argumentative essay against gay marriage

The strongest argument against same-sex marriage: traditional marriage is in the public interest

by German Lopez

Opponents of same-sex marriage argued that individual states are acting in the public interest by encouraging heterosexual relationships through marriage policies, so voters and legislators in each state should be able to set their own laws.

Some groups, such as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, cited the secular benefits of heterosexual marriages, particularly the ability of heterosexual couples to reproduce, as Daniel Silliman reported at the Washington Post .

”It is a mistake to characterize laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman as somehow embodying a purely religious viewpoint over against a purely secular one,” the bishops said in their amicus brief . “Rather, it is a common sense reflection of the fact that [homosexual] relationships do not result in the birth of children, or establish households where a child will be raised by its birth mother and father.”

Other groups, like the conservative Family Research Council, warned that allowing same-sex couples to marry would lead to the breakdown of traditional families. But keeping marriage to heterosexual couples, FRC argued in an amicus brief , allows states to “channel the potential procreative sexual activity of opposite-sex couples into stable relationships in which the children so procreated may be raised by their biological mothers and fathers.”

To defend same-sex marriage bans, opponents had to convince courts that there’s a compelling state interest in encouraging heterosexual relationships that isn’t really about discriminating against same-sex couples.

But a majority of Supreme Court justices and most of the lower courts widely rejected this argument, arguing that same-sex marriage bans are discriminatory and unconstitutional.

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A ‘Queer’ Argument Against Marriage

Marriage equality has become a central pillar of the modern gay rights movement. Five states and the District of Columbia offer same sex marriages and a case involving California’s ban on gay marriage is expected to end up in the Supreme Court. But despite recent advances, not all gay people are so eager to ring the wedding bells. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, self-described queer activist and author of “That’s Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation,” says gay people should stop fighting to uphold what she considers to be the failed institution of marriage.

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The Most Effective Argument Against Gay Rights

By Mike Hofman

By all accounts, 2015 has been a watershed year for gay rights in America. In June, the Supreme Court affirmed a Constitutional right to marriage in a landmark 5-4 decision. Elsewhere, Caitlyn Jenner’s very public coming out has placed the trans experience squarely in the national conversation—as have pop cultural milestones like the Amazon series Transparent and the forthcoming The Danish Girl starring Oscar incumbent Eddie Redmayne .

But though the arc of the moral universe famously bends toward justice (Dr. King promised us this), it’s also true that for every action there is typically an equal and opposite reaction (Sir Isaac Newton came first). And as of this week, it seems that we are now entering a period, both politically and possibly socially, in which the good news for gay rights will likely be undermined and undone in a million ways large and small.

People have been worrying about a great gay rights backlash on-and-off for the past few years, of course. The Advocate even ran a foreboding cover story mere weeks before the Court ruled in favor of gay marriage. For a time, it seemed possible to think that recent gains would be hard to reverse. Not long ago, I asked a Black, gay rights activist what she thought. She looked at me like I was the most naïve person on the planet. “The backlash is definitely coming,” she said. “And it’s going to be harsh.”

Her words seemed prescient as the off-year election results rolled in this week. In Kentucky, Republican entrepreneur Matt Bevin was elected governor by a 10-point margin , even though polls leading up to Election Day had suggested he was trailing Democrat Jack Conway. A Tea Party favorite, Bevin is perhaps best known outside the state for his ardent support of Kim Davis, the Rowan County Clerk who famously denied marriage licenses to gay couples in her rural district. He visited her in jail and gave a rousing speech at a rally in her honor when she was released. “I am ecstatic,” said Davis, in a statement congratulating Bevin on his victory. “He is such a genuine and caring person.”

Further to the south in Houston, voters undid the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, a municipal law that sought to protect gay and transgender people from discrimination. Dubbed HERO, the would-be ordinance reflected laws across the country that seek to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in areas such as housing and employment.

What seemed to persuade 61 percent of the voters in the nation’s fourth largest metropolitan area that this was a bad idea is that one small sliver of the ordinance dared to suggest that transgender people could choose the restroom that matches their gender identity. “No Men In Women’s’ Bathrooms” became the simple, simplistic, reductive—and totally effective—rallying cry. At a victory party for the anti-HERO crowd, Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick boasted that the repeal vote was about “protecting our grandmoms, and our mothers and our wives and our sisters and our daughters and our granddaughters.” (No word yet on where Lt. Gov. Patrick and his ilk expect a trans woman or, for that matter, a trans man to pee.)

