I Now Pronounce You Husband and Husband!

Marriage, what does this word mean? Why is it so important to people? Is marriage a heterosexual privilege or a human right? If a women were to become a transgender male and marry a woman would that be legal? If a male was to become a transgender male and marry a transgender women, would that be legal? I know all this seems somewhat random, but take a minute to think about it.

According to dictionary.com, Marriage is “the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.”, which means that if you are gay or lesbian you are not included. This creates an image that only heterosexuality is right but there is no right or wrong way to love. So is marriage a heterosexual privilege or a human right?

The lesbian and gay population is rising in America with 7.2 million gays and lesbians under the age of 20; (Statistics) yet same-sex marriage is still illegal in over fifty percent of the United States. Denying gay rights is a problem because it is a form of discrimination. In the same sense, denying two people of the same-sex to get married is similar to denying two people of different races, which is clearly discrimination. The closest thing that same-sex couples have to marriage is “civil union.” “A civil union a civil status similar to marriage created for the purposes of allowing same-sex couples the benefits enjoyed by married heterosexuals”( Civil Union). People may ask why isn’t that good enough? It’s not good enough because it’s not the same thing as marriage!

A major problem with denying homosexuals marriage is that they don’t receive those same benefits as a heterosexual couple does. There are an estimated 1,400 legal marriage benefits which include, joint parenting, joint adoption, joint foster care, custody, and visitation (including non-biological parents), status as next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions where one partner is too ill to be competent, joint insurance policies for home, auto and health, dissolution and divorce protections such as community property and child support, immigration and residency for partners from other countries, inheritance automatically in the absence of a will, joint leases with automatic renewal rights in the event one partner dies or leaves the house or apartment, inheritance of jointly-owned real and personal property through the right of survivorship (which avoids the time and expense and taxes in probate), benefits such as annuities, pension plans, Social Security, and Medicare, spousal exemptions to property tax increases upon the death of one partner who is a co-owner of the home, veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans; joint filing of tax returns, joint filing of customs claims when traveling, wrongful death benefits for a surviving partner and children, bereavement or sick leave to care for a partner or child, decision-making power with respect to whether a deceased partner will be cremated or not and where to bury him or her, crime victims' recovery benefits, loss of consortium tort benefits, domestic violence protection orders, judicial protections and evidentiary immunity, and many more.( Robison, B.A.)

The bible plays a major factor in why gay and lesbian marriage isn’t recognized. There are there mentions of homosexuality in the bible which are, “Leviticus 18: 21-22, 'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molech, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. "'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” The second is, Leviticus 20: 13, “'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” And the third is Roman 1: 26-27, “For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error” (What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality?) the bible is irrelevant because the bible is not our law. If the bible was the law that we abided by then adulteress would be killed, drinkers would be sent to jail and every other sin that’s legal would have a more severe punishment, also covertly forcing Christianity as a belief when America is “a free country”.

The problem is that the bylaws of a “Civil Union” aren’t the same in every state; hence if these couples were to move out of that state into another state that doesn’t allow same-sex marriage then their “civil union” is void. In Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Vermont have the DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) which was signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. This gives same sex couples the same benefits as a marriage couple. California, Maine, Oregon, Hawaii, Washington and the District of Columbia follow domestic partnership laws. Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal. (What Is a Civil Union?”)

The effect of this is inconsistency. This limits gays and lesbians to where they can live, only having twelve states to choose from out of the fifty doesn’t seem fair! The cause’s homosexual marriage not being legalized throughout the whole United States aren’t really the worst. Homosexual people just won’t be able to get married which is the same result that we have if this problem is ignored. Same-sex marriage is always a major factor in politics, it’s a question that’s always asked if the president is for gay rights or against them. But nothing is ever done to make the situation better. People have the right to the purist of happiness and marriage is part of that happiness.

This problem needs to be solved because its only right to give people equality isn’t that what America is all about? I think that if every state had the same marriage laws for all people gays, straights, or whatever then the United States would be a better place. Majority of other countries such as Canada and Spain allow homosexuals to get married. Same sex marriage should not be ignored and people should unite and stand up for what’s right. Same sex marriage isn’t harming anyone but not allowing it is.

