The United States of America is kind of divided on the whole homosexuality issue.

A new study produced by the University of Chicago surveyed public opinion across the country to find out which regions are more accepting to gay people. The country averages show that overall opinion is fractionated. While 44% of people surveyed said that homosexuality is “always wrong,” a close 41% said it’s “not wrong at all.” The opinions of the unaccounted for 15% weren’t made available, though Jezebel speculates that it could be those who are okay with acts of homosexuality if the two individuals are hot (*cough*most guys when girls make out*cough*)

Having an outside (Canadian) perspective the results aren’t all that surprising. The worst tolerance was found in the South Central states, with a whopping 73.7% of adults saying it’s always wrong in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. This is followed closely by 68.1% of people in the Western South Central Regions.

The most accepting regions start with New England (27% saying it’s always wrong), which is not surprising since Massachusetts legalized same sex marriage in 2004. The region with the second lowest intolerance rate is the Pacific (37.5%), which counts Alaska, California, Hawaii and Oregon.

There are so many factors in how people choose which side of the fence they sit on when it comes to homosexuality. Some people will cite biblical passages to condone certain sexual orientations, while I know people who will say that under the New Testament people should simply “love all of God’s creations.”

But whatever the reasons you believe what you do, one thing that has been on the rise (in the media, at least) is the number of LGBTQ-indentifying young adults, which is something you should think about before you open your mouth to make a derogatory comment.

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, so let’s be a little less snarky or critical of our classmates and start setting a good example for our younger sibs. Okay?

As far as people go, I am rather intolerant.  I am intolerant of people who do not clean the coffee maker after they use it.  I am intolerant of couples that walk too slowly together on the sidewalk and therefore block all of the people behind them.  Mismatched outfits and too much eye makeup make my blood boil. And don’t even get me started on people who don’t know how to parallel park.

However, I’ve always felt that I exemplify a very accepting society when it comes to the bigger issues. Things like racial inequality or sex discrimination. I’m all about equal rights for everyone, regardless of race or gender. In fact, when my professor made me argue for school segregation and against gay marriage last week as a class exercise, I started laughing because I literally had nothing to say.

Why wouldn’t we want everybody to be happy?
Doesn’t everyone feel this way?
Doesn’t the law basically say just live and let live?

Yeah, apparently not. The events of the past couple of weeks have informed me that I am completely wrong about the world and the people living in it. Turns out, my tolerance isn’t the rule, it’s the exception. And minority groups, especially the gay population, have to put up with way more than I realized.

As a University of Michigan student, my local news is recently headlined with the story of Chris Armstrong, our student body president who is being harassed by Andrew Shirvell.  An Assistant Attorney General for the state of Michigan, Shirvell has gone out of his way to harass Armstrong online, accusing him of using his presidency to advocate a “radical homosexual agenda.”  Shirvell has not only shown up at student government meetings to criticize Armstrong, but also seeks him out at home.  While Shirvell claims he has freedom of speech to say whatever he wants, as someone who has actually studied Supreme Court cases, I was always under the impression that government officials were the ones trying to limit hate speech despite the First Amendment preserving its existence.  Wrong again.

And then I heard about Tyler Clementi jumping off of the George Washington Bridge forty minutes from where I live.

In an effort to not turn this into a rant about cruel people or bad judgment, I’ll just sum it up again.  Clementi’s roommate had a WebCam in their dorm room that taped Clementi having sex with another man.  His roommate took this footage and streamed it to the Internet.  A couple of days later, Clementi jumped off the bridge.  Coincidence?  Highly doubt it.

Though the Civil War ended in 1865, it took about a hundred years for real laws to come in place giving African-Americans their rights.  And in the middle of all of this, there was still persecution and murder and violence.  I can no longer speak for what the rest of the world thinks, but I do not think it is appropriate for a group of oppressed people to have to wait one hundred years before they can stop worrying about being bullied on a daily basis.

While America may allow everyone to have his or her own belief, this freedom does not entitle us to be cruel.  As a society, we see stories every day about our neighbors going out of their way to make others’ lives a little more difficult. For what? What’s the point? If Shirvell or Clementi’s roommate are experiencing higher quality lives after what’s gone on during the past two weeks, then someone please alert me.

So just stop.  Stop being difficult just for the sake of being difficult.  Stop ruining other people’s lives just because you can. I don’t think that being a little more accepting really ever hurt anyone.

But I’ve noticed something that has become so frequent that it happens at least twice a week. I don’t know if it’s because we have such a large freshman class that doesn’t know me as well as the rest of the upperclassmen, or if it’s something else, but while I’m walking to lunch, at a club meeting, or in a popular hang-out spot with my girlfriend, whether we’re just holding hands, play-flirting, or giving goodbye kisses, I’ve been catching several looks. And most of them are of utter confusion and/or disgust.

