LBGT Rights by J.Long, S.Skelton & B.Thompson

For our second quarter benchmark, we created a video about LBGT rights and had some insight from a couple peers and included brief information about what role the United States plays in this. We looked into section one of the 14th Amendment for our project.

Citations

1. y wedding of josh & ryan [Web]. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laV8nNV9EBk

This video is about a gay couple Josh & Ryan getting married  In New York city. Marry me gay specialize in gay marriages and is filming this marriage to show everyone that gay couples can also fall in love. Gay couples love is just as true and vibrant as a heterosexual couple's love.

2. Marriage for same-sex couples. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.aclu.org/marriage-same-sex-couples

This website is about gay marriage and equality. People who religion  doesn't approve of gay marriage can criticize gay couples but the government cannot. Marrying the same sex is only acceptable in 20 states (plus D.C)  and people are working hard to expand this across the country.
This website also talks about the defense marriage act and marriage in the United States.
u.s. constitution: Fourteenth amendment . (n.d.).

3. Retrieved from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/

This website is about the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment is broken down into 5 sections. The 14th amendment  is about babies being born from an immigrant inside the U.S gives the mother (& family) of the baby permanent residency. It is also about slaves rights being denied and so forth and so on.

4. 14th amendment rights [Web]. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6aDzJ9Eab4&feature=youtu.be
This video is about a girl who created an animated feature to discuss the 14th amendment. She wanted to get the message of the 14th amendment out to people who doesnt know about it and is living it everyday. She wanted to explore the creative side of history.

My reasoning for choosing this topic is because this is a topic that is taken lightly in the society today. We, even I myself is guilty of calling people "gay" when I feel like they're doing something out of the norm for their gender which is wrong of me. I do not mean any harm by it but I've come to realize how bad of an impact this can have on people. Being gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gender in the world today isn't easy and I felt like it'd be a good idea to make a video reminding people that they are human & their sexuality doesn't define them. 

We did stumble across one big challenge which was what exactly would we include in this video. We didn't know if we wanted to base this off of one person's life with facts or not. We ended up just making a video with facts included in it.  Aside from the challenges, I liked that we had to make a video and focus on a provision of the Constitution in a creative way.  The most interesting fact that I came across was that a Defense of Marriage Act was passed giving the states the option of rejecting or allowing gay marriages. I felt like that law should have never been passed being as though the US shouldn't regulate who people chose to love and be with.


After watching the project, I noticed the audio was not the best and it could use some MAJOR improvements. The music was higher than the interview audio which is a mess and should be fixed. If I were to do this project again, I would start the filming earlier because we probably would have more access to filming equipment and our final product would have been so much better. Also, we wouldn't have had to use many youtube videos if we would have done so. However, I did learn about the 14th Amendment and how that second section of the 14th Amendment shouldn't be taken for granted. Me, because I have my freedom and I am a heterosexual female does not go through problems where I feel as though I'm being rejected or deprived of rights. Therefore, I take this section of the 14th Amendment lightly whereas those who are LBGT take it seriously because they are deprived of their right to live in the way they want to.