Over a few weeks, nearly a dozen teenagers and young adults have committed suicide because they were being harassed for their sexual orientation. With this, we are facing one of the biggest civil rights battles of our time. Over the years, we have witnessed and learned about social progress throughout the world, whether it be in slavery, racism, sexism or any other sort of prejudice. We can look back to the time before the civil rights movement of the 1960s and ponder, “What were we thinking?!” But while most of these progressions have become widely accepted, unfortunately prejudice still exists in the minds of certain individuals.

The most recent example of this harassment was a well-publicized case of a freshman at Rutgers University, in which his roommate put a video of him with another male online.

Naturally this has caused national media attention and has sparked debate on the treatement of the entire gay community. The Trevor Project, which tracks gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual behavior, estimates that non-heterosexual individuals are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide.

For every successful suicide completed in this group, nearly 100-200 attempts are made. Considering 86 percent of LGBT youth are bullied at school, it’s obvious the harrassment plays a role in the suicides.

This is sickening.

In our society, we can look at our past and realize the mistakes we have made concerning civil rights.

Whether one believes that being gay is a choice or that one is born that way or that being gay is morally wrong is absolutely irrelevant. One’s sexual orientation is only pertinent to that individual and shouldn’t be subjected to the scorn and harassment they consistently experience. The egotistical ideologies that some individuals have that heterosexuality is “better” or “superior” to other orientations is petty and childish.

We need to take action in order to overcome this issue once and for all. Instead of trivial and trifling arguments, we need to accept their lifestyle into our society and remove the stigma that goes with it.

As a straight man, I have absolutely no problem with homosexuals of any sort and applaud those who openly and proudly display their sexuality. In retrospect, those who do so are more emotionally mature than any of those who regress to the childish behavior that we have been seeing for far too long.

When we finally embrace their lifestyles and sexuality into our society, we will be able to move on as Americans and progress like we have in the past.

This issue shouldn’t result in suicides across the nation. It should be treated as a simple difference that makes our great country unique and diverse.