Unhinging the door on the gateway to economical, moral and social

progress
Imagine for a moment your at a pinnacle stage in your life... You are on top of your
career, student loans and all other debts have been paid off and luckily enough your also
deeply in love within a long term relationship thats spanned the last 5 years. The time
has come in which youve waited for since preschool and prepared for your whole life;
Your ready to get married and start your own family. Although there is one major
roadblock. See the problem is your significant other happens to be a member of the
same-sex and homosexual marriage is banned within your state. Thats right your
essentially prevented from marrying simply because of the likeness of your gender. Within
this paper I will explain the reasons the reasons preventing gay marriage are
unconstitutional and discriminatory, how the legalization of gay marriage would bring with
it a myriad of social&economic benefits, and also dismantle the leading arguments of the
opposers of gay marriage. I will bring evidence backing each of these claims and leave it
to you the reader to make your own decision. Beginning with the current ban's on gay
marriage across the nation being contradictory to civil rights within our country as well as
our national constitution.
From the time the Puritans, driven by the motivation of religious freedom and
escaping persecution first settled our country to a man that had a dream, our country has
been a leading foot in the race to equal rights and treatment. We pride ourselves on being
a nation were everyone can get a fair shake regardless of gender, age, social class, and
can allowed to do whatever one wishes as long as its not in conflict with the rights of
another. Believe in this idea so much that we even condition it into the minds of or
children by having them recite a pledge that emphasizes patriotism, justice and liberty
summed up with the phrase With Liberty and Justice for All. Lets look at the word
Justice, which by definition means Just behavior or treatment-Webster Dictionary and is
synonymous with the word fairness. To anyone who disagrees with this claim of the
restriction of marriage to heterosexual couples I ask you this imagine two socially identical
people both outstanding law abiding and tax paying citizens who are employed as
University professors both highly respected in their field and both having enriched the
minds of hundreds of students helping to create a educated and skilled work force within
our country. The only difference between these two being their sexual orientation; one
hetero the other homosexual. Now explain to me how it is fair and just to allow one of
them to legally marry while barring the other. This is also the same point that defeats the
idea of a Civil union as a solution. A few months ago I myself was a proponent of civil
unions. I thought of them as the middle ground in this debate, the great compromise, this
I have found to be false as you cannot give equal legal rights to something but then label
it something else. It has a demoting effect I would liken to that of labeling something a
generic. Even though generics are required to contain the same active ingredients of
brand names they are not allowed to share the same name of their brand name counter
parts and as such are often thought of as inferior in comparison. This I anticipate a large
deal of you will retort the following with the objection that redefining the institution of
marriage is unfair to the large Christian population within this country.
Marriage is a secular institution and as such by definition and nature is separate from
religious restrictions. Some would argue that traditional marriage is between a man and a
woman and it has been that way for years. This is simply untrue. In the fact the contrary is
true marriage has been constantly redefined throughout history. Here in the US people of
were only recently within the last 50-60 years granted the right to marry outside of there
own race with the 1967 US Supreme courts decision to allow interracial marriage. The
bible makes mentions of expectations of people to marry their brothers widow, victims of
rape to marry their rapist and the transformation of woman as individuals into property of
their husbands at the time of matrimony. So as you can see the definition of Traditional
Marriage has changed with the ideas of the people of the time. Given these facts the
arguments of redefinition and traditional marriage are invalidated. Now that weve looked
at the institution of marriage and its definitions and change in response to social factors of
the time lets take a look at the social and economic ramification that would come along
with the legalization of gay marriage.
Many argue that the legalizing of gay marriage would have a negative impact
social namely on the academic and personal development of the children of same sex
couples. There is no research or empirical evidence to support this claim. However it has
been shown that the children of lesbian mothers have developed more quickly
academically then there peers with heterosexual parents. On the male side, again there
has been no evidence indicative of the academic, ethical or any other developmental
inferiority within the children of two males when compared to their peers and according to
a study these children seem to be equal to their peers of heterosexual parents. From
these available facts one can conclude that having gay parents instead of straight will
have no negative effect on a child and may actually place them ahead in terms of
academic development . Considering this lets take a look some of the positive social
effects of allowing same sex couples to marry. It would improve the mental, emotional,
and physical health of people within the gay population across the country resulting in a
national decrease in health care costs according to this study Hatzenbuehler , Mark L..
"Effect of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Health Care Use and Expenditures in Sexual
Minority Men: A Quasi-Natural Experiment." <i></i>. Am J Public Health., 1 Feb. 2012.
Web. . &lt;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484969/&gt;. The health care
benefits alone would result in atleast a 10% reduction in the amount of homosexual men
and woman admitted for hospital care. On the financial side of things according to a think
tank study performed by the Williams Institute at University of California, Los Angeles
School of Law the legalization of gay marriage would bring in upwards of $500 Million
dollars in state revenue. Theres no denying that with that sort of consumer spending gay
marriage would bolster the economy of every state.
In summary I began my research within this topic an opponent of gay marriage as I
thought it violated the religious rights of Christians within the state but have since realized
through the mining and reflection of research that changing to allow gays equal rights in
marriage isnt discriminatory towards Christian beliefs but actually the opposite would be
discriminatory of equal rights within this country. Marriage is not an institution of religion, it
is secular and has changed throughout history to fit the needs of the people. Gay
marriage has proven benefits to society both social and economical and it is in direct
contradiction of the trajectory of our beloved countries constitution and quest for equal
rights, freedom and justice to deny these people the right to legally enter into the realm of
marriage and therefore immoral and un-American to do so. Support legalizing gay
marriage and support the moral, social and economical progress of our country.