Who's Involved?
As you may have noticed, this blog is circulated around the LGBT+ community, so it would be obvious that they would be affected by the discrimination of them, but everyone around these people are affected by this as well (although to a lesser extent). This is because in general our society is very prejudiced against the LGBT+ community, and many people encourage others not to support them as well, this is represented by the fact that up to 40% of homeless youth identify as a sexual orientation other than straight.
Organizations
Thankfully, there is a silver lining to this situation, it's called the Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is one of the many organizations dedicated to fighting against the high suicide rates of LGBTQ youth. This organization was created in 1998 and since then has saved countless lives. Their helpline currently recieves over forty-five thousand calls a years and one day alone (December 6th, 2014) they raised over one million dollars for their cause. They have many famous supporters that range from Miley Cyrus to Barack Obama.
Challenges
There are many challeneges regarding this subject, one of them being personal beliefs. Now, everyone has the right to their own beliefs, but to what extent? Should someone's belief that same-sex couples should not get married get to effect them? Depending on the person, the answer varies. Let's look at it from a different perspective: imagine a if a vegatarian person went up to someone eating a hamburger and told them that they should also be a vegetarian because eating meat is wrong. That would seem ridiculous, right? So why is it happening in the previous situation? For example, one of the only- if not the only- reasons against same-sex marriage currently is religion. But why should everyone else have to pay the price for a fraction of population's beliefs?
A Plan to Help
Can we ever really be done discussing this issue? Who knows? What we do know is that although our society and world is currently getting much better when it comes to acceptance, there is still loads of room for improvement. You can start with yourself. Look at the things you say and do that can be harmful to the LGBT+ community, then ask yourself why you do these things in the first place. In most cases, the answer will be that you have been taught that it is okay, either by people you know personally or society as a whole. You can then proceed to educate yourself about why it is wrong. Then, you can apply what you've learned to real life social situation; think about what you say before you say it (this applies to all situations,regardless of topic). You can also correct your friends and family if they say something that could be harmful to LGBTQIAP people. This is just the minimum though. If you want to, you could speak out in public about this topic and inspire others in the community to get involved.
Canada
Since Canada was the fourth country to legalize same-sex marriage, you'd think it'd be pretty progressive when it comes to LGBTQIAP rights, and you'd be correct! But it wasn't always like this. Way back in British North American time, homosexual activity resulted in a death penalty, but was decriminalized in 1969. When same-sex marriage was legalized country wide, it was already legal in eight provinces and one territory. Canada was the first country outside of Europe to allow same-sex marriage. Canada is popularly seen as one the most "gay-friendly" countries in the world and discrimination regarding sexual orientation is banned here (with exceptions to religious groups).
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