Arguments against homosexuality are unjustified

Silly excuses against gay marriage/gay rights/gay equality/gay anything make me so mad. I've heard so many of them, and so here I've chosen to put some of the ones I hear quite regularly. 

1. “It’s in the bible!”

No. I thought we’d had enough of religious laws. Religious laws are unjust. Not everybody follows your religion, the bible should not be the be all and end all of laws. When you start following religious laws, you start implementing drastic things such as:

 - Leviticus 3:17 “It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood”
Ban bacon immediately, folks.

 - Leviticus 19:28 “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord.”
Sorry, tattoos are now forbidden.

 - Mark 10:11-12 "And He said to them, 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”
Henry VIII was familiar with this one.

There should be a clear distinction between religion and law. Under no circumstances should “but the bible says so!” be a legitimate reason for something to be against the law.

2. “Homosexuality produces no offspring”

We really don’t need any more offspring. Everyday 5,760 more children become orphans[1]. We don’t need more offspring. There are already too many kids without homes or families. Same-sex couples can help with this issue. They can give these kids love and a home they would otherwise not have. The fact being gay leads to no offspring is a good thing for the world as a whole.

Also, if you won’t allow partnerships that don’t produce offspring, should a sterile man be allowed to marry a sterile woman? They won’t be able to produce any offspring. The argument is invalid.

3. “Kids raised by a same-sex couple don’t turn out right”

Generally the argument here is that a child needs one of both genders in order to shape them. The Archbishop of Singapore argues that children will not find their identity without two oppositely gendered parents. This just seems ridiculous. How many single parent families exist? Last time I checked my dad raised us on his own and my brother and my brother and I turned out fine. Neither of us is struggling to find our identities as a woman or man.

4. “Being gay is unnatural”

So are shoes, but you wear them. 
Also, “Over 1000 species have been shown to engage in same-sex mating and pair-bonding.”[2]. That's so unnatural.

5. “Kids shouldn't be shown homosexuality, they won’t understand it”

Hold up. Did your parents ever have to explain to you what being straight is? Of course not. Exposing kids to these kinds of things from a young age decreases the chance that they will be homophobic when they’re older, it may seem weird to kids that have been sheltered from the real world, and that is the fault of the parents. Don't alienate those growing up questioning their sexuality. Kids are some of the most accepting and open-minded people. Show them homosexuality, and they won’t need to understand it, just like kids won’t understand what being straight is about. They’ll accept it.

6. “Marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman only. Gays already have civil partnerships”

Firstly, marriages are hardly holy anymore. How long was Kim Kardashian married for? 72 days? How holy. 50% of first marriages in the US end in divorce[3]. Also very holy, isn’t it?

Why should it be between a man and a woman? Everything seems to always come back to the fact it’s religion that’s preventing gay marriage. Christianity says marriage should be between a man and a woman, but I thought we’d separated state and church? At the end of the day, to the government, marriage is just telling the state you are a couple. Applying religion to marriage is out of date.

7. “Being gay is a choice”

If sexuality is a choice, fall in love with someone of the same sex.

This source phrases the idea that there needs to be a gene for something to be acceptable perfectly: “Autism is also not associated with a single gene, but we’d hardly claim that it is not biological, or that children choose to be autistic.”[4]

Honestly, I’m all for religious choice. Hold whatever faith you want, but it’s honestly infuriating when religion gets in the way of people’s rights. Of course it’s not all religious people, of course it’s not only religious people, but it seems like many of the arguments against it stem from religion.

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[1] Source: http://www.orphanhopeintl.org/facts-statistics/

[2] Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2014/04/top-7-claims-for-same-sex-relationships-being-unnatural/

[3] Source: http://www.divorcepad.com/rate/

[4] Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2014/04/top-7-claims-for-same-sex-relationships-being-unnatural/

The problem with 'LGBT'

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about lesbians/gays/bisexuals/transgenders themselves. I'm only discussing the term 'LGBT' itself. 

The term 'LGBT' stands for lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender, of course. On the surface, this term sees to blanket all of the queer community. Sure, it's easy and simple to remember, but I've got some problems with it. 

For one, it disincludes many people within the queer community. What about the pansexuals, asexuals, demisexuals, etc.? They don't count according to that term. It could be argued that these are 'exceptions', but that's really not good enough. The term 'LGBT' is plastered all over gay pride processions and is the common term known the public, disincluding all these other branches of the queer community leads to a situation uch like we have today, where any sexuality outside the umbrella term doesn't seem to exist to the general public (if you want proof of that, my iPhone didn't recognize pansexual or demisexual as words). 

