were all horrible acts.
The church was just as tyrannical as modern day governments, there is nothing to defend there, these were brutal acts.
My view
So I believe there is nothing wrong with being LGBT. I have some issues with naked guys and women marching on the streets, because it's really not that good to have children watch that.
However the concept of having other sexualities is fine by me. In fact it's just 1 more layer of freedom. If a person wants to have a different lifestyle they should be able to have it.
This is a perfect opportunity to show the middle finger to tyrannical governments, and have some freedom in your personal life. Not conforming to social norms is one step for freedom. Why would people allow other people to tell them what to do?
So I would in fact encourage people to not conform to social rules. I am not saying to break laws, don't do that, what I am saying is that people should really start to oppose tyranny, and this would be just 1 step towards freedom.
If this is what it takes to have freedom, then so be it, freedom comes from bottom up, not top down. This means that people first have to fix their own lives, and then start helping others to do so.
So having full freedom of association is just 1 step towards true freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of property, freedom of belief are similarly very important.
Sources:
https://pixabay.com