At a Danish zoo last December, two king penguins adopted an abandoned egg after the mother laid it. And after a torturous hatching process, little Pingu became the Rachel Berry of the slightly frosty penguin world — the chick with two male adoptive parents.

This could be a heartwarming story from one winter wonderland to another. Alas, it just highlighted that gay Danish penguins have more rights than a lot of gay people living in America today.

On Tuesday, the British government voted with a massive majority to legalize gay marriage. But it’s not the same story in the United States. While 48 percent of Americans are now in favor of gay marriage, according to the Pew Research Center, only 10 states allow same sex marriage, and 60 percent of states have an outright ban. Only 20 states allow hospital visits and only 19 fully allow same-sex adoption.

Sure, getting married and popping out kids is way down the timeline for most college students. But when straight students do find someone to put up with their sh*t, at least they don’t have to state-hop 10 years later to ensure their marriage ceremony is legal.

It’s impossible to be anything but amazed when realizing that the lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender community has a distinct lack of rights. And newsflash for current policy makers: LGBT community members are as normal and boring as straight people – why shouldn’t they be treated as such?

College campuses are the place to make change happen, said Chase Catalano, director of the LGBT Resource Center on campus.

“In places of higher education, you have a larger ground swelling of college students and more concentrated areas of lots of social diversity,” Catalano said. “We want people to have conversations, even when they’re contentious.”

A recent infographic in the British paper The Guardian demonstrated just how geographically challenged gay rights are in the United States. There are no full rights in any of the Southeast states for marriage, hospital visits or adoption.

And while the link between religion and suppression of LGBT rights is visible without too much of a stretch, Catalano said he thinks open-minded “hotspots” like Atlanta and North Carolina can really shift the mindset of traditionally conservative states.

“Iowa has gay marriage in the middle of the continental United States in a red area,” he said.

While “blue” President Barack Obama isn’t the most progressive person to ever grace the political stage, he did repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” openly supported gay marriage and appointed Amanda Simpson, a transgender woman, to be the senior technical adviser to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

From a Republican mindset, that’s almost anarchic. But, as Catalano said, there is a time and place to make big changes in issues affecting the LGBT community.

“When you have the biggest microphone in the country, maybe the best thing to do is not stepping up to it,” Catalano said. “To surface certain topics is to shut down a conversation, but to work behind the scenes to get change to happen can be more effective.”

As a straight person looking in, it’s important to understand that for many gay people, the greater discussion isn’t even about marriage or babies. It’s as simple as equal rights and economics.

They just want a slice of the Constitutional pie everyone’s given a bite of the minute they’re born American — and straight.

“If it (gay rights) was an advocacy for no more institution of marriage, no more benefits that come with making a long-term commitment to someone else, as sanctioned by the federal government, I can see why people would get concerned by that,” Catalano said. “They’re (LGBT community) actually just saying ‘Hey, when I get married, it’d be nice if I got a tax break, too.’”

While there’s nothing cynical about wanting to visit someone in the hospital, many rights — like marriage, shared health care and child benefits — are a financial transaction, whether you’re straight, LGBT or otherwise.

We’re in the land of opportunity, and everyone should be afforded the right to be a bit cynical. Just check out the gay penguins that get free zoo housing.

Iona Holloway is a senior magazine journalism and psychology major. While not a fan of rainbows, she will always advocate for LGBT penguins and the human equivalent. Email her at ijhollow@syr.edu and follow her on Twitter at @ionaholloway.

Published on February 5, 2013 at 10:27 pm