You can roll your eyes and think to yourself that, in the grand scheme of gay rights, the bathroom thing is a rather fine point—although it’s worth noting what any third grader will tell you, which is that public bathrooms and locker rooms tend to be a bully’s natural habitat.

Alternately, you may believe that the women of Texas are perhaps not as fragile as Patrick assumes—but that, among them, transgender women are just as worthy of civic empathy as any subgroup, maybe even more so given the appalling statistics about anti-trans violence.

You may even take a pragmatic approach and think to yourself that this is all rhetoric and nonsense. Men and women use the same toilets everyday without incident; your local Starbucks has done more to promote unisex bathrooms than even the most militant activist could ever hope to.

Whatever your take, the reality is that the vulgar, dude-peeing-in-the-stall-next-to-grandma formulation has proven itself to be a big winner, and you can bet the argument will be used again, quite soon, in a town or city near you. In other news, Kim Davis picked the day after her buddy Matt Bevin was elected to file her appeal . The conversation over gay rights has entered a new phase and, unfortunately for all of us, it’s quite literally going down the toilet.

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> WHY SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS UNJUST

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Why same-sex marriage is unjust.

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2016

Proponents of same-sex marriage often defend their view by appealing to the concept of justice. But a significant argument from justice against same-sex marriage can be made also, as follows. Heterosexual union has special social value because it is the indispensable means by which humans come into existence. What has special social value deserves special recognition and sanction. Civil ordinances that recognize same-sex marriage as comparable to heterosexual marriage constitute a rejection of the special social value of heterosexual unions, and to deny such special social value is unjust.

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1 I take this to be obvious, and I would not bother to mention it except for the fact that my argument pivots on this point. Shakespeare's Hamlet entertained the question whether it is better to live or not to live. Although some would answer negatively regarding his or similarly agonizing cases, as applied to the existence of humanity in toto the correct answer to Hamlet's question is clearly affirmative.

2 Furthermore, as some have observed, homosexuals do enjoy the privilege to marry, so long as they do so with someone of the opposite sex. This might seem to be an empty or even mocking point because it ignores the distinct sexual desires of homosexuals. But there are many other civil privileges the criteria for which are similarly unyielding to the unique desires of particular citizens, such as the disqualification of the severely visually impaired when it comes to obtaining a driver's license or joining the armed forces.

3 By most counts, there are over 1,100 benefits provided to married couples by the U.S. federal government and many more benefits provided at the state level, including automatic inheritance, divorce protections, burial determination privileges, automatic housing lease transfer, domestic violence protection, joint bankruptcy privileges, and wrongful death benefits.

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Volume 15, Issue 43
James S. Spiegel
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175616000075

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Read the essay that helped start the gay marriage movement in America

It started in 1989.

Andrew Sullivan wrote a cover story for The New Republic arguing for gay marriage . It was at the time a radical proposition — although Sullivan's argument came from a philosophically conservative place.

This was a key paragraph:

Legalizing gay marriage would offer homosexuals the same deal society now offers heterosexuals: general social approval and specific legal advantages in exchange for a deeper and harder-to-extract-yourself from commitment to another human being. Like straight marriage, it would foster social cohesion, emotional security, and economic prudence. Since there’s no reason gays should not be allowed to adopt or be foster parents, it could also help nurture children. And its introduction would not be some sort of radical break with social custom. As it has become more acceptable for gay people to acknowledge their loves publicly, more and more have committed themselves to one another for life in full view of their families and their friends, A law institutionalizing gay marriage would merely reinforce a healthy social trend. It would also, in the wake of AIDS, qualify as a genuine public health measure. Those conservatives who deplore promiscuity among some homosexuals should be among the first to support it. Burke could have written a powerful case for it.

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Being Against Gay Marriage Doesn't Make You a Homophobe

Some people just aren't sure about marriage equality—but their reasoning isn't necessarily a reflection of their character.

Does being against gay marriage make someone anti-gay?

The question resurfaced last week when Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, claimed on Meet the Press that the Catholic Church is unfairly “caricatured” as anti-gay. The Huffington Post’s Paul Raushenbush quickly wrote up a response , saying that “The hard reality that Cardinal Dolan and all Christians need to face up to is that the Catholic Church along with every other church whether Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic has been horrifically, persistently and vehemently anti-gay for almost all of its history.”

