I have a question about same-sex marriage?

Question

I'm doing a project for my social work class, and the topic is same-sex marriage. I want to know how all of you feel about same-sex marriage. would you prefer legal unions instead of marriage? any feedback on the same-sex marriage topic would be great. Also, if you know any websites that have tons of info on this...please post it. Thanks so much in advance. Have a great Day!

Answer 1

you may be able to find information about this at the human rights campaign website, i think it's hrc.org. this is the organization that is fighting for equal rights for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people. as for my personal opinion, i believe that marriage should be legal for any consenting adults, regardless of gender.

Answer 2

I have no problem with it at all. There is no logical reason to deny them the right. The only reasons I have ever heard anyone give were religious ones, and they aren't very compelling, especially if you aren't religious.

Personally, I think it should be set up so that everyone, straight or gay, should have to go to the state and get a civil union (which gives you the tax breaks, community property, etc.), and that if you belong to a religion and want them to recognize it, then you can go your church and have a religious wedding. I'm married, but I'm an atheist so we were married by a judge. For all intents and purposes, my wife and I have a civil union, since marriage is really a religious term.

Answer 3

Like a previous poster said, marriage is at its heart nothing more than a civil contract. As long as two parties possess the capacity to consent to the contract, do so mutually of their free will and the contract is not for an illegal purpose, the government has no business preventing them from entering the contract and would in fact be acting unlawfully itself in doing so.

Given that homosexuality is not illegal, a stance advocating that the government prohibit gay marriage is just wrong. Period.

I support gay marriage. I simply cannot understand how people opposing it cannot grasp that promoting monogamy, stability and harmonious relationships among ALL of our citizens, gay or straight, would be of far greater benefit to our society than detriment.

In fact, I cannot think of a single valid detriment at all. Homosexual unions exist and will continue to do so, whether we allow them under the color of law or not. The people who oppose gay marriage because it offends them merely desire to delude themselves that if they can't see it, it must not go on.

And finding a behavior or orientation distasteful, without any further showing of actual harm, is a wholly inadequate basis upon which to deny an entire class of human beings their basic civil rights.

Besides, the handwriting is already on the wall. Opponents of gay marriage have already lost the battle, and it's only a matter of time before gay marriage is legal nationwide.

It's an exercise in futility for them and they would really be better off not wasting their efforts on a lost cause, but since when did most people exercise common sense anyway?

Answer 4

Most folks who are pro same sex marriage want the civil right to be married by a judge.

Most folks who are anti same sex marriage say it is against God/Allah's will.

My preference is to allow homo couples to get married by a judge but don't force/require religious institutions to conduct marriages.

Civil Unions are not universally recognized and also do not provide all the benefits/pitfalls of marriage.

Answer 5

One of the big challenges in the discussion of same-sex marriage is the word "marriage" itself. For most people in the United States today "marriage" is inseparably linked to their faith. For the sake of illustration, consider two engaged heterosexual couples who wish to marry today. One couple arranges a beautifully elaborate church ceremony (the "wedding") before hundreds of family and friends, but fails to get a marriage license. The other couple gets their marriage license at the courthouse and appear before a justice of the peace in a brief ceremony with only a few witnesses who are otherwise strangers to them. In the eyes of the law, which of these couples is actually married? The ones with the marriage certificate document. For the purposes of receiving the legal benefits associated with marriage, following the law is the crucial aspect.

There is no doubt that religious leaders have been performing ceremonies for centuries to bless the union of two people, wishing them prosperity, fertility, joy and long life. But beginning as far back as ancient Rome, the *laws* of marriage were created for a different, specific, parallel purpose. For centuries the primary purpose of marriage law was the preservation and consolidation of property and wealth. This explains why the poor didn't bother to be legally married only until very recently in historical terms. The poor don't have property to preserve. Certainly they might seek the blessing of a member of the clergy but they neither desired nor could afford the legal luxury of "marriage". It also explains why marriages were arranged between families for hundreds of years. The couple's feeling for one another were irrelevent, marriage law was the means of maintaining a clear path of property and inheritance.

