Within the past three weeks I have sent out my survey on various facebook accounts, i have gotten a good amount of responses. I'm glad that i am getting a lot of high school and college students responding to the survey, this week im going to focus on trying to get more adults to answer the survey to see how the results compare to one another. To be honest i didnt expect to get this many responses but i am very happy with the results and responses i have gotten. This next week i hope to get more responses so that i will have more than enough information for my final reaction and project. 

For my topic of homosexuality and how it has changed over the years, I have finalized my plan to send out a survey through social media to find out my peers opinions. I really want to find out how my generation feels about homosexuality, whether they think it's a big deal like it has been in the past or if they think everyone should be equal. To naturally observe I will try to find a highly homosexual area and visit to see how they interact also if that isn't possible I will YouTube videos from parades and see if there are people there protesting  against it and how people react to it. I honestly believe that people in my generation, from ages 17-25 will be for homosexuality and not really care about it compared to how my parents and grandparents generations feel about it. I feel that way because after asking my grandmother how she felt her opinion was that she was entirely against it compared to when I asked my brother and it didn't seem to bother him at all. But hopefully this survey will prove my hypothesis and that we are on the right path to making everyone equal!

Week 1

The research method that I am going to use is surveying. I will be asking many different people that I know and people that I don't know questions about homosexuality, I will be focusing mainly on my generation because it will be good to hear their input on it. I am interested in seeing how people react and answer to the questions. In our new day and age I feel like the responses should be different compared to surveys that were done years ago. I feel like this is an effective way to get results within the community around where we live. After the survey is complete I will come back with the results and we'll see if my generation is taking a step in the right direction!

http://www.matthewshepard.org/our-story

This is the story of Matthew Shepard. I remember doing a project about him in middle school and I was appalled by what was done to him because he was gay. On October 9, 1998 he was kidnapped by two men, robbed, pistol whipped, tied up to a fence like a scarecrow and left to die. His story fanned the outrage that followed word of the attack, spawning vigils, producing calls for Federal hate-crimes legislation from President Clinton and fueling debates over such laws in a host of Western states, including Wyoming, that have resisted them. The story of Matthew Shepard has has challenged and inspired millions of individuals to erase hate in all forms and it did spark the nation to realize that hate and discrimination were still occurring. 

Although this was one of the most heart wrenching and a story very difficult to handle, I would like to say that his spirit and legacy has helped up come to where we are now. Nowadays we don't hear about horrific crimes happening like this, hate is still around and people are still discriminating against gays, blacks, Asians, etc. but I truly believe it has died down and it ultimately could've been a lot worse now.Matthew Shepard was just a young man who was brutally murdered because of his sexuality in 1998 they didn't have laws against homosexual hate crimes and this was the start for all of the states to realize that things like this do happen and they need to start implementing the right laws to stop this. This was a wake up call and it's terrible that he had to suffer but without his courage and suffering who knows if we would have any laws to help hate crimes or if this and worse things would continue to happen. Matthew Shepard may be dead but his spirit and legacy still lives on today.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57373794/jcpenney-ceo-on-ellen-degeneres-controversy/



My article this week is about a famous gay woman, Ellen DeGeneres. Last year, she was the spokesperson for JCPenny to help rebuild the customer base. The company was all for having Ellen be their spokesperson but there was this one organization known as, One Million Moms, that was entirely against Ellen. They said  JCP was "jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon",  but JCPenny's CEO stood behind Ellen 100%. They loved her views and were happy to share it throughout their company. The CEO said,"And we think Ellen represents the values of our compant and the values that we share", they're very supportive of Ellen and they don't see using her as a spokesperson isn't controversial at all. 

When Ellen heard what the, One Million Moms, had to say she wasn't surprised. She's had "haters" since the time that she came out. She called them out during one of her episodes and said, "And normally I try not to pay attention to my haters, but this time I'd like to talk about it because my haters are my motivators. This organization doesn't think I should be the spokesperson because I am gay." I think Ellen handled this in the right way because she let everyone know that there was a "controversy" with her being the JCPenny spokesperson and she addressed the matter with her response. She didn't attack the group she just made her point clear and said that JCPenny stuck by her and didn't fire her. 

This week I found a video from the show "The New Normal." This show is fairly new and is about a gay couple with a surrogate mother delivering their baby for them. This is a clip of David proposing to Bryan, its not everyday that we see a TV show expressing homosexuality in a proper way or in a loving and honest way. I find it incredible that now society is starting to accept gay marriages. Years ago you would've never seen something like this on TV because people were very narrow minded about gay couples but nowadays people are more accepting of it, but there are still many people who are entirely against it. I find myself to be very open minded about homosexuality, it doesn't bother me at all, if that makes you happy then go for it! I do feel bad that they are treated differently though, especially in the United States, where we live in a free country and people should not be restricted on whether they are homosexual or heterosexual. 

What do you think we should do to make gay marriages more accepted in today's society?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEz4PQOtikM



This is an article from 2011, and it is talking about how on the hit TV series Glee the two homosexual characters have their first kiss. "That the sweet scene between two teenage boys aired without a din of controversy surrounding it speaks volumes about how far we've come since network TV's first same-sex kiss twenty years ago on L.A. Law. " this is a quote from the article just saying about how far we've come to not have a problem with seeing a homosexual couple kiss on national television. The article goes on to talk about how it took until 2001 on Dawson's Creek for there to be the first gay kiss on TV to be shown. It's really good to hear that something like this isn't bothering Americans anymore because as a country we have come a long way and we still have a ways to come, but at least we are starting to move in the right direction! 
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/03/on-glee-two-boys-kiss-without-controversy/72571/

http://modernhomosexuality.weebly.com/media.html

The article I found this week talks about the modernization of homosexuality in the media. I found this article to be a good starting point to what I am going to be talking about for most of my blogs.Throughout the article the author talks about how on television, in the music industry, and major people involved in the production of media are homosexual and are being embarrassed for it. A huge example brought up in the article is about Ellen Degeneres and how she has her own show for the last 10 years, she has one of the most famous daytime television shows. Before the 21st century having an open homosexual on TV would be frowned upon let alone having a homosexual person hosting their own show. This article goes on to talk about Modern Family and The Office and how they depict homosexual lifestyles in a positive fashion; the basis for Modern Family is about three "modern" families and how they go about their daily lives. Having a homosexual couple included as being a "modern" family just shows how far the homosexual movement has come in the media. Reading this article is making me eager to continue researching this topic and giving you more information. But for now, I would say that this article is a good place to start.

The topic I chose is homosexuality, I decided to pick this one because it interested me the most. Mrs. Wren made it seem very appealing during class and made me want to learn more about how much homosexuality has changed over the last few decades. As well as, how it is portrayed in the media now compared to how it was before.