2008.05.17
Gay Marriage… Again
The California Supreme Court just ruled that homosexuals have the same right to marry as straight couples. This has, naturally, led to passionate reactions from both sides of the proverbial aisle. Personally, I am for gay marriage. I believe in the expansion of rights granted by our many Constitutions, within reason, not the limitation of rights. So I won’t go too much into the reasons why I support this decision but rather into the reasons why some people are against it.
1: Same sex marriage will ruin the institution. This is patently false. I think we straight people have managed that all on our own. My own parents are still married, but nearly all off my friend’s parents are divorced. At one point over 50% of all marriages ended in divorce. If marriage is a pact for life, it has obviously failed.
2: Marriage is an institution to raise children within. Really? What about couples who don’t want to have children? What about couples that do have children and physically or sexually abuse those children? Who’s to say that gay couples couldn’t raise children just as well as any kind, loving straight couple? Besides, domestic partners can already adopt, so gay couples can already raise children.
3: This ruling goes against the will of the people. I can’t argue this one terribly hard except to say that often the will of the people is often wrong. For example, slavery, racial equality, religious equality, gun ownership, various forms of taxation, etc. I hate to bring up the Nazis because they are the worst, most extreme example and people hate reading about them when they justify someone else’s position, but the Nazi party did have the overwhelming support of the German people in their day. They were wrong.
If we ban same sex marriage, what’s next? Should we ban it for non-Christians, too? Should we ban certain types of convicts from being able to marry for fear that their criminal ways will ruin the idea of marriage? Should we ban marriage altogether as a violation of blending church and state?
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3 Responses to “Gay Marriage… Again”
- Mookee says (May 17th, 2008 at 18:56:18 )
Maybe we should ban marriage for convicts … bald people too.
- Nob Hill Ken says (May 17th, 2008 at 23:01:50 )
As a gay man who is a (somewhat diehard) romantic, a monogamist and a taxpayer, the right to civil marriage is of paramount importance to me, both pragmatically and idealistically.
Reading your post made for quite the happy ending to an otherwise mostly exhausting week.
Thanks, man.
- douglas says (May 18th, 2008 at 00:26:46 )
Maybe bald people should be considered convicts? That would take care of a number of issues all around.
