With the LGBTQ community shattering quite a few glass ceilings lately, be it Jason Collins or Robbie Rogers, it’s high time the straight populace does something that it isn’t used to doing – checking its privilege.

Indeed, straight privilege is a very real thing and, unfortunately, is something that few people know about. You might ask, what is straight privilege exactly? Well, it can be any number of things, really. To be reductionist, it involves all the things individuals who identify as straight have the luxury of doing without a second thought that individuals in the LGBTQ community might struggle with on a daily basis.

Here’s a pretty profound example of straight privilege: there are 29 states where you can be fired for no other reason than being gay. Now, here’s why that’s problematic, in case it isn’t immediately apparent. The United States is a secular entity, and has been stripped of its puritanical ideals for quite some time now, so adhering to an archaic, non-secular principle like “homosexuality makes for a poor laborer” just shouldn’t be an issue in the year 2013.

Shouldn’t people in the workplace be judged on how effectively they can work, or is that too simple a sentiment to be accepted by us as a community? This just happens to be an example of how straight privilege actually harms everyone. What if a hospital decides to fire its superior heart surgeon on the sole premise that he’s gay? It’s no small secret that not all surgeons are created alike. That’s toying with people’s lives, and I doubt that’s seen as the moral right in any context, secular or non-secular.

That’s the most obvious example of straight privilege, and as MU students, that’s not something most of us can immediately address. However, there are other facets of straight privilege that we can confront, and for that matter, need to confront for a more united student body.

Some of those issues involve the way we look — and I mean “look” in the literal sense — at the LGBTQ community. As someone who identifies as straight, I can safely say that if I want to kiss or hold hands with my hypothetical girlfriend in public, no one would think twice. Tragically, the LGBTQ community can’t say the same. If a gay couple were to walk around campus innocently holding hands, they’d probably be subject to a lot of unfortunate background murmur, not to mention the ensemble of eyes that would make their way toward their general direction.

Imagine what it would feel like to know you’re being watched – probably not too pleasant a thought and it seems uncomfortable, to say the least. Furthermore, an LGBTQ ally might come up to the couple and comment on how “cute” the couple looks with no basis for the sentiment other than the fact that they’re gay – something that, believe it or not, is pretty problematic. That’s not to say it’s not a nice gesture. After all, you’re showing your support, and for what it’s worth, it’s a lot better than leering at them, but it remains problematic in the sense that it too manages to assert something different about the couple, when there isn’t anything all too different about them.

So with all that being said and done, how can we, as a community, confront straight privilege? Well, we can start by not staring at or commenting on an openly gay individual or couple that we don’t personally know. If you want to show your support, you can flash them a quick smile (something that I encourage you do to everyone, for that matter) and be on your way. It’s a nice way of showing support, but at the same time, doing nothing to let on that you think that the couple is any different from the rest of us because – and here’s the simple truth of the matter – they’re not.