Same Sex Marriage

Same-Sex Marriage

SOC120

April 9, 2012

Same-Sex Marriage

Over the past few year same-sex marriages has been debated more and more. Whether you are heterosexual or homosexual you have an opinion if same sex-marriage should be legalized or not. Some will be completely against it and some will be for it. Being a homosexual myself this is a very real topic for me. We are not fighting for a piece of paper; we are fighting for our lives. Most heterosexuals that I have been able to talk to think that in some way it will change their way of life. Homosexuals live in your community already. The lives of heterosexuals will not change if a couple of the same sex is able to get married by law. Homosexuals are still people and they should be able to take care of their families like heterosexual families are able to. EJ Graff said "There are practical benefits: the ability to share insurance and pension benefits, care for our ill partners, inherit automatically, protect our children from desperate custody battles" (Graff, 1996). This is what we want! We want to be able to claim the people that mean the world to us when they need us the most.

Why is same-sex marriage so hard to legalize? If we can legalize it I think everyone will be a little better off. People think that if same-sex marriage is legalized in all 50 states that it will change everyone's lives. Same-sex marriage will not change the rest of the world's life. Why is it so wrong for same-sex couples to be in a happy loving marriage? We all need to come to an agreement where we can all be happy and better off. Homosexuals will never give up on trying for there to be married. The government and everyone fighting for this needs to understand that everyone deserves to be happy and have a family. Unitarian is the best way I feel like we can solve the issues on same-sex marriage. If we can make both sides find a place where they can have what they are searching for than we all get the best result. I know that it is hard for some people to be ok with people of the same sex marrying one another but there has to be a medium somewhere. We could all benefit from legalizing same-sex marriage just by stopping the argument and getting on with our own families. Of course same-sex couple will have a greater benefit because the will be able to provide for their families and not have to worry about who will be able to protect them. Something will be able to be negotiated so that everyone can find a place that they are happy with.

Not all states have a ban on same-sex marriage. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont all have given the freedom to same-sex couples to marry. Oregon, Washington, Nevada and California have a made a substitute for marriage called a civil union. This gives the couple all the benefits but not the title of marriage. Rahm Emanuel said "I believe that gay and lesbians should be allowed to get married. That's why I thought civil unions are the right thing to do, but it is only the first step toward an ultimate goal" (Rahm Emanuel, 2010). Some of the state where you can get married there are restrictions. One of these restrictions is that you have to be a resident of that state. If these states are letting same-sex couples marry than why can't the rest of the states follow. Most same-sex couples would be ok with civil unions. By having a civil union they are recognized as a couple and they are able to have the benefits like heterosexual couples have.

As a human we all have rights to love whom we want to love. No one should be able to say that homosexuals should not be able to be married. I believe with my whole heart that if someone truly loves someone no matter who they are they should be able to marry that person. Bill Clinton once said "I think if people what to make a commitment that last a lifetime than they should be able to do it" (Bill Clinton, 2009) Marriage is not just a piece of paper to a couple that loves each other; it is something that says that I will forever love you and I will always have you best interest with everything I do. I will not look at a heterosexual couple and tell them that they cannot get married for whatever reason. How can someone sit there and deny two people that love each other a life of completely having each other. Who really has that right to say which people can marry and which cannot?

Some people think that if gay marriage is legalized that the divorce rate will change. I do believe that the divorce rate will change but that is only because they will be adding a whole other social group into marriage. No relationship is perfect, not a homosexual or a heterosexual. What I don't believe is that it will change heterosexual divorce rate. Heterosexual divorce rate is high already without homosexuals included. They are saying that it will continue to climb. I just don't see that happening just because of same sex marriage. For example, if I was married to my partner and we lived next door to you, it would not affect whether or not you and your other half had a healthy relationship or not. The only reason I can see that you have a unhealthy relationship because of us (your gay neighbors) is that you two were talking about the way you felt about us living next door and one of you did not mind it. People cannot blame gay people for things going wrong in their own life just because they are insecure with the homosexual life style. That does not mean that the gay community wants anything bad to happen to heterosexuals, same sex couples just want to be able to provide for their families like heterosexuals do.

People, in general think that homosexuality is something that a person can change. How can we be happy with marring someone we have no attraction to? That's like asking a heterosexual person to marry a homosexual because it is the only way they can get married. In a Vermont public hearing they said that "Gay people are free to marry just like everyone else, as long as they marry a member of the opposite sex" (Vermont Judiciary Hearing, 2000). How can these words even come out of some ones mouth? We are fighting for the right to marry who we want, not who society wants us to marry.

Same-Sex marriage in the Christian community is forbidden. Most Christians think that it is going against the bible to be in a same-sex relationship. Their main argument is that marriage is the passage to bear children. If Christians are saying that child bearing should stop marriage for same-sex couples than maybe they should stop marriage of heterosexual couples that cannot have children naturally. There are many people in this