After well over a year of being with my girlfriend, it’s not exactly breaking news that we’re going out. We’ve gotten looks from some upperclassmen before, sure, but it was never so frequent or so extreme as it is now. And I’m certain that these looks aren’t being given to other heterosexual couples, or even other interracial couples (which, unless they are well-hidden, I have seen none of).

It’s bad enough that when I’m home, I can barely bring my girlfriend up in conversation without feeling awkward. But to be on campus, walking down the street and holding her hand and being gawked at like we’re some kind of traveling freak show? Forgive me, world, for saying that it makes me unhappy, uncomfortable, and angry. Aside from physical differences, we don’t differ much from any other heterosexual couple. We fight, we talk, we help each other, we have sex, we love. Sure, we might do it a little differently than John and Jane down the hall, but the premise is the same. So why should we be treated differently?

I know for myself that being raised in a household where nothing but heterosexuality was expected from me, it took me a little while to get accustomed to the idea that people of the same gender could love each other, too. And when I realized I was one of those people, it was hard. People seem to think that it’s something that can be turned on and off, or that it’s something people are starting to lean towards now because it’s “cool.” But why on earth would I ever willingly do something I know I’d be ridiculed for?

No, this is who I am. This is who I’ll always be. And I understand that people might have a little difficulty understanding other people who choose this lifestyle. People like me. It’s not “normal” or “right” by many standards. I wish that other people, people who stare and flare their nostrils, could understand us.

I know that not everyone can accept gays or lesbians. But trying couldn’t hurt.

We all have one: the friend who blows you off, who drops you like a hot potato as soon as she meets a cute boy, who just needs to borrow $5 and seriously she’ll pay you back like, tomorrow. If this girl was your boyfriend, you would dump her a**–but can you really dump a friend?

I met Rebecca in the Spring of our senior year, in an English class, and it was like we had known each other forever. In only a few short months, I felt like I had a new best friend, someone I could rely on and who always understood me. I could totally be myself around her; my sometimes-goofy, sometimes-awkward sometimes-downright-weird self.

In short, it was friend love (Flove?).

I was leaving for grad school in the Fall (in another country), so we resolved to spend as much time together as possible that Summer. Now, I’m known among my friends as being a leeeeetle bit on the anal side when it comes to making plans, keeping them, and being early. I’m always early, at least by 10 minutes, to just about everything. If I make a plan with you, I will be there, rain or shine. Rebecca, on the other hand, always seemed to be in the midst of a calamity. The subway was delayed, or she accidentally fell asleep, or there was some kind of crisis, so she was going to be late. I spent a lot of time waiting for her to show up. Sometimes she’d never show up at all, calling later to apologize, and I always just acted like it was fine.

While I worked in a soul-killing temp job to earn money, she focused on her writing, occasionally doing odd jobs with unreliable paychecks. As a result, I often picked up the tab when we went out. She always meant to pay me back, but never did. At one point she had racked up about $100 in money she insisted that she owed me, so she decided to take me out on the town, dinner and drinks. Then the bank was closed, she couldn’t get her paycheck cashed…it was a calamity, as usual. I paid for everything that night, for both of us.

When my Dad came to help me pack up my U-haul at the end of the Summer, Rebecca promised she’d come around to say goodbye one last time before I left the country. I waited for her to call until my Dad insisted we couldn’t wait any longer—we’d get stuck in traffic out of the city, and it was over an hour past when she said she’d come. I tried calling but her phone was off. She sent me an instant message later, something about her phone dying, but I ignored it. We didn’t speak for months.

Like a pleading ex-boyfriend, I eventually took her back. She visited me at grad school, and we had an amazing time…my faith in our friendship was renewed! In August of the following year, I came back to the city. She was in Chicago with her new boyfriend, but she promised she’d be back in time to see me before I left. Surprise surprise, there was a storm in Chicago she told me, huge delays she said, and instead of staying at the airport to wait for a flight, she booked a new flight for the following week, when I was already back at school, and spent the weekend with her man.

I stopped returning her calls. I felt so stupid and petty, but a few months later I had a pretty zen realization:

Sometimes, friendships just don’t work out.

Seriously girls: we are here to support each other. We don’t need to be dicked around by our girlfriends…we get plenty of that from the men in our life. If a friend has an annoying habit that bothers you (lateness, tendency to “forget” that she owes you money), the first thing you should do is talk to her about it. She may not realize it upsets you, even though you put on your very best “I’m MAD” face when she shows up late. We are not mind readers, ladies. Annoying habits are, well, annoying, but they shouldn’t be a deal breaker; no one is perfect!

If she treats you really bad though, and talking doesn’t help..then she doesn’t just have an annoying habit, she’s a toxic friend. It may be a tough process, but you’ve got to cut her out. You’d never tolerate it from a boyfriend, so don’t tolerate it at all!

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