Then Raushenbush hauled out a familiar argument: “Let's just be very clear here —if you are against marriage equality you are anti-gay. Done.”

As a gay man, I found myself disappointed with this definition—that anyone with any sort of moral reservations about gay marriage is by definition anti-gay. If Raushenbush is right, then that means my parents are anti-gay, many of my religious friends (of all faiths) are anti-gay, the Pope is anti-gay, and—yes, we’ll go here—first-century, Jewish theologian Jesus is anti-gay. That’s despite the fact that while some religious people don’t support gay marriage in a sacramental sense, many of them are in favor of same-sex civil unions and full rights for the parties involved. To be sure, most gay people, myself included, won’t be satisfied until our loving, monogamous relationships are graced with the word “marriage.” But it’s important to recall that many religious individuals do support strong civil rights for the gay members of their communities.

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What exactly do we mean when we say “anti-gay,” or “homophobic”? Often when I try to understand where my conservative opponents are coming from, my gay friends accuse me of being homophobic. It isn’t homophobic of me to try to understand why someone might be opposed to marriage equality. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt takes courage; dismissing him before considering his argument—well, that seems a bit phobic. Beside—me? Homophobic? I write essays about being gay, and then I publish them, and everyone goes, “Oh yeah, he’s gay.” I have no reservations about my sexuality, so as far as the accusation of homophobia goes: that gay ship has already sailed to Disneyland, with a speedo-clad Tom Daley carved into the bow.

If it’s “anti-gay” to question the arguments of marriage-equality advocates, and if the word “homophobic” is exhausted on me or on polite dissenters, then what should we call someone who beats up gay people, or prefers not to hire them? Disagreement is not the same thing as discrimination. Our language ought to reflect that distinction.

I would argue that an essential feature of the term “homophobia” must include personal animus or malice toward the gay community. Simply having reservations about gay marriage might be anti-gay marriage , but if the reservations are articulated in a respectful way, I see no reason to dismiss the person holding those reservations as anti-gay people. In other words, I think it’s quite possible for marriage-equality opponents to have flawed reasoning without necessarily having flawed character. When we hastily label our opposition with terms like “anti-gay,” we make an unwarranted leap from the first description to the second.

To me, recognizing the distinction between opposing gay marriage and opposing gay people is a natural outgrowth of an internal distinction: When it comes to my identity, I take care not to reduce myself to my sexual orientation. Sure, it’s a huge part of who I am, but I see myself to be larger than my sexual expression: I contain my gayness; it doesn’t contain me. If it’s true that my gayness is not the most fundamental aspect of my identity as Brandon, then it seems to me that someone could ideologically disapprove of my sexual expression while simultaneously loving and affirming my larger identity. This is what Pope Francis was getting at when he asked, “When God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?” The Pope probably won’t be officiating gay marriages any time soon. But because he differentiates between a person’s sexual identity and her larger identity as a human being, he is able to affirm the latter without offering definitive commentary on the former. Maybe his distinction between Brandon and Gay Brandon is misguided, but it isn’t necessarily malicious, and that’s the point.

Rob Schenck, current chairman of the Evangelical Church Alliance, told me that while he believes that marriage is between one man and one woman, this belief is a “source of internal conflict” and “consternation” for him. How, he candidly asks, is denying marriage to gay people “consistent with loving your neighbor?” Schenck has no plans to change his social stance on this issue, but he serves as a good reminder that not all gay-marriage opponents are unthinking and bigoted. Sure, there are plenty of religious people who are actually homophobic, and find in their Bible convenient justification for these biases. But let’s not forget about people like Rob who, though he opposes marriage equality, appreciates the reminder from gay advocates “that love is as important as anything else.”

Though I’d like to see Rob change his mind, I don’t imagine he will. For him, the procreative potential of the male-female sexual union is what marriage was designed for. But even if Rob’s opinions don’t change, I still don’t believe he’s a bigot. Just as I distinguish between my sexual expression and the larger identity that contains it, I think it’s quite possible to distinguish between his political or theological expression (Conservative Rob) and his human identity (Rob). If he were disgusted by gay people, or thought they should be imprisoned, or wanted to see the gayness beat out of them, then that might implicate his human identity, in part because it would suggest a troubling lack of compassion. But the way he respectfully articulates his position on this issue doesn’t give me grounds to impugn his character . I can think his logic flawed, his conclusions unwarranted, and his activism silly, and yet still think him to be a good person. In fact, these are the feelings I have for many of my religious friends, and I’m sure those same feelings are returned!

