thisnthatwithatwist

            So should gay people have equal rights to marry? San Francisco Archbishop William Levada said that if marriage went “beyond a union of a man and a women, their procreative capacity and their establishment of family represents a misguided understanding of marriage itself.” (National News) When a couple marries they have to be open to the idea of children so many would say that since a gay couple cannot procreate naturally, that they should not be allowed to marry, however just because they cannot procreate does not mean that they are incapable of raising and loving a child. Many people criticize this new type of family, “same sex parents with kids from divorce, adoption, or artificial insemination.” (Remaking the American family); but long before these practices were being scrutinized for their use by homosexual couples, they were applauded for allowing couples that were unable to conceive naturally to become parents.

            The opposite view is that a ban on gay marriage is just another way to take away Human Dignity. “The ban is simply about prejudice… much like the state laws barring interracial marriage, which lasted until 1967, when the Supreme Court struck them down in Loving v. Virginia” (New York Times).   I do not know that I would go that far but I do agree that the ban is unfair because keeping gay people from marrying also denies them many rights that we as straight people take for granted.  When a straight person finds the person that he or she wants to share his or her life with he or she can get married and the second that marriage certificate is signed, those two people are given a wealth of rights. You might wonder exactly how many rights I am talking about, 10 or maybe 30, perhaps even 100 but according to many famous activists- including Melissa Ethridge, Sir Elton John, and Sir Ian McKlenlan- the total number of marriage rights that homosexual couples are denied is 1138!!! Even people in a “common law marriage” are given them. Gay people do not have that privilege. A straight person never has to worry that if his or her spouse gets ill, the hospital will not let he or she stay or that he or she is not covered by their partner’s insurance. Straight people also never have to worry that because there is no legally binding certificate of their love, that upon the death of their lover they have nothing. However gay couples must be conscience of these issues everyday, knowing that they have to work extra hard, always take the extra step, just to prove that they love each other.

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