Equality...
Uploaded by mansongothman on Nov 15, 2004
Same-sex-marriage, and whether or not it should be allowed to exist in the United States is a topic that has caught and held the attention of many people of many different walks of life, from the highest head of the executive branch, to the many blue-collar citizens going to and from work everyday. There are some who say that it should be completely outlawed, that gays and lesbians should be denied all monetary and social benefits that might go along with marriage. There are others who believe that same sex couples should be allowed civil unions, but not marriage, as this would protect what many call the sanctity of marriage, while still allowing the couple to receive equal benefits. Still others, who refuse to stop at partial equality, are fighting to gain full marriage rights for the gay and lesbian community. If all of the people, on each of these three sides to this debate, would, even if only for a moment, take time to think about the ideals and premises that this country was founded upon, it would not take long for them to realize that not only should same-sex unions be allowed, but also same-sex-marriages.
In order to prove the validity of an argument one must present both sides of the argument. This being the case, one of the larger arguments against same-sex-marriages is the belief that in a society that acknowledge homosexual behavior, more young people will be encouraged to experiment and more will be discouraged from overcoming homosexual desires (http://www.nogaymarriage.com/talkingpoints.html). When one looks at this statement with a critical eye, and contrasts this statement with the basic freedoms, such as religious tolerance and freedom from racial discrimination, that the oppressed of the world have fought so hard, and for so long to gain, one might see that this statement not only stands against the idea of equal rights, but is flagrantly flying in the face of concepts such a freedom and choice.
Another argument used by the opposition of same-sex-marriages is that sodomy, being defined as “Any of various forms of sexual intercourse held to be unnatural or abnormal…”(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sodomy), is illegal in some places. It has only been recently that 38 states laws have been repealed, the most recent being Texas (http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/26/scotus.sodomy/index.html). The last 13 states with sodomy laws are Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, which prohibit multiple forms of sex between same sex partners and these...