The secular cases being made against gay marriage , as well, often have little to do with any kind of animus towards gay people themselves. Rather than appeal to an archaic notion of God’s “intentions,” these arguments instead focus on the vested interest the state has in legislating sexual relationships. Those who argue in this way don’t see marriage as a sacrament, but as a child-rearing institution whose regulation is in society’s best interest. Not a very good argument? Totally. Not a very good person who makes that argument? I need more information.

As a gay man thinking through the issue of marriage equality, I’ve come to the conclusion that, although it’s a no-brainer for me, this issue is complicated to a great number of people. To demonize as anti-gay the millions of Americans currently doing the difficult work of thinking through their convictions is, in my opinion, very troubling.

It’s true that as an LGBT person, I am Otherized against the sexual norm. But at the same time, I have an ethical obligation to my Other—the people unlike me—as well. On this issue, my Others include conservatives, fundamentalists, and more than a few folks from the square states. If my primary ethical obligation to my neighbor is to allow and affirm his moral agency, so long as it does not lead him to commit acts of violence, then what happens when I take away his right to peacefully disagree with me?

We shouldn’t have to resort to trumped up charges of bigotry to explain why opponents of gay marriage are wrong. Calling someone “anti-gay” when his behavior is undeserving of that label doesn’t only end civil discussion – it degrades the foundation that undergirds a democratic, pluralistic society. Though gay rights’ opponents have at times villified us, I hope that we’re able to rise above those tactics.

Same Sex Marriage Argumentative Essay, with Outline

Published by gudwriter on January 4, 2021 January 4, 2021

Example 1: Gay Marriages Argumentative Essay Outline

Introduction.

Same-sex marriage should be legal because it is a fundamental human right. To have experts write for you a quality paper on same sex marriage, seek help from a trusted academic writing service where you can buy research proposals online with ease and one you can be sure of getting the best possible assistance available

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Paragraph 1:

Same-sex marriage provides legal rights protection to same sex couples on such matters as taxes, finances, and health care.

It gives them the right to become heirs to their spouses and enjoy tax breaks just like heterosexual married couples.
It makes it possible for them to purchase properties together, open joint accounts, and sign documents together as couples.

Paragraph 2:

Same sex marriage allows two people in love to happily live together.

Homosexuals deserve to be in love just like heterosexuals.
The definition of marriage does not suggest that it should only be an exclusive union between two people of opposite sexes.

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Paragraph 3:

Same sex marriage gives homosexual couples the right to start families.

Gay and lesbian partners should be allowed to start families and have their own children.
A family should ideally have parents and children.
It is not necessary that the parents be a male and female.

Paragraph 4:

Same sex marriage does not harm the institution of marriage and is potentially more stable.

Legalization of civil unions or gay marriages does not negatively impact abortion rates, divorce, or marriage.
Heterosexual marriages have a slightly higher dissolution rate on average than opposite sex marriages.

Paragraph 5:

Opponents of same sex marriage may argue that it is important for children to have a father and mother for a balanced upbringing.

They hold that homosexual couples only have one gender influence on children.
They forget that that children under the parental care of same sex couples get to mingle with both male and female genders in various social places.

Paragraph 6:

Opponents may also argue that same-sex marriages reduce sanctity of marriage.

To them, marriage is a religious and traditional commitment and ceremony.
Unfortunately, such arguments treat marriage as a man-wife union only.
They fail to recognize that there are people who do not ascribe to any tradition(s) or religions.
Same sex marriage is a human right that should be enjoyed just like traditional heterosexual marriages.
It protects the legal rights of lesbian and gay couples and allows them to actualize their love in matrimony.
It enables them to exercise their right to start families and bring up children.
It is only fair that all governments consider legalizing same sex marriages.

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Argumentative Essay on Same Sex Marriage

For many years now, same-sex marriage has been a controversial topic. While some countries have legalized the practice, others still consider it not right and treat it as illegal. Same-sex marriage is defined as a marriage or union between two people of the same sex, such as a man and a man. Some countries have broadened their perspective on this issue even though for many years, it has never been legally acknowledged, with some societies even considering it a taboo. The United Kingdom, Spain, France, Argentina, the Netherlands, and recently the United States are some of the countries that have legalized it (Winter, Forest & Senac, 2017). Irrespective of any arguments, same-sex marriage should be legal because it is a fundamental human right.

