SOC 103Same-Sex marriage some say that marriage is a sacred thing. Some think it's only words. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Why change the laws? What could possibly be the point? If one law is changed then people are going to try to argue more and more laws, and those will change to. Pretty soon there will be no laws. "The public meaning of marriage is not something that each new generation is free to redefine."(Stanton, 3) Same-sex marriage should be prohibited. Marriage is meant for reproduction. How can you reproduce if you're the same sex? There are laws on same-sex marriage. It has such a negative effect on children. It also affects society in so many different ways. In addition to all that, there are several physical and mental health risks if one is a homosexual.
States vary in the laws that they chose to have or not to have.
In the majority of states: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia (human rights campaign). "Conservative religious groups condemned the 2003 U.S. Supreme court decision as immoral, and by early in the twenty-first century, 37 states and the federal government had passed a "Defense of Marriage Act", which defined marriage as between "a man and a woman," and barred recognition of same-sex marriage from other states (Thomas, 43). Only one state allows same-sex marriage, and there is a reason for that! Not just anyone can get married. "You cannot marry if you're already married, you cannot marry a close relative, an adult cannot marry a child, you cannot marry your pet, and you cannot marry someone of the same sex" (Stanton, 3).
Same-Sex Marriage: an unpersuasive tirade
As I read this essay, I was quite certain that I would find that it relied heavily on conservative religious materials. It does. The result is a bias against gay couples that is so shrill as to make this little more than a scream on the subject.
The essay begins with the extraordinarily dubious argument that if we change the law on marriage, that will start us on a path to where there is no law. What? We "change" the law on almost a daily basis. Congress adopts new laws. State legislatures adopt new laws. Administrative bodies issue regulations. There is an almost constant stream of adjustments, so that the law is continually changing. Is it verging on disintegration?
As to the argument that marriage is only for reproduction, does this mean a man and a woman cannot get married if either of them is infertile? Does this mean that no unmarried woman over 45 can remarry, because she is beyond the age of child-bearing? And what of couples that choose not to have children: are they barred from marrying?
The equation of homosexuality with smoking is another argument notable for its tawdriness. Millions of people each year choose to smoke, but I have never known any person who was born a smoker. Despite the claims of the religious right, the notion that homosexuality is a choice is silly. Why would anyone voluntarily elect to adopt a life style that subjects the individual to the sort of soul-searching trauma that many people endure struggling with their sexual identity?
In short, this sort of shrill nonsense deserves to be relegated to the dustbin of history we would be better off to forget.
This author rails on the adverse effect of same sex marriages on children, but cites no studies showing that there are such adverse effects. The best that the author can do is to say that children will be mean to such children. Such an argument harks back to the arguments used to maintain segregated schools. "After all, those [black] children would not want to go to the nice white school where they would feel out of place. Surely they'd want to stick to their own kind."
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