In addition, I have a problem with the inclusion of 'transgender' in the acronym. I'm not hating on transgenders, however, as any of them may tell you, transgender isn't a sexuality. The inclusion of 'T' in 'LGBT' creates the misunderstanding that one's gender has anything to do with their sexuality. A male-to-female transgender (a woman who was assigned a male body at birth) doesn't necessarily have to be attracted to men. She can be a lesbian, despite identifying as a woman in a male body. However, transgenders really do need the understanding they deserve, and their place within the widespread term 'LGBT' helps them to get this. Although the placement can create misunderstandings, there's really not much we can do. 

On the other hand, other acronyms, such as 'LGBTQ' or 'LGBTAQ' do exist. The best in my opinion is 'LGBTAQ' (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/asexual/queer). To me, this really does cover as much as we can of the queer spectrum. Other branches of sexualities would still need recognition, but are covered in the 'Q' of the acronym. Although in another interpretation this 'Q' can mean questioning, I feel it is better that it stands for queer. 

Or in the end, wouldn't it be great to hold gay pride under the term 'queer pride'? We should be raising awareness for the whole queer community, not just the branch we are in. Let's embrace all sexualities, not just our own. 

Why do football players get paid so much?

I was having a look through some of my old tweets and I found something my cousin posted about how unfair the pay checks of footballers are. I think we’ve all wondered this at some point. Why are football players racking up the millions, whereas the real ‘heroes’, the firemen, doctors, etc. are making scraps compared to them? In terms of ‘football players’, I’m talking the top players of first division football. Your average player of Brighton and Hove Albion FC makes nowhere near the millions the big names make, names such as Wayne Rooney and Christiano Ronaldo who earn a yearly salary of £27 million between them[1]. Do bear in mind though, not all players get paid this much. It really is the top of the top.

The way I look at it is this. In the hierarchy of clubs, you’ve got the players, the managers and the club owners. Let’s take the football club Chelsea FC, owned by Roman Abramovich and managed by José Mourinho. Abramovich has owned Chelsea FC since 2003. He’s where the money comes from, and he’s got a lot of it. When you’ve got that much money, you own a football club for fun and publicity. Once the English Premier League formed in 1992, English football suddenly became the million dollar sport it is today. It created a league of competitive football which got the fans on board, and allowed the sport to blossom into what it is today. 

Last Christmas my dad took my brother and I up to Chelsea to watch a game. My whole family supports Chelsea, so we go every time we’re back in the UK to watch them. This time however, we splashed out and bought tickets for a tour of the stadium too. The tour of the stadium included meeting three classic Chelsea players, the two that are important to this story are Ron Harris and Peter Bonetti. After taking some photos with fans, they wrapped up with a question and answer session. I stuck my hand up and on the last question I was pointed to. My question was ‘in your opinion, what’s the hardest thing about being a professional football player?’, a pretty simple question, but the answer I got really surprised me.

Ron Harris explained the key differences between modern day football and the ‘60s and ‘70’s football they played in. He said that modern day footballers were more like celebrities with football on top. Peter Bonetti then added that in his time they weren’t paid in millions; even the best of the best weren’t international celebrities. Ron Harris then went on to ask ‘well, have you ever met any of your favourite players?’. He made a good point. Of course I never expected to, but all the times I’ve ever seen Chelsea play I’ve never come closer than 100 metres to them. My dad really topped it off the point as we were leaving the room. Believe me when I say the guys we met are Chelsea legends, yet my dad pointed out they still have to go to talk to fans at stadium tours. There may be some line between whether they’re doing it out of loyalty to the club or as an income, but it certainly does highlight football wasn’t always like it is now.

Back to the point. The point is that the owners of the clubs are the top dogs. They have the money. When they’ve invested so much in a club, they don’t want to lose that money. It also doesn’t look so good for them if their club loses. With their money they aim to attract the best players they can. Why would a player of first division standard stay in the third? They wouldn’t. They’d work their way up the league tables to wherever their highest offer was. So a club sees a talented player, they want him, how do they get him? Offer a big buying price to the club and a big salary to the player. Simple. If a club wants a player bad, they’d offer him a bigger and bigger salary. It stands to reason  the better the player the higher their salary. That’s why the big players get paid so much, everybody wants them.

So in short, that’s the way I see it. It’s not right morally but yes, that’s why they get paid so much.

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[1] Source: http://www.tsmplug.com/football/top-10-highest-earners-football-players-in-the-world/