First, same-sex marriage, if recognized by society, provides legal rights protection to same sex couples on such matters as taxes, finances, and health care. If people live together in a homosexual relationship without being legally married, they do not enjoy the security to protect what they have worked for and saved together. In case one of them dies, the surviving partner would have no right over the property under the deceased’s name even if they both funded its acquisition (Winter, Forest & Senac, 2017). Legalizing same-sex unions would cushion homosexual partners from such unfortunate situations. They would have the right to become heirs to their spouses and enjoy tax breaks just like heterosexual married couples. Legalization would also make it possible for them to purchase properties together, open joint accounts, and sign documents together as couples.

Same sex marriage also allows two people in love to become one in a matrimonial union and live happily together. Denying homosexual couples the right to marry is thus denying them the right to be in love just like heterosexuals do. Moreover, the definition of marriage does not suggest that it should only be an exclusive union between two people of opposite sexes. According to Gerstmann (2017), marriage is a formally or legally recognized union between two people in a personal relationship. As per this definition, people should be allowed to marry once they are in love with each other irrespective of their genders. Reducing marriage to a union between a man and woman is thus a direct infringement into the rights of homosexuals.

Additionally, gay marriages give homosexual couples the right to start families. Just like heterosexual couples, gay and lesbian partners should be allowed to start families and have their own children. Essentially, a family should ideally have parents and children and it is not necessary that the parents be a male and female. Same sex partners can easily adopt and bring up children if their marriage is legalized and recognized by the society in which they live (Gerstmann, 2017). As one would concur, even some heterosexual couples are not able to sire their own children and resort to adopting one or even more. This is a right that should be extended to same sex couples too given that they may not be able to give birth on their own.

Further, same sex marriage does no harm whatsoever to the institution of marriage, and is potentially more stable. According to a 2009 study, legalization of civil unions or gay marriages does not in any way negatively impact abortion rates, divorce, or marriage (Langbein & Yost, 2009). This makes it quite uncalled for to argue against or prohibit gay marriages. In yet another study, only 1.1 percent of legally married gay couples end their relationships as compared to the 2 percent annual divorce rate among opposite-sex couples (Badgett & Herman, 2011). This implies that heterosexual marriages have a slightly higher dissolution rate on average than opposite sex marriages. It could then be argued that gay marriages are more stable than traditional man-woman marriages. The two types of marriages should thus be given equal chance because neither affects the other negatively. They also have more or less equal chances of succeeding if legally recognized and accepted.

Opponents of same sex marriage may argue that it is important for children to have a father and a mother. They may say that for children to have a good balance in their upbringing, they should be influenced by a father and a mother in their developmental years. Such arguments hold that homosexual couples only have one gender influence over the lives of children and that this is less fulfilling (Badgett, 2009). However, the arguments fail to recognize that children under the parental care of same sex couples get to mingle with both male and female genders in various social places. At school, the children get to be cared for and mentored by both male and female teachers who more or less serve almost the same role as parents.

Those who are opposed to same sex unions may also argue that such marriages reduce sanctity of marriage. To them, marriage is a religious and traditional commitment and ceremony that is held very sacred by people. They contend that there is need to do everything possible to preserve marriage because as an institution, it has been degrading slowly over time. Their concern is that traditional marriages are being devalued by same sex marriages which are swaying people away from being married and instead choosing to live with same sex partners (Nagle, 2010). It is clear here that such arguments treat marriage as a man-woman union only and are thus not cognizant of the true meaning of marriage. Moreover, they fail to recognize that traditions and religions should not be used against same sex couples because there are people who do not ascribe to any tradition(s) or religions.

Same sex marriage is a human right that should be enjoyed just like traditional heterosexual marriages. It protects the legal rights of lesbian and gay couples and allows them the well-deserved opportunity of actualizing their love in matrimony. In addition, it enables them to exercise their right to start families and bring up children. Arguments made against this form of marriage, such as that it undermines traditional marriages, are based on opinions and not facts. Moreover, it is not important for a child to have a father and a mother because there are other places in which they actively interact with people of different sexes. As such, it is only fair that all governments consider legalizing gay marriages.

