This Blog a requirement for Urban Lobbying II- Politics and the Media and is written by Dennis Beyer
I'm in a Urban Lobbying class in school, so a lot of my subjects are likely to stem from things that are discussed in class or pop into mind during presentations. One of the papers we had to write was an op-ed peice. Just writing your opinion on what you think is one of the most important political issues today. I wrote about same-sex marriage, here's the gist of the paper.
To say that people of the same sex can't marry one another is the same as telling people that are of opposite sexes can't in my opinion. We don't have any influnce over who people fall in love with, so why would we be able to tell them who they are allowed to stand in front of their loved ones and one another and profess that they plan to spend the rest of their lives together? Lots of people site the moral implications, that it's just wrong to marry someone that is the same sex as you. When asked who decides that it's immoral a lot of people would quote something like religion. My answer to that is we want religion to have no place in our government, if that is to be the case it's not even marriage, it's a civil union, and sice religion has no place in our government the moral aspect of the argument looses a lot of it's influence.
I also tend to think that our nation seems to see itself as a beacon on the hill, the example of what the world should be like. When people are truly free, wouldn't they be free to marry whoever they choose? There are other nations out there that allow civil unions of people of the same sex that we are supposed to be better than. What kind of message does that send?
I'm not a homosexual, but if I can marry whoever I want then I shouldn't be able to tell someone else who they can or can't marry. In the end love is love, who am I to define it?
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3 comments:
One of the main arguments against gay marriage is that it ruins the sanctity of the holy union between a man and a woman. If one believes this, he most likely also believes that homosexuality is sinful business. Legally documenting the marriage becomes just a hoop to jump through in the process of being united under God and in his eyes. The legality of the marriage, therefore, serves no bearing in religious or moral matters. That said, if homosexuality is so sinful, how then could a homosexual marriage, by legal standards, derogate the holiness of a male and female marriage from its' sanctity if it were never condoned by God in the first place? The only way it could do so is if the marriage were to take place in the church and by a man of the cloth. This then, would be cause for argument and protest to arise, not to the legal system, but to the church that held the wedding and the person who performed it.
That was kindof my point, if it's only a legal union, and I don't think that any religion is okay with homosexuality, then what place does the religious/moral argument have? None, and there are few other arguments that I've enccountered.
Marriage does not have to be a religious experience. One does not need to be married in church, or by a person of the cloth, to enjoy the legal rights conferred by marriage. If we remove the religious stigma associated with marriage, the issue of same sex-marriage becomes an issue of social acceptance. Marriage is no longer about procreation, but about the union of two consenting individuals. Once the procreation imperative vanishes, there is nothing to stop same-sex marriages.
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