The Right to Choose

The government allotting it's people human rights is what makes it our particular government. We have enormous freedoms with very little fear of repercussions. The gay rights movement reminds me of the various other movements in the past that pushed for equalization. The term human rights brings to mind such issues as women's rights and the equalization of African Americans. These groups were granted equality with a mass protest and I foresee the same for homosexuals. In many instances, looking to past examples serves as an excellent forecast of things to come. There were extremely rough times in the civil rights movement when members were threatened or even killed. These hard times were worth it in the end, as there can no longer be any legal distinction between the races. The same is true for the women's rights movement in that women are now totally legally equal.

As far as people saying that homosexuals are bad role models, it has also been argued that homosexuality is something that a person is born into. I do not believe in either of these theories. Homosexuality is a born in tendency in some cases, but not all. I do not see it as something bad whatsoever. Everyone has their own subtle nuances that make them unique. I believe that many more people are homosexual than have already admitted it. With more and more rights coming to gays, these people will feel more accepted by common community and the true pervasive nature of homosexuality will be disclosed. Once more people are exposed to homosexuals, this image of them being corruptors will melt away, revealing that they are normal people with normal feelings. Once this attitude has been mostly destroyed, homosexuals will truly be accepted.

Not hiring someone due to their sexual preference is a fallacy. Many businesses have no policy or preference, but there are a few who still refuse to hire open gays such as the military. One leading factor to this persecution is religion. Religion has long frowned upon homosexuality, shunning those who are openly gay and frightening others into secrecy. This pressure would cause many people to bottle those feelings up and hide them. Attempting to hide what you feel and holding yourself from something you truly desire may cause psychological damage and produce people that overcompensate for feelings of guilt due to their shunned homosexuality with violence or a lack of reason. The sooner gays are openly accepted the better. It is simply a matter of time until the don't ask; don't tell policy is abolished as unconstitutional and gays are given the rights and respect that they deserve.

Sands In An Hour Glass.

I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on October 24th, 1985. The hospital I was born in was known for the dungeon it housed leftover from the civil war. I do not know how true this rumor is, but it sounds interesting nonetheless. I was raised by my mother, R'lita Wilson, for nearly four years. She had a substance abuse problem, partaking in several drugs and becoming an unfit person. She decided to give me and my little sister, Rhiannon, up for adoption when I was almost five. My grandmother and grandfather, Katrin Anne and Thomas Edward Brummitt, adopted me and my sister. From that point, I lived in Kathleen, Georgia because Thomas had been transferred from his job at Anchor Glass in Indiana to the plant in Warner Robins. R'lita was never a large figure in my life, preferring to annoy my grandmother with idle threats for "stealing" her child away.

I don't remember too much from my childhood. I know that since we lived out in the middle of nowhere, I played outside alot. I did not have too many friends, seeing as my grandmother was very protective. When I was adopted, Thomas had fallen ill with colon cancer. He died shortly after signing the final paperwork. He was eight days shy of retirement from anchor glass and they still denied him of any benefits. Katrin tried to appeal the company's decision many times, but received the same answer every time. She had been living off of his income and was forced to live only off of social security. She still did an excellent job in supplying me and my sister the essentials and more. She was and still is a real bargain hunter, aggressively seeking the next good deal. I did not grow up with the best of toys, but at least I never wanted for anything.

I attended a preschool in Warner Robins before going to King's Chapel Elementary school. My years here were relatively uneventful. I was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, or ADD. Personally, I think this is a mistake, but I really don't concern myself with it, seeing as I excelled in school without putting forth any notable effort. I moved into Perry Middle School which is where I met my best friend, Shane Ray Gunter. He was pretty much the only person I was allowed to visit outside of school. He got me started into a card game called "Magic: The Gathering" which is an extremely popular game published by Wizards f the Coast, the owners of the Dungeons and Dragons game which my mother forbid me from playing. My family was more than slightly religious. These values were forced upon me occasionally, but I chose my own values in the end.

