Declaration of Independence

10/21/08

3.) What do you think are your rights? Have you ever felt that your rights were not being respected?

 I love America because it supports the rights which men have lave long sought after and died for. Because of that I believe that I have the right to be free from tyrannical government and slavery, the freedom to believe what I want, say what I want, and live in the way I want. I have a government that protects me physically from harm and protects and supports my rights. I can do almost anything I want. If I was to found a business the only government interference is a small amount of taxes, I would run the business. I know that that sounds insignificant but to many countries the government would control, or could control your business, without any input from you, the founder. Even though America is the most free nation in the world you rights will not always be respected. The only reason why those rights exist is because ordinary people decided to stick up for not only their beliefs, but also the beliefs of others. If rights are not respected, then it is your right and obligation to stand up for them. Unfortunately, I have felt that my rights were not being respected, even while I was at university this has happened. What happened was only a couple weeks ago after school I got attacked for saying in a passing comment that I don’t support gay marriage, the reason for this being that I am a Christian and I consider gay marriage unnatural. Because of being attacked and told my beliefs where wrong and “should be kept to myself.” This infuriated me and so I sent out an invitation on Facebook to everybody that I knew who might support me, unfortunately not everyone who was not interested in joining just ignored the invite. Instead they sought to rant at me in what I considered to be a tirade of swears and hypocrisy. Some examples of this by various students included not just attacks on my beliefs, but what I perceived to be attacks on my right to state my beliefs. The following are direct quotes “Dont EVER invite me to another anti-gay marriage group again. Keep your closed-minded, arrogant beliefs to yourself. Nobody wants to be converted to Idiocy via Facebook.” They also stated “you don't need to be sending this kind of shit to people. If you haven't figured it out yet VERY VERY few people in our school agree with you. No one cares if your against gay marriage don't even think about publicizing it.” Along with that I stated that I could have the freedom of religon to which they replied “Chris your right you have the right to your own religion and your own ideas, doesn't mean you need to be broadcasting it to the world. Not everyone believes the way you do.”, “controversial subjects that may get people fired up. It's okay you believe in this, just don't try and spread it okay? You shouldn't be sitting there wondering why everyone is bashing you, and you shouldn't be acting innocent quoting a non proven book such as the bible, and you shouldn't be telling everyone that it's your belief. Keep your beliefs to yourself, especially on this issue.”  I felt that the hypocrisy of this was that they were thinking that they could say whatever they wanted while at the same time they told me that I couldn’t say what I wanted and that I had no right to criticize them. There were dozens more examples that I could mention but I won’t. The irony is amazing, but the issue did clear up leaving me hopeful that people would be more open minded in the future.