Same-Sex Marriage Pro Essay, Research Paper
Same-Sex Marriage Pro
Civil marriage is enjoyed by all people in society; all people that is, excluding the ones that find love in the form of their own gender. These people are being denied the basic right of engaging in legally bound matrimony. Laws, such as this one, have been created time and time again, mostly by ignorant bigots, only to be dissolved when finally seen as immoral and unjust in the eyes of someone without hatred in their heart. It should be considered a crime in itself to deny access to an institution that has no one true concrete definition; but instead much diversity, which America has depended on and built from for over a 1000 years. There are at least 1,049 current reasons to accept and grant homosexual marriage in the United States, so why has not anything changed? It was George Bancroft who said, “The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another,” (200) after all.
By forming laws to regulate ones love for another, the message that is being sent to society is that it is all right to discriminate. “By singling out gay and lesbian marriages as a union unacceptable in the eyes of the law, we fuel the fires of ignorance, intolerance, and hatred” (Iowa Rep…1). This message was the same prior to 1967 when interracial marriages were illegal. Another instance of this complete disregard to civil rights was when the class one was born into decided whom one could and could not marry. It was usual practice in Rome to deny marriage between classes. Commoners could not marry aristocrats and so on, legally dividing the ranks into segregated social status. One more type of law obstructing same-sex marriage would be religious ‘law’. While numerous religious groups celebrate same-sex unions, {“Methodists, United Church of Christ, Congregationalists, Reform Jews, Metropolitan Community Church, Unitarian Universalists, Quakers…” (Iowa Rep…2)}, others find it extremely distasteful and threaten banishment or eternity in a river of flames as consequences. And while this is the most applied law, it stands still unclear. The bible calls homosexuality an “abolishment”, but also says, “Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve…nothing is unclean in itself; but unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean” (Romans 14:13-13). Also, when Americans were told that they would have freedom of religion, does not that sanctify freedom from religion as well? People wanting to engage in same sex marriage are not asking for all religions to accept their vows. They ask merely for tolerance and the ability to recite them so that they mean something, legally. They ask for simple civil equality in the “pursuit of happiness” (Jefferson 200) among themselves, the United States citizens.
A dispute that frequently appears in court over same-sex marriage is the question of what marriage is in it’s self. Marriages exist in many forms that cannot fit into a universal mold. There are relationships consisting of one man and numerous women called polygamy. Relationships with one woman and many men called “polyandry”(Halsall 1). Some are age dissonant with a full-grown man marrying a woman when she is around thirteen years old and some are closer in age but the two have never met before. “In China, one man has a chief wife with subordinate wives and concubines” (1). Lastly, there is the “modern norm” when one man and one woman marry because they are in love. This is called a “companionate marriage” (1). These marriages have five things in common, “Domestic cohabitation, communal recognition, customary rules of conduct, some sort of ceremonial inception, and an extension in time” (1). Only in America and Western Europe do three more commonalties truly exist: “Emotional commitment, legal recognition, and monogamy”(1). One could say marriage is a “powerful, legal and social institution that protects and supports family relationships by supplying a choice set of privileges, responsibilities and rights. The decision to marry should belong to the couple in love, not the state” (Bidstrup 1).
There are many reasons for the United States to grant marriage between same-sex couples. Same-sex couples “pay taxes, work for a living, care for one another and raise children. They buy homes together and hope to grow old together. These relationships should be treated legally for what they are family” (ACLU 1). Same-sex couples acquire the same responsibilities as heterosexual married couples, “but are denied 1,049 legal rights, protections, and responsibilities that accompany civil marriages” (Graff 1). Granted, some of these rights can be achieved through the court, but the majority is not, even for partners who can manage to pay for a legal representative. Look at the differences between civil unions and civil marriages: For one, in a civil unions partners are classified by the state as distinctly different, yet in a civil marriage they are supported and applauded for committing themselves to their mate. Civil unions are only available in Vermont and are not portable into other states, while civil marriages are available everywhere and are portable due to that fact. When a gay or bisexual couple get married they only receive 300 state rights. When a “strait” couple get married they receive those 300 state rights as well as 1,049 federal rights. Among the federal rights same-sex marriages do not receive are: “joint parenting, adoption, foster care, custody, visitation, insurance, family health care, tax returns, making medical decisions on a partner’s behalf, visiting a deceased partner’s grave, immigration and receiving government profits such as social security and Medicare” (Graff 1). Take the case of Joe and John:
Joe entered the emergency room complaining of chest pains. When John was denied entrance to the Intensive Care Unit to stand by his partner’s side, he was forced in a time of profound crisis to embark on a desperate battle for the simple right to visit his partner of twenty-five years. Two days later, John received a call telling him to pick up Joe’s body from the morgue. Joe had died from cardiac arrest the day after he was admitted (1).
One last important reason to grant marriage to same sex couples would be to discourage promiscuous sex. It is a well known fact that the Acquired Immuno Deficiency (AIDS) spreads rapidly among people that engage in sexual intercourse with multiple partners of their own gender, more commonly known among, but definitely not limited to, homosexual Caucasian males. Marriage hinders this promiscuity and therefore slows the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS. These diseases “know no sexual orientation and are equal opportunity destroyers”(Halsal 3). Realistic reasons, such as these, should really be something to consider when demanding or denying same-sex marriages.
To put it briefly, having the state deny one person’s love for another legally is wrong. It has been segregating people for centuries and today it is sending appalling messages to the youth about discrimination. The word marriage truly has too many definitions to only recognize one in a diverse culture such as the United States. Lastly, denying civil marriage is denying very basic civil rights to civil people. A man named Harry S. Truman could not have put it better when he said, “In the case of freedom, we have to battle for the rights of people with whom we do not agree; and whom, in many cases, we may not like. These people test the strength of the freedoms, which protect us all. If we do not defend their rights, we endanger our own” (200). Agreeing that these loving people do not deserve marriage, is like stabbing civil rights in the back. Hopefully as one nation society can join together and stop it from bleeding to death.
1. Bidstrup, Scott. Gay Marriage: The Arguments and the Motives. {Online} Available www.bidstrup.com/marriage.htm, 13 March 2000.
2. Gay Marriage?. {Online} Available http://letters@guidemag.com/magconten/invokemagcontent.cfm?id=E6B2CF82-03ID-11D4-AD990050DA7E046B&method=GuideFull Display, October 1995.
3. Graff, E.J.. Civil Unions vs. Civil Marriage, Marriage Myths and Responses to the opposition, Why Marriage Matters. {Online} Available www.marriageequality.com, 19 March 2000.
4. Hallsall, Paul. Lesbian and Gay Marriage Through History and Culture. {Online} Available www.bway.net/~halsall/lgbh-marriage.html, 13 March 2000.
5. Holy Bible. The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1982.
6. “Proposed Ban on Gay Marriage is Unjust, Unnecessary Statement of Dorothy Davidson, Director ACLU Mountain States Regional Office”, “Iowa Representative Ed Fallon on 02/20/96” ACLU 20 February 1996: 1-3.
7. Sullivan, Andrew. Same-Sex Marriage Pro and Con: A Reader. NewYork: Vintage Books Inc., 1997.
8. Webster’s book of Quotations. New York: PMC Publishing Co. INC., 1992.