"That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

-A quote from America's own Declaration of Independence, one of the most famous quotes in the world.

We live in a country that is famed for being accepting, for allowing you to be who you are.

We live in a country that puts hope in the hearts of people like Staceyann Chin, one of the most influential poets of my life, who was beaten and raped by a group of men in her home country of Jamaica simply for being open about her sexual orientation.

All of this based on a quote from our forefathers. But do we, as Americans and as a counrty, live up to this quote?

This is not a philisophical question that has to be fathomed for hours. It has a very simple answer: No.

Not when we enact laws and follow policies that portray fellow Americans as second-class citizens. Not when we rationalize the murder and torture of hundreds of people by saying that they are not Americans.

On our own soil, we treat some people better than others, on a national level, whether it be for sexual orientation, gender identity, economic class or religion.

With the passing of State legislation such as Ammendment Two in Florida or Proposition 8 in California, or with institution of things nationally, such as the Patriot Act, or the implimentation of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, or with the way in which America's welfare system is perpetuated, we desciminate against our own every day.

Although these things may seem fairly harmless to the onlookers, what many fail to understand is that the serious damage this type of legislation does is the opinion it plants into the everyday American.

When your goverment tells you that you have rights that your neighbor doesn't, it instills a sense of superiority in you. If the Declaration of Independence is to be believed, than those who have less rights then you are less human than you are. It is this type of attitude that breeds violence.

It is this type of attitude that caused Matthew Shepard to be beaten mercilessly for hours and left tied to a fence for eighteen hours simply for being gay. It is this type of attitude that caused the murder of Waqar Hasan after 9/11.

These things happen every day, thanks in no small part to the drisciminatory legislation that is passed here.

It isn't just random acts of violence perpetuated within our borders by radicals, though. The American military uses horrendous torture techniques on hundreds of people each day, all in the name of homeland security.

That quote from the Declaration of Independence has a word that seems to be constantly overlooked; "all". It says "all men are created equal" not "those on American soil are created equal".

It is not morally just to torture someone for information they are suspected of having. Let alone the logical holes in the idea of torturing for information, it is just plain wrong.

People in places like Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, and Abu Ghraib are hung by their wrists from the ceiling for hours at a time, are sleeped deprived for multiple days in a row, are forced to undergo sensory deprivation for undetermined amounts of time.

They are sexually humiliated; forced to walk around naked and to masturbate in public, forced to pile on top of each other while naked.

All this is done, with government sanction, in the name if freedom. They claim that this is necessary in order to obtain information pertinant to U.S. security. If we must torture and kill hundreds of others to protect ourselves, is there truly anything worth protecting?

I'll leave you with a quote and a video that inspired me to write this:

"I mean, we've had all these awful pictures from the prison in Iraq and these sort of memos floating around about justifying torture, all this kind of stuff. And it makes you want to take a shower, you know?"
-Ron Reagan, Jr.



Logan Hartwig