Homosexuality, or being gay, has always existed. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be, because it is biological nature.

Homosexuality has been ridiculed and in some places, punishable by death. Though in the United States we have seen better treatment of people who identify as homosexual than in many other countries, there has always been mistreatment of these people. It is hard to truly go back to the beginning where the oppression of gay people started, as it has happened for several centuries, but it should be a known fact that it has been happening for countless years.

However, though mistreatment and ridicule of gay people continues, there has been an obvious shift, where instead of being shot in the streets, though there has been some cases of that still happening, there are parades in the biggest cities of almost every state celebrating homosexuality, as well as every other member of the LGBT+ community. These parades include rainbow clothing, fundraisers, brilliant color and lots of music.

So what caused this shift? There are several riots that went against the status quo of mistreating homosexual people, including the Stonewall riots, which were a catalyst for several adjustments in society in regard of gay people. Laws have been implemented solely for the protection of homosexual people, and to lower the rate of which hate crimes are committed against them.

Many people celebrated this shift, which made sure that gay people have complete protection under the law, but some people were not so happy about this. Many people claim that homosexuality is against their religion, and support the idea that they should be persecuted for their “sins” or publicly shamed into not being the way that they were born to be anymore. This resistance has caused a divide within the United States, and has created a nation divided on love and identity.

Before the shift occurred, people who publicly displayed their homosexual relationship were shamed and made to feel extremely uncomfortable. Several other things played a factor as the “before the shift” and I will get into that in a later post. After the shift, homosexual relationships may still get strange looks, but very rarely is there a public shaming over these people in a loving relationship like there used to be, and if a hate crime is committed against them, they have more protection under the law then they did before.

This shift has impacted the government in several ways, as they are now forced to address circumstances such as equal marriage rights, equal protection under the law, and the overall view that they have the power to establish of homosexual people. The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Love is Equal, and provided equal marriage rights to those in homosexual relationships. This was an incredible win for gay people, and I am sure made the people in the Stonewall riots incredibly proud.