Gay And Lesbian Rights

Improved Essays
Over the years gay and lesbian people have had to deal with the ever changing laws and political reasoning to why they cannot have the same rights as everyone else. In 1899 it was decided that punishment for being found to be gay would change from execution to life in prison (Ranker, 2015). It is these laws that have held them down, that they are now fighting against to change. In this essay I will be discussing the changes of gay and lesbian rights over the years and the shift in society’s view of them.

The increasing number of individuals coming out about their sexuality has put more and more pressure on governments to give gay and lesbian people the same rights as heterosexual people. Due to the original idea that homosexuality is an
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The issue of gay and lesbian rights have three main power structures; they consist of the government, churches and the media. Each one plays an important role in the change of the laws that exclude gay and lesbians. With the help of social media gay and lesbian campaigns have been able to gain support from people all around the world. They have been able to voice what rights they would like to be included in and have been able to voice their concerns about being discriminated against because they are being excluded from basic laws. The media had been able to help spread awareness of the issues that gay and lesbian couple’s faces in today’s society (Social Media and LGBT Community , …show more content…
Recently Ireland and America have taken the step to legalise it. For Ireland this was a huge step to take as Ireland has had a strong influence form the Catholic Church for many years (news.com.au, 2015). They also took the vote to the people of Ireland to decide whether they wanted it legalised, 3.23 million people equalling to 60% voted yes to same-sex marriage (The New York Times, 2015).
America has also taken the step to legalise gay marriage in every state. The issue was taken to the Supreme Court and it was rule that the remaining 13 states that hadn’t already legalised it, were to recognise same-sex marriages. This was a conflicting issue for America as some had already legalised same-sex and other hadn’t, this presented discrimination from the states that hadn’t legalised it (Liverpool student radio,

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