The video "Stand Up" was an interesting take on the issue of LGBT discrimination. The fact the video featured Irish students, to me, served as a depressing reminder that bigotry is far from a US issue. Similar in scope is the "It Gets Better" campaign started by columnist Dan Savage, and serves to assure LGBT teenagers that, once past the tense years of adolescence, life gets better once its in their own hands.
This is one of a number of issues which tends to greatly frustrate me since the "morals" people claim are being violated are purely subjective, social constructs which predominate our culture due to our religious background. Perhaps it's slightly changing the focus here, but I think many of the issues we face today stem directly from our society's extreme tendency towards social conservatism and religious fundamentalism.
Small but significant portions of the population are denied legal recognition of their relationships because a set of stories written millennia ago and on the other side of the world doesn't agree with them. It would actually be fascinating if it wasn't so sad; had another culture attained hegemony things might be very different in that respect. In many parts of the world, LGBT members of society were not only tolerated, but in certain cases were held in high regard.