Badgett, M. V., & Herman, J. L. (2011). Patterns of relationship recognition by same-sex couples in the United States [PDF]. The Williams Institute. Retrieved from https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Marriage-Dissolution-FINAL.pdf .

Badgett, M. V. (2009). When gay people get married: what happens when societies legalize same-sex marriage . New York, NY: NYU Press.

Gerstmann, E. (2017). Same-sex marriage and the constitution . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Langbein, L., & Yost, M. A. (2009). Same-sex marriage and negative externalities. Social Science Quarterly , 90(2), 292-308.

Nagle, J. (2010). Same-sex marriage: the debate . New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group.

Winter, B., Forest, M., & Senac, R. (2017). Global perspectives on same-sex marriage: a neo-institutional approach . New York, NY: Springer.

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Example 2: Sample Essay Outline on Same Sex Marriages

Thesis: Same sex marriage, just like opposite sex marriage, should be legal.

Pros of Same Sex Marriage

Same sex couples are better at parenting.

Children brought up by same sex couples do better in terms of family cohesion and overall health.
Children under the guardianship of lesbian mothers perform better academically and socially.

Same sex marriage reduces divorce rates.

The divorce rates in a state were reduced significantly after the state legalized gay marriages. Higher divorce rates were recorded in states where gay marriages are prohibited.
Divorce is not good for family cohesion.

Same sex marriage increases psychological wellbeing.

Bisexuals, gays, and lesbians feel socially rejected if society views same-sex marriages as illegal or evil.
After some states banned this kind of marriage, bisexuals, gays, and lesbians living there experienced increased anxiety disorders.

Cons of Same Sex Marriage

Same sex marriages may diminish heterosexual marriages.

It could be possible for children in homosexual families to think that same sex unions are more fulfilling.
They might want to become homosexuals upon growing up.

For a holistic development, a child should have both mother and father.

Absence of a father or a mother in a family leaves a gaping hole in the life of a child.
A child needs to learn how to relate with both male and female genders right from when they are born.

Other non-typical unions may be encouraged by same sex unions.

People who get involved in such other acts as bestiality and incest may feel encouraged.
They might start agitating for their “right” to get married to animals for instance.

Why Same Sex Marriage Should Be Legal

Paragraph 7:

Marriage is a fundamental human right.

All individuals should enjoy marriage as a fundamental right.
Denying one the right to marry a same sex partner is akin to denying them their basic right.

Paragraph 8:

Marriage is a concept based on love.

It is inaccurate to confine marriage to be only between a man and woman.
Marriage is a union between two people in love with each other, their gender or sexual orientation notwithstanding.

Paragraph 9:

opponents of same-sex marriage argue that a relationship between same-sex couples cannot be considered marriage since marriage is the union between a man and a woman.

However, this definitional argument is both conclusory and circular.
It is in no way logical to challenge gay marriage based on this archaic marriage definition.

Same sex marriage should be legalized by all countries in the world. In the U.S., the debate surrounding its legalization should die off because it is irrelevant. People have the right to marry whoever they like whether they are of the same sex.

Same Sex Marriage Essay Example

The idea of same sex marriage is one of the topics that have been widely debated in the United States of America. It has often been met with strong opposition since the majority of the country’s citizens are Christians and Christianity views the idea as evil. On the other hand, those who believe it is right and should be legalized have provided a number of arguments to support it, including that it is a fundamental human right. This debate is still ongoing even after a Supreme Court ruling legalized this type of marriage. However, this debate is unnecessary because same sex marriage, just like opposite sex marriage, should be legal.

It has been proven through studies that same sex couples are better at parenting. A University of Melbourne 2014 study indicated that compared to children raised by both mother and father, children brought up by same sex couples do better in terms of family cohesion and overall health. Similarly, the journal Pediatrics published a study in 2010 stating that children under the guardianship of lesbian mothers performed better academically and socially (Gerstmann, 2017). The children also experienced fewer social problems.

Same sex marriages also reduce divorce rates. According to Gerstmann (2017), the divorce rates in a state were reduced significantly after the state legalized gay marriages. This was as per the analysis of the before and after divorce statistics. Likewise, higher divorce rates were recorded in states where gay marriages are prohibited. Generally, divorce is not good for family cohesion especially in terms of caring for children. Children need to grow up under the care of both parents hence the need for their parents to stay together.

