Donnell Hicks
05/09/2013

The LGBT community has risen over the last decade fighting for civil rights and equal opportunity here in America. Thus far, the LGBT community has fought to have their voices heard, their stories told and to live amongst some of their heterosexual counterparts. In the last few years fourteen states have recognized same-sex marriage as civil unions between two people who are madly in love with each other. The fourteen states that have legalized same-sex marriages are:

1.         Iowa

2.         New Hampshire

3.         Connecticut

4.         Massachusetts

5.         Vermont

6.         Illinois

7.         Hawaii

8.         New Jersey

9.         Oregon           

10.       Washington State

11.       Nevada

12.       California

13.       Maine

14.       Washington, D.C. (city-state)

In my opinion, I don’t see anything wrong with living next to a couple who are homosexual or even having friends who are homosexuals and lesbians. Some people who are heterosexual is making such an enormous problem when a lesbian woman or a homosexual male comes around as if they’re some type of plague getting ready to take over the United States of America. The fact remains - the lesbian female and the homosexual male are human beings with basic human emotions just like any heterosexual woman or man. The people who live in the LGBT community need to be respected and not bullied all because of what thei sexual preferences are. Who are we to judge? We are not God.

I wasn’t raised to hate or pass judgment on anybody above all homosexuals and lesbians. I was always taught to love and appreciate any fellow man who I encounter. Right now today, I am not homophobic towards any gay man or a lesbian woman. Truthfully, I have gay friends who I adore very much. Some heterosexuals who appear to be homophobic like to throw in religion about gays and lesbians going straight to Hades due to the fact they are living a wrong lifestyle given that God never made two men or two women to be together. What people fail to realize is the homosexual man and the lesbian woman might’ve gone through some trauma during their youth such as being sexually molested which made them question their sexuality or a man might’ve picked up some traits being around women or vice versa. It is something called….NATURE versus NURTURE, wherein the nature debate justifies that some people are born that way and nurture supports the idea that people are cultured and shaped into the people they become.

This is the reason I applaud the Obama Administration for standing up tall against the hate and bigotry to end the DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) law which discriminates against homosexuals and lesbians and prohibits them from joining the U.S. military; along with making strides to end certain discrimination in the workplace against men and women who are living in the LGBT community. The world is constantly changing every day before our very eyes, so I cannot hate on someone else due to their sexual preferences and I cannot be homophobic towards anybody in the LGBT community; it is not right. Everyone should be treated fairly regardless of who they are or what they are.

I am certainly proud of everybody who lives and thrives in the LGBT community in the United States for standing up tall and strong and fighting for the right to have their voices heard and a chance to live among society and enjoy an equal life just like the next person.   

           

04/05/2013
Donnell Hicks
President Barack Obama: The Most Criticized American President

Throughout the two-hundred year of the American Presidency, there have been a handful of American presidents that have been truly criticized for making ill decisions and prominent choices to make the world a better place, especially for the lowly people here in America. Starting back with the sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln, who was solely criticized for signing the Emancipation Proclamation to end the Civil War and to abolish slavery in the Deep South once and for all. Although President Lincoln is a Republican, he fought to help mankind especially Black people get free from bondage. Lincoln received extreme hatred from his Republican colleagues from the Confederate South.

Another American president who has been scrutinized so much will be Lyndon Johnson who fought for the passage of both the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1965. Lyndon Johnson was hated by White people in the Jim Crow south for siding with Blacks to end discrimination in the hard southern states in America followed by President Clinton in the 1990’s for extending the social safety net programs aimed to help poor people in America. Out of all these three American presidents, they weren’t dragged through the mud; they weren’t called names or shown hatred as much as President Obama is shown hatred right now today.

Even though President Obama is a Democrat, the fact remains. President Obama is the first African-American president to ever sit behind the desk in the oval office in the white house which was built mainly for the past forty presidents starting from George Washington. Ever since President Obama was sworn into office, radicals in the Republican Party and throughout the deep southern states have risen up and shown its ugly head of bigotry and racism.

It appears no matter what President Obama does to make the country better or move it into a different direction he is constantly battling with Republican Tea Party politicians in Washington, D.C. For starters, I have never seen a sitting president being hammered over repeatedly as to where he was born. Extremists on the right of the GOP are trying to make President Obama’s birthplace a big issue trying to declare he’s not an American. The fact remains, President Obama understands where he was born even if his mother is a white woman from Kansas and his father is from Africa.

There are some GOP naysayers calling President Obama degrading names such as “dumb” “stupid,” and that “he doesn’t understand American politics.” Truth of the matter is this, President Obama is a smart, intelligent man who entered Harvard Law School and understands how government works, not just for the wealthy, but also to help those who are in need. In the midst of the presidential election last year, there were calls from the Tea Party GOP in Washington calling for President Obama impeachment. There were cartoons of President Obama drawn up as a monkey, placing pictures of his face on Adolf Hitler’s body, and most of all calls to assassinate the president a few dozen times last year from the Klan.

Everyone believed by electing the first African-American president it will heal old wounds of racism, yet it sped up racism. My only hope is that some of us will continue to pray over the president including his family from the traverse idiots of the GOP.