Letter: Time to give gays their human rights

It is time for the media to start naming the campaign to amend the ‘Human’ Rights Act as just that. When headlines proclaim ‘gay rights,’ it sensationalizes, trivializes and confuses the public.

Same-sex oriented people are not looking for special rights, only the same rights and protections that should be afforded to all human beings - the right to pursue food, shelter and work without fear of discrimination.

Bermuda’s ‘Human’ Rights Act is not a true human rights piece of legislation. Only certain privileged folk are protected.  The rest of us are, I guess, not human.

 It is ludicrous and demeaning that those not covered under the Act – the aged, those whose sexual orientation is not toward the opposite sex, and the physically challenged, to name a few —  have to campaign and lobby, beg, plead and fund their own public education campaigns to raise awareness about their plight, just to be afforded the basic protections. 

Not only does this serve to increase feelings of low self-esteem and re-affirm that one is considered ‘less than human,’ the process itself is discriminatory.

In my opinion, all these categories of protected and unprotected people make the Act divisive, exclusionary and unnecessarily complicated. It is time to include.