Throughout the last few years, decades even, times have changed in a thousand different ways. Some in negative ways, and some in more positive and uplifting ways. As I have grown and developed throughout my own years, I have come to develop many ideas and beliefs, some of those thoughts being similar to the individuals around me, while others like to try and debate with me on my views. A topic that always seems to be debatable with friends and family members is whether or not someone's words and actions make them homophobic or not.

It still astonishes me that this topic of interest for so many people is even considered that a debatable topic. Gay marriage has officially been legalized in our country for three years as of June 2016. I could easily list ten people I know that range in different ages that identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. The fact that I know that many people could only mean that for every straight person, they also know at least one member of the community as well. With the community now being more openly accepted and more visible, that's where I question, how could someone in this day and age still be homophobic?

Let's take a couple of the arguments being used to justify hating this group of individuals. The first, and most common one being that God wanted marriage to stay between man and woman because anything else was unnatural. There have been many times throughout my life that I have seen hate groups holding signs similar to this argument, saying that "being gay is a sin" and "Gays will burn in hell". My main counterargument would have to question, why do you care? If being gay is such a bad thing, why are you trying to "save them from burning in hell"? Why not just leave the community alone and allow them to make their own decisions? Their lifestyles don't affect your everyday routine.

Being gay is never a choice, and even if for some reason it was, why would someone chose to be ridiculed and hated by society just based on who they chose to love and share themselves with. No one chooses this. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, "You know what, I would love to get hate slur screamed at me today for wearing makeup or holding my partner's hand".

So instead of continuing to be homophobic and ruthless to those within the LGBTQ+ community in 2019, think to yourself first. Why am I hating them? What have they done to me? Even more so, if seeing a couple you don't approve of holding hands while walking down the street bothers you, why even bother saying the homophobic thing you want to say and look in the other direction?