A Hidden Life of Homosexuality - Current Event

Essay by amandachick323High School, 12th gradeA+, November 2004

download word file, 1 pages 0.0

Downloaded 24 times

A Hidden Life of Homosexuality

To step outside the daily life of an average American and envision what it would be like to live a day in another persons life can be a lesson in itself. Imagine being stabbed, raped, and killed, for simply existing. Fear is the main dictator in the lives of the gay citizens living in Sierra Leone, Africa. In a country where homosexuality is illegal, it is a know fact in these parts that gays must "do their things in the dark". Africans despise the thought of homosexuality and it is usually the corrupt citizens who enforce the laws. A well known lesbian, Fanny Ann Eddy, a citizen in the community of Sierra Leone was working at the only gay-rights group in the country, while she was physically assaulted, stabbed in the head, and left with a broken neck to die. To no surprise her attackers will most likely go unpunished because in a country that has just emerged from a civil war, many believe gay rights is unimportant.

According to Behind the Mask, a lobby group, 33 out of 54 African countries ban homosexuality. For many Africans tolerance is still a distant prospect.

We so often take our freedoms and independence for granite. To think that a human would be assassinated for just being alive. The U.S. continues to show little to no coverage on gay-slayings across Africa, simply because we are afraid of what controversy it would surface. In one of the wealthiest most developed civilizations in the world we are still to weak to acknowledge the issues of gay suppression. We pose as a civilized country, yet we cannot even consider the idea of difference. We are primitive in the way we treat others, tolerance has never come first. It seems history is...