Gays in 9-11 Essay -- Gay Rights Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Gays in 9-11 The events of September 11, 2001 have left many people all over the world speechless to say the least. What happened that day at New York City’s World Trade Centers and Washington D.C.’s Pentagon have left many people without their loved ones, their jobs, or any sense of reason. Husbands lost wives, wives lost husbands, children lost parents, parents lost children, and partners lost their other halves. Friendships and families were destroyed. It is at our time of weakness that we are able to be our strongest. For it is at that time when there is nothing else to do, and no where else to go; when you’ve hit rock bottom there is no where to go but up. No one asked questions, people just did whatever they could to help. America’s public safety organizations didn’t hesitate for a second; they risked their own lives to help save the lives of others, people they didn’t even know. The only thing that our public safety teams knew was that all the innocent people that were attacked were fellow Americans. Perhaps that was all the information they needed, but day after day teams were back at Ground Zero and the Pentagon relentlessly looking for survivors and doing whatever they could to quickly get our lives back on track and gain some sort of closure. However, now it is time to start asking the questions no one ever wants to. â€Å"United we stand.† Direct from the media on a one way path into your homes these words and other such phrases have been tossed around and thrown in your face. Stop, and think. What is the real meaning of these inspirational and nationalistic phrases? Inspirational and nationalistic for whom? United is an adjective that means â€Å"combined into a single entity; concerned with, produced... ...size their differences or similarity from the heterosexual norm? If lesbians and gay men are increasingly integrated into society as full citizens, what will happen to other more marginalized groups, such as poor women on welfare? Does equality for some necessarily lead to equality for all† (Stein 225)? Arlene Stein is trying to articulate similar questions to those posed in the previous paragraph. What will happen to the immigrants who have been oppressed in the past, will they fall through the cracks while gays and lesbians gain acceptance? Or will they too be accepted? I assure you, the questions don’t stop here. My paper raises the question of acceptance, but is that all we really want? Do we just want acceptance across the board, or will all of us, gay and non gay, participate in the queerer project of inventing more just worlds and communities?