The first post.

Hello, and welcome to the first post of the 'As a Two-Dollar Bill' blog.

I haven't ever really started a blog with a purpose before, unless it was related to academics. I've had to start some for courses, but they just end up being banal and lacking real depth. And if the internet is flooded with anything, it's shallowness. (All word-play intended.) I also have found them to be rather self-serving and coming from a place of intense narcissism, or, even worse, sheer boredom.

That being said, starting this blog in particular only came about due to a striking moment in my life, or perhaps even a sequence of events in my life that have motivated me to write down the things I think in order to share them. This is a slippery slope down to those treacherous depths of the aforementioned narcissism, but I believe my intentions to have some valor. Although, in this age of FaceBook and lingering existentialist questions about life and the internet, I can't promise that I get no satisfaction from publishing on this blog the views and opinions I have of current events affect LGBT people.

And, here we are. The reason I'm starting this blog. It's a very specific incident that has motivated me to start this (with incidents prior leading up to this particular one also being so striking), but I'll have to come back to it later, when I address it in more depth. The more general reason is that I want to take current events related to LGBT issues and post them here for you, the innumerable quantity of readers I'm bound to obtain. Getting back to that inevitable narcissism, I also will throw in my two-cents.

Okay. Enough with introductions and pleasantries. Onto what I started this for.

Today The Advocate reported that Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) said at a conservative rally that "...openly gay teachers and women who have sex outside of marriage should not teach in a classroom." He is then quoted as having said " '[When I said those things,] no one came to my defense,” he said, according to the report. “But everyone would come to me and whisper that I shouldn't back down. They don't want government purging their rights and their freedom to religion.' "(Source)

Here lies the rub. Well, rubs. There are just so many things wrong with this statement that I hardly even know where to begin. For now, I will put aside the general problem with trying to prevent any one particular group of people from having not only a job, but a state or local government job. Firstly, the invocation of gay people in the public school system only echos the recent suicides of gay young men that underline the current issues facing LGBT adolescents in public schools. Secondly, Sen. DeMint cites this seemingly invisible, albeit autonomous, 'everybody'. These sorts of references hold no water, as any college graduate would know. Thirdly, the last thing he says is a never-ending spiral of misinformation and ineptitude.

Rights. The tricky topic of rights. Purging rights and giving away all the rights to certain groups of people until there are no rights left. I can understand this fear, as someone who has recently seen the Giant Pot O' Rights in our nation's capitol and how empty it becoming.

Oh, no. Wait. That's not a thing. There is no tangible amount of rights. They won't run out. There is nothing to fear about people being able to do the very same thing as you.

And then comes the magic word. The awe-inspiring, very American word that one uses whenever one wants the attention of any voter in these United States.

'Freedom'.

Sen. DeMint says that people fear losing their religious freedom. That is, their freedom to express their religion how they see fit. In this case, it would be by preventing LGBT people and single women from teaching in public schools. There are, of course, many faults with this logic. I'll start with one in particular.

In one of the courses I am now taking, we have been reviewing The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted in 1948 and co-written by Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as other representatives of the United Nations. This document was composed to ensure that freedoms and liberties could be guaranteed to all people around the world, and is based on a handful of prior historical documents and events. The first is the U.S. Constitution. This seems fairly evident in the language of the UDHR. ("Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,..." [UDHR, Preamble]) The second two are linked in some ways. The event was World War II, which showed the entire world the atrocities that happened to people perceived as second-class citizens. Horrible, terrible things were done to people that were not considered equals and were not guaranteed inalienable rights, or freedoms, or liberties. ("Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind,..." [UDHR, Preamble]) The document related to this is FDR's Four Freedoms. This document is a great inspiration for the UDHR, as it specifically cites these freedoms. ("...and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,..." [UDHR, Preamble]) Thus, the UDHR was designed to show other foreign countries, through the United Nations, what freedom and liberty truly were, as they were found in the United States of America.

So, we can safely say that these freedoms and liberties outlined in this document are distinctly American, and have a real base in what we believe to be inherently guaranteed equally to every man and woman. Here are some important excerpts from the UDHR;

"Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment...

"In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society...

"These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." (UDHR, Articles 23.1, 29.2, and 29.3)

In other words, your freedom of religion does not extend insofar as it limits the freedom of gays and single women to teach, as dictated by a document co-written by a First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt), based partially on an idea created by a President (The Four Freedoms, FDR) that was created to extend the liberties and freedoms that America fought for abroad during WWII. The freedoms of one person are not so great (as we are all equal) that they trump in any way the freedoms of another.

This message is important, as it really gets at what people believe they are fighting for. It isn't, in fact, freedom, but the opposite. It is oppression, the very thing America has fought against since it's very birth.

It is also important because it begins the inception of a profound idea that is what in all honesty lead me to start this blog as another means of my activism; LGBT right are human rights. Not just civil rights. Not just rights. But, truly, rights that are inherently donned upon us at our birth, that we are guaranteed throughout all great, sovereign nations as autonomous beings.

Human rights are for humans. Human, which all of us are. Human, as we should all be treated equally.

In summary, as someone who has taught children (through the government-funded Head Start Association, no less), I can safely say that if I am so compelled to teach your hyper-active, attention-deficit-having, snot-nosed toddlers who have surmounted the struggles of coming from a bigoted family, it is my right as a human (and an LGBT one, at that) to do so.