In addition, same sex marriage increases psychological wellbeing. This is because bisexuals, gays, and lesbians feel socially rejected if society views same-sex marriages as illegal or evil. A study report released in 2010 showed that after some states banned this kind of marriage, bisexuals, gays, and lesbians living there experienced a 248% rise in generalized anxiety disorders, a 42% increase in alcohol-use disorders, and a 37% rise in mood disorders (Winter, Forest & Senac, 2017). In this respect, allowing such marriages would make them feel normal and accepted by society.

Same sex marriages may diminish heterosexual marriages and the longstanding marriage culture in society. Perhaps, it could be possible for children in homosexual families to think that same sex unions are more fulfilling and enjoyable than opposite-sex relationships. As a result, they might want to become homosexuals upon growing up. This would mean that standardized marriages between opposite sexes face a bleak future (Nagle, 2010). Such a trend might threaten to throw the human race to extinction because there would be no procreation in future generations.

Same sex unions also fall short because for a holistic development, a child should have both a mother and a father. Absence of a father or a mother in a family leaves a gaping hole in the life of a child. The two major genders in the world are male and female and a child needs to learn how to relate with both of them right from when they are born (Nagle, 2010). A father teaches them how to live alongside males while a mother teaches them how to do the same with females.

Further, other non-typical unions may be encouraged by same sex unions. If the marriages are accepted worldwide, people who get involved in such other acts as bestiality and incest may feel encouraged (Winter, Forest & Senac, 2017). They might even start agitating for their “right” to get married to animals, for instance. This possibility would water down and deinstitutionalize the whole concept of consummation and marriage. This would further diminish the existence of heterosexual marriages as people would continue to find less and less importance in them.

Same sex unions should be legal because marriage is a fundamental human right. It has been stated by the United States Supreme Court fourteen times since 1888 that all individuals should enjoy marriage as a fundamental right (Hertz & Doskow, 2016). In making these judgments, the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that the Due Process Clause protects as one of the liberties the freedom to make personal choice in matters of marriage. The Court has maintained that this free choice is important as it allows free men to pursue happiness in an orderly manner. Thus, denying one the right to marry a same sex partner is akin to denying them their basic right.

People should also be legally allowed to get into same sex unions since marriage is a concept based on love. It is traditionally inaccurate to confine marriage to be only between a man and a woman. The working definition of marriage should be that it is a union between two people in love with each other, their gender or sexual orientation notwithstanding (Hertz & Doskow, 2016). Making it an exclusively man-woman affair trashes the essence of love in romantic relationships. If a man loves a fellow man, they should be allowed to marry just like a man and a woman in love may do.

As already alluded to, opponents of same-sex marriage argue that a relationship between same-sex couples cannot be considered marriage since marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Based on this traditional definition of marriage, they contend that gay and lesbian couples should not marry. However, as noted by Carpenter (2005), this definitional argument is both conclusory and circular and is thus seriously flawed and fallacious. It is in no way logical to challenge gay marriage based on this archaic marriage definition. That marriage only happens when one man and one woman come together in a matrimony is a constricted view of the institution of marriage. Moreover, there are no reasons accompanying the definition showing that it is the right one or should be the only one (Carpenter, 2005). Therefore, it should be expanded to include same-sex couples. The lack of reasons to support it makes it defenseless thus weak.

Same sex marriages should be legalized by all countries in the world. In the U.S., the debate surrounding its legalization should die off because it is irrelevant. People have the right to marry whoever they like whether they are of the same sex or not. Just like love can sprout between a man and a woman, so can it between a man and a fellow man or a woman and a fellow woman. There is absolutely no need to subject gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to unnecessary psychological torture by illegalizing same sex marriage.

Carpenter, D. (2005). Bad arguments against gay marriage. Florida Coastal Law Review , VII , 181-220.

Gerstmann, E. (2017). Same-sex marriage and the constitution . New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Hertz, F., & Doskow, E. (2016). Making it legal: a guide to same-sex marriage, domestic partnerships & civil unions . Berkeley, CA: Nolo.

Nagle, J. (2010). Same-sex marriage: the debate . New York, NY: The Rosen Publishing Group.

Winter, B., Forest, M., & Senac, R. (2017). Global perspectives on same-sex marriage: a neo-institutional approach . New York, NY: Springer.