I went to Perry High School and went through it without any real issues. I moved out of Katrin's home my senior year. She was smothering me and began to make accusations of me using drugs. I took offense to this, seeing as I have been clean my entire life, having never even smoked a cigarette. I packed my cloths in a black plastic bag, seeing as I did not own much. I left in the car she gave me for my 16th birthday, which I had rarely used save for driving to and from school. I still speak with Katrin, but I would not live with her again. I lived with a friend of mine for about a year before moving into my own apartment. I worked at Angelina's Garden Style Italian Restaurant at first, attempting to attend college. My main scholarship turned me down after already having accepted me. I was forced to drop from that semester. I tried a few other jobs, but I knew that I had to get into school.

I joined the Air Guard in October of 2005. I felt like I had been backed into a bit of a corner, seeing as it was incredibly hard to get a job with no real prior experience. The Air Force sent me to school for nine months. This period was in many ways both the best and worst time I have had. Being away from your home for the first time is extremely difficult. I was surrounded by people who I did not know and forced to do many things I did not enjoy. In the end, it paid off. I am in school full time and it is all paid for. I mainly surf the internet now. I play World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons alot. I enjoy writing and intend to get my bachelors in English from Macon State before transferring to the University of Georgia.

Euthanasia: A Crime of Compassion

The story of Roswell Gilbert is a sad one. Imagine a 76 year old man who has been happily married to his wife for 51 years. Roswell obviously loved his wife, Emily. They had been together for over half a century, a testament to humanities ability to cherish one another. The connection a couple must share after that long of a time would be unbreakable. The lives of the two would have been as one for such a great amount of time that living without the other must have been absolutely intolerable. Roswell suffered a fate worse than his beloved dying for several years. Emily had began to suffer from osteoporosis, a painful bone disorder, and Alzheimer's disease, a terrible degenerative disease of the mind. Roswell would have been forced to watch his wife slowly disappear. Emily would have been wracked with pain and slowly creeping toward madness.

Emily would have began her spiral by losing her short term memory. This would begin small, as in misplacing her keys or forgetting to feed the cat. She would also begin to feel more sluggish and less spontaneous. Emily would begin to not want to venture away form the house anymore, simply preferring to watch television or participate in some other low-energy activity. Her forgetfulness would then progress until she began to forget names of close friends and familiar objects. Roswell's heart must have been ripped in two when his wife could not remember his name after 51 years of marriage. Emily's symptoms would gradually worsen causing her to forget simple skills such as how to drive, operate a computer or cook. Roswell must have cried many nights, watching his wife disappear into the recesses of her own mind. Alzheimer's patients are known to occasionally burst into violence or become extremely passive, even if these activities are nothing like their original personalities. Perhaps Emily exposed Roswell to a violent side of herself, which he undoubtedly understood as one of the symptoms of her condition, but must have been truly disdained at such an obvious sign of his wife's worsening condition. In the later stages of the disease, Emily must have become incontinent, the muscular deterioration combining with the severity of the osteoporosis to produce a condition in which she was entirely bedridden and riddled with pain and nightmares from the past. After watching his wife's steady descent, Roswell's mind must have been tortured, his heart yearning to help his wife.

Love is the second strongest of human emotions, hate being the strongest. Roswell loved Emily. His decision to end his wife's pain is understandable if you view it from his perspective. The problem is, it was not his decision to make. I understand how Roswell felt, but there should have been some planning on this beforehand. This would be one of the hardest talks anyone would every have to go through, but he should have brought this up to Emily earlier in her condition, while she was still mostly cognitive. The laws are only partially adequate for this situation, seeking to protect the innocent over understanding the unique. I agree that the court was right in punishing Mr. Gilbert. I do, however, think that in cases where one person in a marriage develops this sort of symptom, that if the plug is to be pulled, or euthanasia enacted, there should be a contract drawn up and signed early in the condition while the ailing person is still cognitive. If the person is unable to vouch for themselves, then there is no choice in the matter as to whether they live or not, the default being life. Personally, death terrifies me. I am no coward, being able to take risks when necessary, but I would not elect to have someone end my life under many circumstances. Being a vegetable or mentally incapable are not one of the select few in which I would willingly lay down my right to live. Everyone should be given such a choice, provided they deserve it.