Bijan Sabet

Civil Rights

I’m sure it isn’t easy being the President of the United States.

Especially in these times of significant unemployment, debt, and a restless nation that wants improvement in areas like education, infrastructure, healthcare, financial reform, etc.

The demands on this President must be endless and complex.

But I’ve got one more demand. It’s important and it should be easy.

Because its a civil rights issue.

We need to elect leaders that believe all people should be treated equally regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual preference.

And right now in this country, in 2010, we have a President and many leaders that believe that your sexual preference should determine whether you are treated equally or not.

All of these things like debate about marriage, don’t ask/don’t tell court stays, school bullying etc are just symptoms of something much larger. The question is do we believe that all people should be treated with equal rights, respect and protection. And right now many of our leaders don’t feel this way.

This is a tragic shame, embarrassing and something that we will look back on and wonder how we put up with it for so long.

We need to fix this.

Most of us know that a change is inevitable but I see no reason to just sit by and wait for things to improve.

Let’s make it clear to each other, our children, our colleagues, our friends and families, our candidates for the mid-term and our President that we need everyone to be treated with complete and total equality.

This is a civil rights issue and it’s critical.