Philosophy

            I had a vigorous argument with my classmates because of the opinion that I had about gay marriages. I argued on basis of the basic human rights that everyone is entitled to as long as they do not interfere with the freedom of other people. Most of my classmates were totally against gay marriages. My classmates perceived me as a gay person but I had to defend myself against those allegations. I argued that everyone has the right to do whatever they want as long as it does not break the law or curtail the freedom of other people. Since most of the classmates could hear none of it, some discriminated against me as they thought that I supported gay marriages. People avoided my company because they feared being associated with me. I had a first hand experience of stigmatization. However, I did not give up on my course because I tried to convince them that I did not actually support gay marriages.

My point of reference was that we should accept people in our society the way they are. As long as they see their actions as the right thing to do and they do not interfere with other peoples’ rights, we should accept them in our society. If we do not like their behavior or way of doing things, then we should try to convince them to do the right thing. This argument changed my perspective of viewing things. People should be considerate of other peoples’ feelings. They should understand them or try to change them in the best way they deem fit. From that experience of being discriminated against, I came to realize that even those whose character is not accepted in the society should be welcomed in the society and mechanisms to change their behavior should be put in place. This should be done in a friendly manner so that it can have a positive impact on the person. This situation influenced my thinking that we cannot change the society by victimizing the law offenders but we should employ friendly tactics so that they can be accepted by the victims. Stigmatization can never be the solution in such situations.