Rights And Freedoms Make Us Equal

I believe that everyone in America is equal no matter their gender, sexuality, or color of skin. This could be true, but sadly it is not. Even if we are all are “free” some people still treat others as if they aren’t. The truth is that every legal American has rights to which we can use whenever we feel the need too. Equalityhumanrights.com defines “ Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death. They apply regardless of where you are from, what you believe or how you choose to live your life. They can never be taken away, although they can sometimes be restricted – for example, if a person breaks the law, or in the interests of national security”. I feel like this quote really encompasses my whole topic because this shows that your rights are with you from the day you are born to the day that you die. You can use these rights at any time to for example in the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This right is the freedom of religion, speech, press, and the right to peacefully assemble. Only this First Amendment gives you the right to all of these things, there are ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights. If you think about it, you have a lot of rights.

As well as your basic human rights, for example, some of them are the Right to Your Own Things, The Right of Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Expression, The Right to Public Assembly, Social Security. As well as one of the biggest one in my opinion responsibility, this I feel is kind of a trust right. By that, I mean that they have to trust you that you will use this right responsibly. With rights come responsibilities, you have these freedom/rights for a reason.

These rights are given to everyone, but still, people treat each other as if they don't have these rights. The rights you are given are meant to give every citizen a sense of equality. I know that the world will never be totally equal but if you take away everything else you are left with these complex rights. I know these freedoms were given to the citizens of America to give them a sense of communal equality, but I feel like they were also given to the citizens to give them something that they can relate to everyone else with. For an example, one person might have more money than you or more things but you have the same rights and still deserve to be treated the same. A personal experience is that around where we live there are homeless people everywhere. You may think less of them because they don’t have a home or money, but they are still Americans and they have rights as well. They have the right to be treated equally to everyone else.

Another topic I want to cover is giving up your rights. There is only one major right that you can give up, that is your parental rights. This right can also be taken away from you as well. This basically means you are not the child's parents anymore. This right is really the only one you can give up or can be taken away. Parents can “sign” away from their rights of being the child's parent. People normally do this if they are in jail, and their child is to be adopted by another family. They could also be taken away from the parent if they are deemed unfit to be the child's parent. But one of the more common ones is when a person puts their child up for adoption they then have to sign away their parental rights. I feel like it was important to share this because it shows you that with rights and freedoms comes responsibilities.

I feel it is wrong to judge a book by its cover because the cover of a book might not give you the full story. This is why I believe everyone should be treated equally and not be judged based on their gender, sexuality, or color of skin, because if you strip back all of the topical reasons, we are all humans, we are all Americans, and we all have rights.