T3

¶ … person's own perception, which of course is based on upbringing, family structure (or lack thereof), religious exposure/thoughts and so forth. When those feelings become entrenched and ingrained, any culture, group or activity that is a clear outlier from that ingrained culture is usually defined as an out-group. A common example would be gay people as viewed by a person raised Catholic or a Buddhist man to someone that is Jewish.

As for what is missing from the Iron Maiden video, it is quite clear that there are no clearly identifying national marks or flags anywhere in the video…not on the soldiers and not anywhere else. This was probably selective editing on the part of who made the video, but it's fairly obvious after watching the video once or twice that it just seems to be men killing each other with no defined purpose.

The only discernible difference between the two fighting sides is the color of their uniforms and the helmets. One side has the knobs on the helmets with brown uniforms and the other side is blue with regular helmets. The only indication, with no context of where this video came from of course (a movie), the only sign that this is a depiction of World War I is the German communique at the very end of the movie which indicates the country and the year and, thus, the war in question.

Question Three

Coming strictly from a legal standpoint, gay marriage should be allowed because, as noted by the question, it is a matter of equal rights and the law and not on the religious beliefs of groups that object to homosexuality on religious grounds. This answer is complicated by the fact that mentions of God pervade the founding documents and the thoughts of the men behind them, but it is also clear when looking at history that the United States was created in large part as a response to the tyranny of Great Britain and a lot that tyranny had to do with religion.

Question Four

As for whether the United States can overcome bigotry, it really depends on what the definition of "overcome" is. Of course, the main stumbling block to overcome is the breeding and creating of new bigots, although that seems to be less prevalent than in the days of government-sanctioned segregation and other racism. That being said, anybody that thought the election of Obama would end our racial society was out of their mind. To this day, people often use accusations of racism to deflect criticism of Obama or other black elected officials and that is shameful unless there is a clear sign of bigotry coming into play. The point is that the proverbial "kicking of the can" down the road of ending bigotry are people that do not WANT the appearance of bigotry to end and they will make it up as they go along as they see fit. However, there is indeed some work to be done with real bigotry but the overall shift away from bigotry as the people who perpetrated the pre-Civil Rights era are starting to fade away.

Question Five