Personal Group Experience Paper

My Personal Group Experience: Assignment: “Homosexuality”

Our group met and discussed our assignment, “Homosexuality”. I thought the way the assignments for the topics was made was fair and equitable and helped to create a diverse group with no bias towards the topics. The group met during our assigned time period and I offered to serve as facilitator to get the discussion going. Our discussion regarding the topic and the assigning of each individual discussion question evolved in what I consider a natural way. Interest was expressed for certain questions by several individuals and the ones who didn’t really have a preference were amenable to write about the remaining questions. Once the assignments were made and the discussion held, we decided

And how has it changed throughout history? I look to the Gallup Poll for statistics (see Fig 1) and when studying the Gallup Poll graph below, the current question they ask is “Do you think gay or lesbian relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?”. (Gallup Poll) It is interesting to note that even the question has changed effective 2008, this modification is probably due to the incredible amount of awareness and changes taking place within the LGBT community and society as a whole. This changing of the question explains the evolution of the acceptance of the LGBT community and the communities’ education of the public as to which terms are preferred by them. The previous question between 1977- 2008 was “Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?” (Gallup Poll) this question contains the reference to “homosexual” which is not considered the correct term according the LGBT community. The graph shows the statistics dividing those thinking whether it should be legal vs those thinking it should not be legal. The graph demonstrates statistically that those surveyed were pretty evenly divided on the subject from 1977 to 1985. When the graph starts to differentiate during the mid-1980’s it is probably due to the fact that so much activity was taking place within our country regarding the LGBT community speaking out, and receiving a pushback from society as

In 2001, 40% of those surveyed thought gay or lesbian relations was morally acceptable compared to 53% who thought it was morally wrong. The same question in 2015 brought a significantly different response, 63% of respondents now say that gay and lesbian relations are morally acceptable and 34% now think it is morally wrong. This is a definite change in societies opinion on this subject in current times.

Fig 2

What about the future with regard to this subject? The Human Rights Campaign website reports on a survey: “HRC’s report, Growing Up LGBT in America, is a groundbreaking survey of more than 10,000 LGBT-identified youth ages 13-17. It provides a stark picture of the difficulties they face -- the impact on their well-being is profound, however these youths are quite resilient. They find safe havens among their peers, online and in their schools. They remain optimistic and believe things will get better. Nevertheless, the findings are a call to action for all adults who want ensure that young people can thrive.” (View) In this report 4 out of 10 youth surveyed believe that their community is not accepting of LGBT people. LGBT youth are twice as likely to be physically assaulted as their peers. 26% of the youth surveyed say their biggest problems are being accepted by their family, being