My solution for this would be to have a federal bill that is identical to the marriage bill but only for gays and lesbians. That way there would be no problem at all with moving from state to state and the marriage being recognized, gays and lesbians would receive all of the same health and financial benefit and everything else that comes along with marriage. If the government still wants to call it a “civil union” that’s fine just make the civil union equal to marriage and I don’t see any more problems with this topic in the future. This would then eliminate the problems with the bible controversy the ability to publicly celebrate there partnership and overall significantly decrees homophobic discrimination. There would be no if, ands or buts to this law because it would be identical to the regular marriage law across the would United States of America. Same-sex couples would have to abide by the same laws for divorce also. There would be no bias in the court rooms and everything would be handled as if they were two people of different sexes. I feel that this solution is the fairest of all other solutions. Some recent accomplishments of same-sex marriage are, “in 2008 when the California court system announced that until further notice, the State of California would recognize gay marriages within its borders.”( Brackett, K.P)

In conclusion, love is love no matter if it is between a man and a woman, man and man or a woman and a woman. Marriage should be allowed for homosexuals because they are humans just like everyone else and deserve the right to marry and the right to be entitled to the marriage benefits just as heterosexual couples would be. Although the bible says that homosexuality is a sin, so is everything else people do such as lying, cheating, and stealing and other sins. No sin is greater than the other. Everyone in the United States is not a Christian. The United States is supposed to be land of freedom, opportunity, and land where you can chose your own religion and follow their standards of living; yet homosexual marriage is based on the Christian bible. It’s unfair to deny a person the right to marry and this law should be changed immediately. If the government is going to base homosexuality and its marriage on the bible then everything the bible states should be strictly enforced. What is the government getting out of not letting two people who love one another get married? There are bigger issues that need to be faced; yet people are quick to make homosexuality obsolete before it’s even legal

It Gets Better:

Same-Sex Marriage

The book “Battleground: The Family”, which was published in 2008, includes a chapter on “Same- Sex Marriage”. In this chapter of the book the author Jeffery Jones first explains what same sex marriage is and what the definition of marriage is. Then Jones explains that marriage was defined as a union between a male and female in hopes of them starting a family. He gives historic firsts and prominent cases that happened in different states such as Minnesota, Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia and Hawaii. Most of these cases are instances where gay couples file for marriage but are later on denied the right to marry for a numerous reasons. He explains the DOMA which is the Defense of Marriage Act and ends with recent accomplishments of gays and future directions.
I chose this eBook because it gives me a lot of information that I need for my topic. The historic first and prominent cases was what I found to be the most interesting and most helpful for my paper. The book was also interesting to read. The author also gives other references to sources that he used which will be helpful to me when I write my paper.

After fall of Dont Ask, Pushing for I Do

This article “After fall of “Don’t Ask”, Pushing for “I Do”, was written by Sheryl Gay Stoleburg and published: December 20, 2010 in the New York Times. Basically this article summarizes the affect of gay and lesbian rights in politics and how it affects the different politician’s votes. The first part of the article talks about senator Jesse Helms who spoke against a Bill Clinton nominee who was a lesbian. Next the author explains how the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy in the military came about with Bill Clinton. An interesting fact was that fewer than half of all Americans support gay marriage which makes it difficult for politicians to speak on it.

This article would be useful to me because it gives me some statistics to compare and useful information that I could use in my paper. I chose this article because it was interesting to me. I found a few things to be a surprise to me but for the most part the article was informative and helpful. It gave real life examples of how gay and lesbian people are treated and how they affect politics and other things such as entertainment.

G.L.A.D.

"Protection of Transgender State Employees" was written on Febuary 17th. In this article it explains how Governor Deval Patrick signed an Executive Order which probibits discrimination based on gender identity and expression in state employment. Its also a way to try and prevent hate crimes towards gays, bisexuals, lesbians and transgender people. This Executive Order applies to all state agencies in the Executive Branch. I choose this articel because its interesting and also a current event. It shows the progression that the United States is making.

What I learned from this article was the whole United States isnt going to become "pro gay" over night. It takes small steps and fearless people to make things happen and this was a perfect example of what it takes to eventually have equality for everyone.

.com source

"Points in Defense of Gay Marriage" was created by Leah Moore, a student at Washington College in Virgina after research on the subject of legalization of gay marraige. Posted on April 21st 2001. Leah Moore provides numerous arguments in the defense of gay marriage. She explains that the rights that where written in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence do not provide constitutional basis for denying same sex marriage. She also gives responses to anti- gay marriage arguments which will be extremely helpful when writing my paper. What I found most interesting was the granting of the “civil union”. The civil union affords same-sex couples all the right and privileges of married couples. But because it’s not called marriage it basically gives gays a second class status similar to the Brown vs. The Board of Education Supreme Court Case meaning separate but equal.

I chose this article because it provides me with strong points in my defense of gay marriage. Not only did Moore give arguments for pro gay marriage, but also against gay marriage and defended it. It’s also other links at the end of the article that give more information about my topic.

Gay Marriage

Working with Blogger is very easy. You can bold, italicize, and underline text, and also insert links, images, and video with just a couple of clicks.