Peter LaBarbera is the president of an anti-LGBT rights group called Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. We can only imagine he got there for his dedication to denying equality to millions of Americans. One of his main reasons for wanting to put an end to same-sex marriage? The sex part, of course.
“If you want to just think of how wrong homosexual so-called marriage is just ask yourself: how do two guys consummate their marriage? Yuck.” To that, of course, millions of LGBT Americans ask themselves the same question about heterosexual consummation and have the same response.
Our personal preferences shouldn’t determine what is legal and what is not. Consummation of marriage is a very personal topic, and everyone has a right to privacy as far as those preferences are concerned. Some people stand by missionary position and no other, others might incorporate use sex toys, and some might even have kinkier preferences. Do we ask? Of course not, because it’s a private topic.
But LaBarbera doesn’t seem to realize that not everyone is exactly like he wants them to be. “The whole concept is absurd,” he says. “It’s not marriage… if you’ve got homosexual so-called marriage legalized, you’re going to end up teaching gay sex-Ed, there is no way around it,” he lamented.
That, clearly, would be the biggest tragedy. Who would want safe sex practices advertised? We could end up preventing unsafe experimentation, transferring STDs or stopping AIDS from being passed on. No, the real tragedy here is that Mr. LaBarbera is so unwilling to extend rights to an entire group of his fellow Americans because he’s too uncomfortable with the idea of intimacy between same-sex couples.
Luckily for the LGBT community, LaBarbera seems to be part of a dying breed. More and more, people are stepping up and advocating for equal rights for LGBT people. This country was built on the idea of being unique and diverse, and it’s about time we realized that being different from one another is what makes us strong. That’s something to celebrate, not oppress.