This Saturday, thousands of people gathered to support our football team in Tiger Stadium. Imagine if we had that many people supporting our LGBT community.
Instead, we have the Human Rights Campaign’s second annual Municipal Equality Index giving Baton Rouge seven points out of 100 for its lack of discrimination laws protecting the LGBT community. New Orleans received 91 points.
The index takes into consideration non-discrimination laws for people seeking housing or employment, among other things, and our city is drastically lacking in this category.
The actions of our leaders could be contributing factors to this problem. Earlier this year, it was reported that the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office had been arresting men based on an outdated sodomy law. Although the motives behind these accounts were never officially confirmed, the public is left to assume they were based on discrimination.
Undercover police were trying to expose gay men and made a string of questionable arrests dating back to 2011. The undercover agent would solicit sex to a man at a park, involving no money or underage participants, and then arrest the man when they would agree.
The arrests for some of these men were made under Louisiana’s anti-sodomy law, which was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court more than a decade ago, according to The Advocate. All charges were dropped after no evidence against the men could be found.
The people that our city appoints to protect us were targeting and humiliating citizens with no valid motive. They were arresting men for crimes they weren’t committing when they should have been focusing on more important things that actually were occurring.
If leaders in our community are contributing to inequality then hopes for improvement look dim.
Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden has expressed his concern with the low scores from the Human Rights Campaign’s report, but has yet to make any major changes to instill anti-discrimination laws.
Baton Rouge has slightly improved our numbers since 2012 when we were awarded a whopping two points out of 100. But regardless of last year’s scores, Baton Rouge would still be getting an F if these scores were letter grades.
I like to think we can do a little better than that.
So far we have about two bars, Splash and George’s Place, that allow the gay community to mingle in Baton Rouge. Only having a few designated areas where the LGBT community feels comfortable reinforces our city’s stigma.
We need to take steps to reduce this stigma associated with the LGBT community in Baton Rouge, and it looks like our campus will have to lead the way.
Many residents may be older and more conservative, but the city is also home to LSU, making it a college town shaping thousands of young minds.
That is why I’m shocked our score reflected so poorly on us.
Our generation is supposed to be the most tolerant the world has ever seen. It looks like we aren’t doing our part if the city is still forgetting to protect a portion of its people.
There have been efforts to improve equality in the past, such as One Baton Rouge, a resolution proposed in 2007 that would have enacted tolerance of all “colors, religions, sexual orientations, nationalities and people of all walks of life.”
It didn’t gather enough support to pass after attacks from religious and conservative groups shot it down in 2010. Groups opposing the resolution, such as the Christian right, preach peace yet won’t allow simple resolutions promoting equality.
The hypocrisy here is killing me.
The resolution wouldn’t have given special rights to any particular person, it was merely meant to give everyone the basic protection against discrimination that they deserve.
Opposing human rights like this is what’s giving our city a bad reputation.
Annette Sommers is an 18-year-old mass communication sophomore from Dublin, Calif.