Folks need to take care when suggesting that we need to return to "traditional" marriage. As recently as 1927 it was illegal in parts of the United States for a woman to own propery, not even her own home if her husband were to die and leave her a widow. Women had no ownership rights. Within living memory, the same folks who argue so strenuously against same-sex marriage today were espousing virtually the same arguments against racially mixed marriages. The farther back one looks for the source of the modern concept of marriage, the less that law and society resemble the romantic vision that is so common today.

Remember that marriage did not even become a sacrament for the Christian church until the 12th and 13th centuries. Does that mean that those who couldn't afford the "marriage certificate" (as it were), or those who had never had reason to pursue it were less of a couple? Of course not. The cultural and social structures in which they lived provided an obvious separation for them between their personal union and the laws of propery. About the time of the Renaissance the historically separate paths of church blessing and marriage law begin to converge. As time goes on, the different aspects of legal relationship, church sacrament and romantic love merge closer and closer together until we end up where we are today with the idea of love as the primary motivation for the "marriage" and the "wedding" for many. With regard to same-sex marriage, it must be clear that it is the legal relationship that is the topic of discussion. Gay and lesbian couples seek to remove the discrimination in law that prevents their committed relationship from having the same partner benfits as a heterosexual marriage.

Answer 6

I feel that a same sex joining should be called a marriage, not only because it helps describe the love two people have for each other, but there are a lot of privileges to being married, taxes, estates, health insurance, etc. A civil union does not give us these perks, so to speak. It's a partial victory, but it's still not equal to being married.

Answer 7

Civil unions for all - Same and opposite sex couples obtain a license from the government, their contract with the government, that grants ALL benefits equally to every couple.

Marriage - a religious ceremony that has no legal standing, but holds religious signifigance to the couple.

A couple may obtain one without the other, but without that license there will be no perks.

Answer 8

There are currently over 1000 rights that are afforded to straight married couples that are denied to same sex couples. Most of us in the GLBT Activist community see civil unions as a sort of half victory...certainly better than nothing but not as good as the full rights and privileges of actual marriage. If you want more information, www.hrc.org is a good place to start.

Answer 9

A marriage is nothing more than a contract. Legal unions are the same thing. With marriage or legal unions one party is the sole beneficiary of the others property and material goods. One party shares the others ups and downs, legally and financially. It has nothing to do with God or what he wants it has to do with the laws of the land which are separate from the laws of God.

Answer 10

I'm for it. It should be legal. For me personally, I would want whatever it is called when straight people get married by a civil celebrant because I'm not religious and wouldn't want to get married in a church obviously. But as far as I know that's called marriage. Anyway, all types of marriage need to be legal, including religious ceremonies for the religious gays out there. That's equality and equality is supposed to be a cornerstone of our society and cultural values. And please, no religious arguments, separation of church and state means religious arguments aren't valid arguments when it comes to lawmaking.
Some reasons for gay marriage to be legal are:
1) Children of gay couples have less rights than children of straight couples because family laws don't adequately cover de factos and same sex couples
2) Under current laws if I fall in love I can get married, as long as it's to a man. I can't marry the person of my choice. The government thinks I am capable of having a loving, mature relationship (because it's legal for me to marry) but won't let me marry the person I want to have that relationship with
3) Supporting people who are trying to have loving, monogamous relationships is good for the structure of society and for family stability
4) Various financial reasons- get details from someone smarter than me
5) Only a spouse or family member has a say in medical procedures when a person is incapacitated. Sometimes a de facto partner isn't even allowed to visit if the patient is in a critical condition
6) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to marry and have a family. This means EVERYBODY not just straight people. See here for details: http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-udhr-eng

There would be more I'm sure but those are the big ones I can think of. This website has the main arguments against gay marriage and brief reasons why they don't make sense:
http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2004/11/gay-marriage-arguments.html

**EDIT** To clarify, when I say religious ceremonies should be legal I mean there should be no law against them. Then churches that support gay marriages can perform religious ceremonies for gay couples that want them. I DON'T mean that every church and minister should be forced to perform them even if it's against their beliefs.

Answer 11

I used to be an atheist, and I didn't know a whole lot about religion, I assumed that the bible said that "gays were bad". Because of that, I believed that the religious people could keep their "marriage" and just give us equal rights, call it whatever, as long as it's equal rights. However, after doing my own research, and becoming a Christian, I've decided that we should still be allowed equal rights. We should all be allowed to get married. That's equality.