Personal, Local or National Issue IT's Unbelievable!

Personal, Local or National Issue It's unbelievable!" Janice said to my mom. "My partner needs surgery; she can't afford to wait or her condition will worsen. Yet the company I have worked for almost twenty years won't include her in my medical plan because we're both female. It's ridiculous!" My mom shook her head with disbelief and sympathy. "I know. As soon as it seems like this culture is progressing and becoming more enlightened, we see every day on the news people who oppose the most basic of human rights.

We are supposed to be a country promoting 'liberty and justice for all!" chewed my food in silence, listening to every word of this conversation. The issue of same-sex marriages has been in the news a lot lately, especially since the state of Massachusetts recently became the first place where gay couples could legally wed. In other places, homosexual partners could only perform symbolic ceremonies of union. The difference with proffering legal status on these unions rests with what Janice was talking to my mom about.

When a marriage is recognized by law, partners receive all the coincident legal benefits, including being included on the spouse's medical plan. Taxes, immigration laws, and other institutions are also affected by marriage. Marriage is therefore more than just a romantic ceremony; it is also a legal contract with legal implications. I don't believe that all persons who oppose same-sex marriages are hate-filled or even ignorant. They simply cling to the belief that marriage is defined by a heterosexual union and that the state should support that definition.

Most of these beliefs are founded on religious tenets, for in many world religions, homosexuality is taboo, viewed as a sin. Those beliefs are fine for those who hold them but legislation should never be influenced by religious beliefs. Legislation is rooted, however, in ethics and morality. I would challenge anyone to prove that homosexual marriage poses a moral problem. Infusing religion into the law is dangerous in a secular society such as ours.

A narrow definition of marriage as only union between man and woman should be confined to the church; these are opinions that should not be translated into law. Morality has nothing at all to do with this issue. The notion that homosexual marriage is immoral or dangerous for children is preposterous and defies all logic. Same-sex unions are substantively no different from heterosexual unions.

Those who say that children of homosexual parents will be psychologically damaged have only their own prejudices to blame, for the only reason why the children of homosexual parents would suffer psychological trauma is by taunting and teasing from ignorant classmates, teachers, or other parents. Denying gay couples the right to marry is like barring blacks from public schools or restrooms. In the same vain, any worldview that denies same-sex couples the right to legally wed is fundamentally based in bias, prejudice, and in some cases, even hatred.

The United States has responded to many similar situations in the past, altering our laws and in some cases, our constitution, to ensure liberty and promote a more enlightened society. Legal marriage must be extended to same-sex couples for the same reasons why legal rights were eventually extended to African-Americans, who at one time were forced to sit on the back of the bus and drink from different water fountains from their white counterparts. When Jim Crow laws were in effect, many white people believed.