Because rights are associated with being human, and gay people are human.

Because the Declaration of Independence, a founding document of the U.S., includes:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (1)

Because sexual preference has nothing to do with civics.

Because its in the best interest of the country to not discriminate. For instance, we could have really used the interpreters fired from military service for their sexual preference.

The commentators mentioned are looking for additional exposure, which translates to money for them. They have no authority regarding the legal rights of U.S. citizens.

http://www.ksl.com/emedia/slc/838/83844/8384400.jpg
Source(s):
(1) http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

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This question has an answer in simplicity.

People have rights because they are people and except for punishment for criminal behavior they should not be taken away. There is nothing criminal about being homosexual and if there is in your community then the laws need to be changed.
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Rights are AUTOMATIC
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I agree 100%. In fact, just two weeks ago I was at a friends party / get together, and there was a gay couple in attendance who were actually engaged. I thought it was awesome! I told them that I support their cause, and that I hope they don't encounter too many difficulties in life because of their situation.

I'm one of the guys who believes that gay isn't a “choice”. A choice? Really? You think folks would WANT to be basically shunned by society, and stripped of some of their rights? No way.

The idea behind heterosexual relationships (besides religious reasons) is procreation. However, I have seen PLENTY of hetero relationships that are just plain abusive, and any children involved end up in really bad shape.

Gay people can adopt these fouled up children, and give them a new, positive outlook on life.

If two people are in love enough to dedicate their entire lives to each other, why the hell shouldn't they be covered by the same laws that heteros are? It's ridiculous, and it's bigotry. Let's hope some of Obama's “change” includes a very close look at gay rights. They need more.
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Gay people are just as much human as you and I...Just because they love the same gender doesn't mean they become animals. Gays need more rights because they should be free to express theirselves just as we do. I know a big controversy around my area is what the gay community wears...One man had a t-shirt on, it was pink and said Gay Pride...but people scolded him like his shirt was XXX rated and totally unappropriate...I have a shirt that says Gee I wish my brains were this big...How is that appropriate with making a reference to my chest...yet someone wearing a shirt standing up for who they are isn't?

How would a straight man feel if they were beatin' to a pulp because they were straight by an angry mob of gays and lesbians? We have the right to call the police and sue if we get beat up and threatened...So what makes it ok to deny a gay or lesbian protection. Why should it be ok for them to lie in an alley and die because they are into the same gender, because they have more feminine/masculine personalities?

I have many gay and lesbian friends who I treat with the same respect as anyone else. We overcame the issue between white and black...people need to get over the fact that not everyone is interested in the opposite sex...that people can find happiness within a man and a woman despite their gender....it's 2009...it's time to act like a matured world...not one stuck in a rut because we are too blind to see what some of our people in history have worked so hard to achieve.
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What do you mean by "Rights?"

Rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Rights for two people who like each other and feel affectionate for each other to sleep in the same bed?

Good grief... do you *really* care about who a total stranger sleeps with?

Do you walk down a street, looking at everyone who walks by, thinking desperate thoughts like, "I bet she sleeps with guys who are tall dark and handsome... darn her. I bet that guy sleeps with women who have monsterous asses... what an animal. I bet that woman sleeps with other women... that should only be allowed if I get to watch..."

It's not like they're making out in front of you! Which would you prefer... some hetero neighbors who insist on crawling through your bedroom window to make out in front of you, or a lesbian couple who live on the other side of town and make out in a private place where you can't see or know about it? Oh wait, forget I asked that... I *know* what some of you might think is cool and kinky.

Do you remember the band, "Three Dog Night?" They got a number one hit back in the early 70's, and got a song-of-the-year award.

They got their name from an Australian survival technique, which was, if they were sleeping in the outback and it got cold, to dig a little ditch, and lay in it, and have a dog sleep on top of them to help keep them warm.

If was an especially cold night, they'd get two dogs to sleep on top of them.

If it was a very cold night, they'll get three dogs to sleep on top of them... so in Australian slang, a very cold night was called a Three Dog Night, and that's where the band got it's name.

Did they have a right to do that? That was getting a bit too cozy with their dogs, don't you think?

I couldn't possibly care less who someone else chooses to sleep with, as long as it's not me when I've told them I don't want to, and as long as I don't have to watch it when I dont' want to.

Otherwise... what rights are we talking about? The right to breath oxygen? The right to drink water as the medium for their physiological biochemistry? The rights to have body tissues made from l-amino acid protiens?

I had a male roommate once, who was the most homophobic jerk I ever had to deal with. All he could do was anti-fag jokes.

The thing is... he never had a girlfriend longer that one date, and even then only when very drunk, and he had other habits, like, glass bowls of pot pouri in his bathroom, and he had a habit of shaving his chest hair *and* his *legs*, and *everyones* first impression of the character was that he was a closet case, such that it was always me sticking up for him, telling people, no no no... he's strait.

But you know... hmm... now I wonder, but it really doesn't matter, because he had his room and I had mine, and were just roommates.

I read a study once, done by I think it was a university in Virginia, where they got some student volunteers, and first had them fill out some questionairs where the volunteers would declare their orientation and then what their attitudes were about gays and lesbians, and then they took the volunteers into a theater and slapped some EEG electrodes on their heads, and started snapping pictures of people in various states of nudity and sexual conjugation, with different combinations of same-sex, opposite sex, or just standalone nudes, and a pattern was found.

The guys who said they were strait on the questionaire, and said they didn't give a damn what fags do in private, showed arousal via the EEG when shown pics of nude women or women in pairs, and arousal of heterosexual couples in conjugation (depending to some extent on the positions), and they had *zero* EEG reaction to pics of nude males, and zero reaction to pics of male pairs conjugating. Nothing. It was as meaningless to them as watching paint dry.

