Country in the Recognition of Same Gender

¶ … country in the recognition of same gender marriages?

Not only will the legalization of gay marriage positively affect the institution of marriage, but it will show a strongly divided nation the way to find consensus in a very serious matter. Gay marriage has not always been on the agenda of those who advocated for the gay rights and therefore, when it finally came up, it was first dismissed as something beside the point.

Surprisingly for the twenty-first century, the American society today is still divided when it comes to the issue of legalizing gay marriage. Instead of looking at the benefits, many Americans would rather keep their negative view on the issue, hoping it will go away. This happens in an era when more and more people consider the issue as something that will be solved inevitably, sooner or later. What every American citizen should do is to ask him or herself why do homosexual people want to gain the same rights as heterosexual when it comes to marriage, too. What would America have to gain vs. what would America have to loose if millions of people who identify themselves as LGBT would be free to legally marry whomever they wanted? How would such a decision affect the rest of the world? If gay marriages were to become legal in all of the U.S., the American society as a whole would become stronger, it would send a message of trust to its citizens along with a positive message to the rest of the world. Human rights would gain a valuable point here.

According to some demographic surveys, there is an estimate of nine million Americans who identify themselves as LGBT, eight million of which are adults

(the Williams Institute). The history of legalizing civil same sex marriage in the U.S. has come a long way since 2004 when there was no U.S. state the recognized such unions. There are fourteen states and the DC that declare gay marriage legal now. According to Pew Research Center, there are over seventy thousand same-sex marriages in the U.S. today. There are thus seventy plus families that are recognized by the law, that have benefits and make their contribution to the American society.

Why do people want to get married in the first place and what benefits them from it? The answer is simple. They want to get recognition of their union, they want to get recognition within their families, they want to get the benefits a legally married couple has today in the U.S., they want to be able to adopt children, they want a social contract with all its consequences. LGBTs are contributors to the American society. Is only natural that they gain all the benefits all the rest of its contributors get.

A strongly politically divided country would have a reason to fight less on its agenda if same sex marriages would be generally legalized. If gay marriages were legal all over the country, politicians and voters alike would be able to focus on the issues that should concern this nation today. Reviving the economy, immigration, the state of public education and health care should be of interest to politicians instead of pulling the issue of gay marriage out of their drawers whenever they find it necessary to gain some more votes. If gay marriages were legal all over the U.S. today, politicians could never use it as leverage again.

Family is the basic unit that keeps society strong and steady. There is a whole different situation now when it comes to the attitude towards gay marriage from within the LGBT community, compared to how some portion of it used to look at it. Back in the 1970s, gay people did not seriously take into account the issue of same-sex marriages because they had to deal with fighting for other basic rights, such as the right to live freely and openly about their sexuality as members of this society with all the rights and obligations that came with it.

Those who oppose same sex marriages fear the institution of marriage would have to suffer if gay marriages were legal. They also think the children in a same-sex marriage would get the wrong values and be negatively influenced this way. This could not be further from the truth. There is no study that shows or research that proves that same sex marriages have ever endangered the sanctity of matrimony. Children raised by same sex couples are thus far proving to have similar levels of normality as children raised by heterosexuals.