by Tara Cavanaugh
Kevin O'Brien is a 20-year-old junior at Michigan State University. He's studying social relations and policy, and this summer he's working as an intern at the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.
1. What do you do as an intern for the Michigan Roundtable?
I'm kind of all over the place. I'm trying to get a feel for all of the things the organization does. Through the summer, I'll be working with each staff member on different projects. I started helping my field experience supervisor, Steve Spreitzer, with equality for the LGBT movement. That's consumed my first three or four weeks on the job. I'll eventually switch over to help with some youth work, race relations and housing equity. Pretty much everything the organization does, I'll be getting a taste of this summer.
2. What are your career aspirations?
I am not positive at the moment. I'm kind of banking on the last two years of college to figure out what path I want to take. But law school is a prominent thought in my mind. I think it'd open a lot of doors for work in the future. I definitely want to work with social justice. I don't know if I'll use that law degree to be an attorney working for social justice, but after I get out of grad school it would definitely allow me to have a good base to continue the fight or pursuit for social justice.
3. What draws you to social justice?
My parents both work for nonprofit organizations and they've been serving the community around them and everyone that they can since before I was born. They're the most selfless people I know. I think they raised me to be the same way. I definitely want to follow in their footsteps and make as big of an impact as I can.
4. You recently attended a "Lobbying Day" in Lansing to encourage lawmakers to amend the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to protect LGBTs from discrimination. Can you explain the act to our readers?
It was passed in 1976, and it was meant to attack the discrimination that was pretty much the difference between black and white. There are obviously many more issues now. Now it protects against discriminatory practices in housing and employment based on race, religion, national origin, sex, age, weight, height, familial status and marital status. But it fails to protect sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. We don't want special rights, we want equal rights. It's amazing how many groups of people are protected, but not the more than 40,000 people who showed up at Hart Plaza (for Motor City Pride earlier this month). It's technically not illegal in Michigan to discriminate against humans in the LGBT community.
5. You're straight. Why are you so supportive of LGBT equality?
I'm on the side of the people that don't understand why you need to meddle in others' lives. Some opponents of gay rights say being gay is a choice. But it's the way they were born. What are you going to do to change the way someone was born? Being mean to someone just because of the way they were born is the same as being racist. It's outrageous. It makes no logical sense to me to not be an ally.
