This was my my first Pan-Asian Queer Meeting at the LGBT Center at UCLA. After half an hour of ice-breakers, we tackled a serious issue: the question of homosexual displays of affection in public, also referred to as PDA.

A few of my peers shared how, when simply holding hands with their significant other, they were degraded, laughed at, or otherwise made to feel as if they were in the wrong. I was surprised. Even at college, with a bunch of liberal students, these individuals were made to feel outcast. The idea seemed so unfair to me: why is it that I can hold hands with a boy and walk to class unscathed, while a gay individual who does the same is met with stares and rude comments? What gives any individual the right to judge somebody they don’t know and will never make an effort to understand?

When addressing this issue, the straight individual may argue that displays of homosexuality disturb him, even emotionally harm him. That’s understandable; when a person grows up in a conservative or religious household and is taught that being gay is a sin, it makes sense that they would be more sensitive to homosexual behavior. But I ask that individual, if I were disturbed by your wearing a cross to school everyday, would you be forced to take it off? The answer is clearly no.

The First Amendment of our Constitution protects our freedom of expression. Just as any pastor on Bruin Walk has the right to tell me that I am going to be damned for eternity for not believing in Jesus — a message which could potentially scar me — gay couples have every right to express their love, regardless of the passerby that are harmed by the display.  

Both gay and straight individuals must become more open-minded and accepting of the other side. At the meeting, a group member suggested that if individuals were disturbed by gay PDA, it was “their problem” for being discriminatory. He never tried to understand where those individuals come from or why they had difficulty accepting homosexuality, crucial steps to achieving tolerance.

In this same respect, straight people generally try to pretend that gay people don’t exist. They propose solutions that will “cure” individuals of their “sexual affliction.” They blame being gay on rough childhoods, a desire to rebel, or just being  “weird”. It is time for heterosexual individuals to accept that being gay isn’t some made-up identity: it is real, they are real, and they deserve to be treated like people before they are treated like a different species.

If we are homophobic, we should find out why. If we cannot accept people who are not like ourselves, we should try harder, reach out, do something to ensure that we do not remain stagnant in our beliefs.