Love is Love

An essay on gay marriage.

           Everyone deserves the right to marry the person they want to spend the rest of their life with. Everyone agrees with this, until someone says that people of the same gender should be able to get married. Why the sudden change of heart on the subject? Is it fear? Is it hatred? Maybe it is. But for the most part, it is a lack of understanding or mistaken assumptions. If people would sit down and listen to the facts, there would be fewer false assumptions and more truth and knowledge.

            One of the most important things a person should understand is the meaning of marriage. Marriage actually has two meanings, a civil, legal status and a religious or social status. There are 1,138 federal laws that only apply to married couples. There are also 150 to 350 laws at a state level that only effect married people, the amount varying from state to state (Demian, 2009 p.1). State issued civil marriage licenses have nothing to do with any religion. People believe that legalizing gay marriage would force churches to hold ceremonies for gays regardless of the church’s belief. That idea is completely ridiculous, considering that not only is there a separation of church and state, but churches can already deny to marry heterosexual couples that they do not want to be married in their church. There are many different religions that support gay marriage and have no problem with performing marriage ceremonies for gays, even in states where gay marriage is not legalized. Some of these religious groups include Unitarian Univeralists, Quakers, Buddhists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and many others (Demian, 2009, p.1). Also, a religious ceremony is an option for getting married, not a necessary part. Gays are viewed as promiscuous, unfaithful, and unable to commit to one partner. But aren’t there straight people who are the exact same way? Yes, it is true that many gays are promiscuous in their youth, but there are just as many straight people who are the same way. As they grow up, most people, regardless of their sexuality, want to settle down with someone they love and cherish for the rest of their lives. If society says that this is wrong, then they are also invalidating straight marriage, an act between two people who wish to spend the rest of their lives together. The only difference is the gender of the two people being married.

            Many people believe that marriage has been the same forever and has never been anything other than the uniting of one man and one woman who love each other. If one takes a look back in history, this is completely wrong. In the past, women were treated as possessions, first by their fathers to use as a bargaining chip to gain favor with another person, then by their husband as a person to do all the housework and bear children. Marriage had nothing to do with love at all, and women would be married off to men three times their age with no say in the matter at all. Today, women would not only balk at this idea, they would protest and march in the streets, because women now have that right. It also used to be that people of different races could not be married, that a black man and a white woman getting married was an abomination. In fact, it was only quite recently that people have finally accepted the notion, and there are still people who strongly disagree with it. In fact, the argument that marriage is a traditionally heterosexual institution is one of the weakest arguments against gay marriage (Bidstrup, 2009, p.1). Why? Because up until the end of the 19^th century, slavery was a traditional and widely accepted institution, but now it is not only frowned upon, but illegal.

            Many people argue that marriage is for procreation. But if that is true, then couples that want to get married after they are too old to have children should not be able to. And infertile couples should also be banned from marriage as well, because they are incapable of producing children. But this is not the case. Couples that cannot have children are married every day without another thought. Before anyone can use this argument, then they must first force all couples that cannot have children to retract their vows or get a divorce.

            There are many other arguments against gay marriage, each as refutable as the rest. If no convincing arguments can be made, and all that is stopping two people from legally spending the rest of their lives together is the prejudice and ignorance of people who refuse to listen to the facts, why are people who love each other deeply not allowed to be married? Discrimination and hatred are wrong. Love knows no boundaries. Love does not care if the two people are different races. Love does not care if the two people are the same gender. Love does not care how different people’s social background is. Love is blind to differences and similarities. There is only one truth that people should never forget: Love is love.

References

Bidstrup, Scott (2009, June 3). Gay marriage, the arguments and the motives. Retrieved December 4, 2009, from http://www.bidstrup.com/marriage.htm

 

Demian. (2009, May 21). Legal marriage primer. Retrieved December 4, 2009, from http://buddybuddy.com/mar-prim.html

Author's Note

This is an old assignment from my English Composition class I took in the fall of 2009. I really liked it and am pretty happy with the way it worked out.