Safe Zone (Economics and Different Political and Class Ideologies)

The Safe Zone discussion was a place where the topic of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans gender(LGBT) community was discussed in an environment of acceptance of all opinions. This experience was very different from anything I had really experienced growing up in a Southern Baptist Church. This community has always been taught to me that it was wrong and a disgusting thing someone chose to do. I still believe that it is a wrong decision that someone can make, but that it is just the same as any other wrong decision and one that should not cause a hatred of people. The discussion was set up of having 2 informants and about 14 other individuals that were apart of the discussion. The informants were an emic perspective of the LGBT community. One of the informants was a bisexual woman and the other was a gay man. Both first told their story about when they realized they were this way and then when or if they had come out about their decision. The sexual identity of the woman is bisexual meaning that she has an attraction to both female and male and the society has put the constraint that a woman should be attracted to a man. So this woman is going against what many considered the social norm. She told us that she had a male fiance and then ended up breaking it off for some reasons and is now with a woman which she has been with for 9 years. She has come out about her lifestyle as a bisexual woman to everyone and her family has accepted it which in some cases is rare. The man's sexual identity is that he is attracted to a man which is considered wrong also and goes against the social norm of men are supposed to be attracted to women. He has come out to his friends and other people that he is gay but not to his family because they are Muslim and they really hate this lifestyle. We got the holistic view from them in that they told us their whole story of when this lifestyle was first realized and how it has affected their whole life. They also told us their experiences of being apart of the LGBT community and how many people groups view this community.

This discussion did give me some things to think about such as they both said that being gay or bisexual was not a choice, but that they just are and that the choice is to live it out. Even though I don't totally agree with this it was something to think about that maybe they were born with biologically some tendencies toward this lifestyle. I did agree with what they said that when someone is labeled gay that this part takes precedence over who that person is when in reality this is just a small part of who the person is. This fact changed the way I think about a person if they are gay. I will now try to view the person for more than them just being gay and to really try to get to know who they really are. I learned that it is illegal in most states for people of the LGBT community to get married to a person of the same sex. I also learned that it is up to the individual state on whether the people are allowed to get married. I also learned that one of the major issues for these couples is that they can't get benefits for each other such as medical insurance for their partner. One preconceived ideas that I had was that the people of these communities would have nothing to do with religion because many religions really are against that lifestyle. This was dispelled because they are just like any other person and choose whether they want a certain religion apart of their lives. The man said that he believed in God and was trying to decide what type of religion he would want to be apart of. Many of the controversial problems facing the LGBT community was talked about and most of the people at the discussion agreed on the same solution to the problem. One thing I learned is that the LGBT has had hate crimes against them and are trying to get it apart of the hate crime laws. I do not agree with the hate crime laws in general because if it is illegal to kill someone it does not matter what group they are apart of and it is no worse than just a normal murder. So I think as a whole hate crimes should be done away with because it should just be murder for murder or harassment for harassment and have nothing to do with the group of people. So overall there were a few things that were said that change some of my ideas, but overall I still have my same views on this lifestyle.