<p>I'm thinking of discussing something in one of my college essays about gay rights that would make it clear that I am in support of them. I am not asking whether this is a strong prompt or whether you think it is a worthwhile subject to write about - I think I am a good judge of that for myself given the prompt and the context. </p>
<p>What I want to know is, is it a bad idea to talk about something so controversial and risk that the person reading the essay is conservative/does not have the same views? Could that potentially hurt my chances if I am unlucky and the reader(s) feels strongly against gay rights? Or is this an unlikely possibility and should I not worry about it? I think I have a strong idea for an essay (I don't want to be too specific on what) but I don't know if it is too risky to talk about such a contentious issue. Should I stick to something safer?</p>
<p>It’s usually advised to stay away from topics that are so controversial</p>
<p>It’s 2013 and most colleges without a religious affiliation are pretty liberal anyway…I don’t think it’s terribly risky.</p>
<p>I should consider something like THAT to be risky. While we would all ike to think that everyone is “enlightened” like us why take a risk like that? To me i treat the essay as being somewhat like a job interview in some respects; you don’t want to take too many liberties with the interviewer because you have NO IDEA what they are like. there is some room for your emotion and creativity but you do not want to spend too much time on hot button political issues like sex/sexual orientation rights, wars, abortion, etc. </p>
<p>I would pick another topic. The ACTUAL likelihood that your application will be rejected by a crazy anti-gay guy is low but the risk is so nebuluous and the benefit to taking the risk is so minimal that i just wouldn’t do it. It’s not about the colleges’ attitude, it’s more about the guy reading the application and most colleges do not guarantee that everyone working in the admissions office has the exact same political beliefs as the rest of the campus.</p>
<p>Not sure if I’m the only one thinking this, but what’s so controversial about gay rights in general. Same-sex marriage is a completely different issue - I don’t think you’ll find too many reasonable people in academia wanting to go back to the days of Jim Crow Laws and full-throttle racial discrimination.</p>
<p>It of course, depends on what ‘rights’ you are promoting - if it’s stopping persecution of them in some way, it’s not much different from being a part of an LGBT club, which I don’t see discouraged much around here.</p>
<p>As I usually do, I agree with halcyonheather. If you’re applying to Grove City College or BYU, it’s controversial, but if you’re not, that so-called controversy is really yesterday’s news.</p>