Dear Next President,

I am writing this letter to inform you about LGBT+ rights, more so the lack of them. I believe that all lives are equal and everyone should have the same rights whether they are of a different race, gender, religion, or sexuality. In the LGBT+ community there should be no different from the everyone else and they deserve equal rights, for all sexaulities to be valid, and that nobody in the LGBT+ community should be bullied or harassed because of their sexuality or gender identity.

According to most recent bullying statistics 9 out of 10 LGBT+ students are said to be bullied because of their sexual orientation. Some of those students had been physically harassed or physically assaulted. Even when, after being bullied or harassed, the students tell a teacher or an adult, there is a lack of response and help from the authority figure. I find it strange that adults are not helping the students with the bullying and that said bullies are not getting punished. Other bullying is present in schools that does not stem from sexuality or gender identity, and that too is not good. Bullying in general is a terrible thing and should be better regulated so that nobody gets bullied in general, but in the LGBT community, it seems to be worse.

Gay marriage was was recently legalized, June 26, 2015, in all 50 states which is a big step for the LGBT+ community. Even after legalization, according to an article by CNN, a woman was still denying marriage licenses to gay couples. She had blamed not giving the licences to her religion. Freedom to religion is a right but also religion should not influence what happens in other people’s lives just as you should not push said religion onto others. If this woman is going to blame her religion for not giving out marriage licenses to gay couples who want to get married, she shouldn’t give out licenses to people who are unfaithful. Since that is impossible she and others like her should just do her job and let people love who they want. Some people believe that children will be impacted by a gay family, and that they themselves will be gay, but that just is not the case. That is not how sexuality works at all.

Recently there has been some attacks that can trace back to the LGBT+ community. The recent Orlando shooting for example. Some thought that the attack was a terror threat and not an act of homophobia, but I believe that it was both. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, terrorism is defined as “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal”. From that definition, I believe that the attack was targeting and frightening a group of people, those people being the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

In closing, I would like to restate that bullying in the LGBT+ community should not be tolerated, there should be equal rights for the LGBT+ community, and that all sexualities should be valid. People should follow the golden rule that we were taught at such a young age, treat people the way you want to be treated. If they people bullying the LGBT+ students were bullied the same way that they are bullying them just because they were different, how would they feel. Whether you are gay, lesbian, bi, trans, or anything on the spectrum, we are all human and if we just treat everyone with respect, I think that the world would be a much better place.

Thank you,

Alejandra Merfeld

10th grade

West St. Paul, MN