The guys who said they were strait but who said on the questionaire that they thought gay sex was wrong wrong wrong would sometimes have zero reaction to pics of nude woman, would sometimes have reactions to pictures of strait sex depending upon the positions, but they always had reactions to pictures of naked guys and pairs of guys have sex.

So... I think that Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are closet cases, and I really don't care, because they haven't broken into my bedroom and forced me to watch them make out.

I mean come on... the climate is warming, the oceans are acidifying, the world's overpopulated with insufficient resources to go around, and the glabal free tradeists are accelerating everyting to get worse faster than it is already... and all you can worry about is who a stranger you've never even met might be sleeping with? Do you fret about what kind of cereal she's eating in the morning, and whether or not it's washed down with cows milk or rice milk? Do you worry about if she's painting her walls with lead paint and using coal to heat her home? No? Why not? Oh, because you're too preoccupied wondering if she sleeps with women.

The planet's overpopulted, so if 95% of all people turned gay (which they can't, because it's not a choice, but still, if...) then actually, it would be handy to see the population throttle back so maybe we can avoid some global catastrophes.

How in the world did people's priorities get so messed up?

Hmm... Jehovah's Witnesses believe that since 1914, the world got taken over by Satan, and that the prince of darkness has been running the show since then, and I'm not a JW, but man oh man... when you look at how screwed up human priorities have become... they almost make a case, don't they?
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If a question like that is legit, I would ask: "¿Why should heterosexuals/women/men/blacks have any rights?
Source(s):
Me

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Ok I am a pretty Conservative guy but not on the Gay Rights Issue. I think it is stupid to say being gay is a choice, who would choose to have to go through all the crap that they do?

I also am for Gay Marriage, I don't care what two adults do. It does not affect me in the least so have at it and enjoy a long life together.

Gays deserve the same rights, no less and no more than anyone else does.
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Instead of focusing on why gays should have rights, let's first focus one why gays should supposedly NOT have any rights. The only reason to deny gay people rights is due to a particular religion's beliefs, i.e. Christianity. I respect those beliefs and feel a person should be able to have those beliefs, but at the same time there are a MANY different religious sectors in the United States and to deny a person rights based on one particular set of beliefs is wrong because it's like completely denying that there are other religions present in the United States that don't have a problem with gays. It's discrimination against those other religions. What if the tables were turned and Muslims were suddenly the majority in this country? How would you feel if women were negated the right to walk around with their faces exposed? You would feel disciminated against wouldn't you? It's the same thing.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are THE most discriminatory people I have ever heard speak. Perhaps the only reason they are in television and radio is because it's more profitable than being head of the Aryan Brotherhood and KKK.
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To be Gay refers to one's sexuality, not to who they are as a person. Why shouldn't Gays have any rights? Sexuality is different for many of us and we cannot go around judging people based on their sexuality because sexuality is NOT what defines as a person. Sexuality simply put..is how people experience the erotic and express themselves as sexual beings. We all fight for equality, yet try to supress those, (Gays), based on their sexual desires. That is quite contradictory since we are all sexual beings with DIFFERENT sexual pleasures, therefore we should stick to the notion that everyone is equal and therefore granted the same rights! Gays are people just, as each and everyone of us straight people are, and therefore saying that they shouldn't have rights would be going against equal rights. We have come a long, very long way, to become one nation...let's not find ways to eliminate each other based on sexuality and become divided.
Source(s):
http://blog.seattlepi.com/stepforward/archives/181086.asp?from=blog_last3, youtube, wikipedia.org

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Everyone in this country is entitled to certain rights as outlined in the bill of rights. I do not think everyone is entitled to "special" rights for special cases or infringing rights however. People should have the same rights all the people have. PERIOD. People should not have the rights to take away any rights from one another due to personal preference though. In other words, if you don't like guns, don't buy them. It is not right to take the family rifle away from someone else. If you don't like religion, don't go to Church or Temple. Don't outlaw prayer or deny others the right to worship how they want to. If you are homosexual, enjoy your life. Don't parade naked through a city and cry foul if someone says you have to quit dancing offensively. In the same sense, hate is hate. Hate should be illegal whether it's a little red haired white boy hated for his big nose or a successful lesbian hated for her orientation. Both cases are wrong. Violence is violence whether it's a group of thugs attacking a little old lady for her purse or a gang of teens beating up another teen of a different race. We label things too often. We use it as an excuse for behavior. We use it to get extra treatment or extra priveledge. If laws are unjust, take laws to court and fix them. Prove they are unjust and get them repealed. Don't make piles and piles of new laws that confuse the legal system and anger the people.

Should a gay couple be allowed to commit to one another in marriage? What would it hurt? Just keep them to the same divorce laws. A marriage is a contract for business reasons. It used to be that divorce was illegal, as Henry the VIII knew. It used to be that marrying someone of an opposite race was outlawed. Polygamy is the next argument. We have to also make sure that churches will not be punished by this law. Remember my earlier statement, that equal rights should not take the rights away from anyone else. Do gays deserve rights? They do as people, but not as specifically "gay" people. Do smart people deserve "smart" rights or religious people as "religious" rights? No way. Since being gay isn't really all that special, as many people are in fact gay, then they are not entitled to special orientation rights, just as the race of a person should not indicate special racial rights. That's outrageous. WE ALL SHOULD HAVE RIGHTS. . . and they should all be the same ones that blanket all people and infringe on none.
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