As I was strolling through the beautiful, serene, liberal campus of UC Santa Cruz, I came upon a person who asked for a minute of my time to talk to me about gay rights. At the time, I thought I knew everything there was to know about gay rights, but I was not opposed to hearing them out and showing my support, so I spared a moment. Within the very first moments of our conversation, I became speechless, and I felt tears roll down my cheeks. The young activist informed me that 29 out of the 50 states do not enforce employment protection laws for LGBTQ-identifying members. This astounded me because I was naive enough to believe I live in a country in favor of equality.

After bouts of research, it came to my attention there are federal laws that protect against discrimination of all sorts of things, including sexual orientation. However, employees identifying as LGBTQ members, in private sectors are not protected under this law. Attempts at expanding the law to protect those in private sectors have been made, but evidently, none have been successful. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 is being reconsidered. It was recently reintroduced into Congress in hopes of banning prejudice based on sexual and gender identity. This act has yet to be passed; therefore, people are still at risk of being discriminated against for their sexual orientation in the workplace.

It is disheartening to know that such a progressive country could have such a lagging ideology. Being gay is like being American, it is not a choice and, therefore, should not be punished. I have recently read countless articles about employers firing their employees or sabotaging their careers solely on the basis of who they love or the gender they identify as. I try to be as understanding as possible about people's conflicting opinions, but this is intolerable. I do not approve of discrimination, but I do believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It is when people begin to express their opinion through negative actions that I think they are crossing the line. Believing that being gay is wrong is unfortunate, but it is acceptable; however, acting out against a gay person is absolutely unbearable.

Fairness. This is what we are lagging. America itself is a symbol of equality, yet people are not being treated fairly under the law. I can't say I am proud of the 29 states that have made such discrimination illegal in the workplace because in my opinion, they are obligated to do so. Everyone deserves a fair chance to succeed; everyone deserves to be treated as an equal and everyone deserves to be protected under the law, regardless of their sexual orientation.