Example 3: Same Sex Marriage Essay

Same Sex Marriage Essay- Changing Attitudes on Gay Marriage. Discuss how the idea of gay marriage has changed over the last decade and show the progression of the movement.

Changing Attitudes on Same Sex Marriage Essay Outline

Introduction

Thesis: Gay marriage was regarded as an abomination in the early years, but in recent times the attitude of the society towards same-sex marriage is gradually changing.

In 1965, 70% of Americans were opposed to same-sex marriage.

They cited its harmfulness to the American life.
Prevalence of AIDS among gay people further increased this opposition.

Social gay movements contributed to change in the attitude of the society towards gay marriage.

Gay movements increased the exposure of members of the society to gay marriage while showing their sufferings.
Through social movements, the society saw the need for equality and fair treatment of gay persons.

Political movements in support of gay marriage have as well contributed to change in the attitude of the society towards gay marriage.

Political bodies and politicians pushed for equality of gay people in efforts to garner political mileage.
The influence of politicians changed the attitude of the society towards gay marriage.

The incidence of gay people, particularly in the United States has contributed to change in the attitude of the society towards gay marriage.

Increase in the number of gay persons pushed people into accepting gay marriage.
The media contributed in gathering compassion from members of the society by evidencing the sufferings of gay people.

The judiciary upheld the legitimacy of same-sex marriage.

In 2014, 42 court rulings were made in favor of gay marriage.
There are more than 30 states today with policies in support of same-sex marriage.

The increased push for the freedom of marriage contributed to changing the attitude on gay marriage.

The Supreme Court ruling in 1987 that stopped governments from restricting the freedom of marriage worked in favor of same-sex marriage.

Paragraph 7:

Supporters of same sex marriage have also increasingly argued that people should be allowed to marry not necessarily based on their gender but on the love between them.

Restricting marriage to a union between heterosexual couples only creates a biased view of human sexuality.
An adult should be allowed the freewill to seek for the fulfillment of love by starting a relationship with a partner of whichever gender of their choosing.

Gay marriage has been the subject of social, political and religious debates for many years but over the past two decades, the attitude of the society towards same-sex marriage has changed. Social gay movements and increased incidence of gay people has compelled the community to accept and tolerate gay marriages. The judiciary has as well contributed to this change in attitude by pushing the freedom and right to marriage.

Changing Attitudes on Same Sex Marriage Sample Essay

In the early years, gay marriage was an abomination and received criticism from many members of society. The principal reason as to why many people in society were objected to gay marriage was that it went against religious and societal values and teachings (Decoo, 2014). However, over the past three decades, the perception of society towards the practice has changed. The degree of its social tolerance and acceptance has gradually improved. In the 2000s, numerous social and political lobby groups pushed for a change in insolences towards gay marriage (Decoo, 2014). Though these lobby groups have tried to advocate for the rights of gay people, their principal focus was to change people’s attitudes towards homosexuality.

According to a study conducted in the year 1965 investigating the attitudes of Americans towards gay marriage, seventy percent of the respondents were opposed to the idea of same-sex marriage citing its harmfulness to the American life. Most Americans felt that the practice went against the social and moral values of the American society. In the years between 1975 and 1977, the number of Americans who were not objected to gay marriage increased (Decoo, 2014). However, this number decreased in the years of 1980, when the prevalence of AIDS among gay people hit alarming levels. In the years that followed, the attitudes of the American society towards gay marriage rapidly changed.

The rise of gay social movements has contributed significantly to a change in attitude of the society towards gay marriage. In the early years, people were not exposed to issues of same-sex marriage, but the gay social movements focused on increasing the exposure of gay marriage, while advocating for their equal treatment (Keleher & Smith, 2018). These movements were able to reveal the injustices and unfair treatment that gays were exposed to, and how such unfair treatment tarnishes the image of the society (Keleher & Smith, 2018). The movements persuaded the society to embark on ways of addressing injustices meted out on gay people. Through highlighting these injustices, members of the society acknowledged the need for reforms to bring about impartiality and non-discrimination in marriage.

Political movements in support of gay marriage have as well contributed to changing the attitude of the society towards the practice. As a matter of fact, one of the strategies that gay social movements employed in their advocacy for gay rights were political maneuvering (Demock, Doherty & Killey, 2013). The lobby groups approached aspiring politicians, who would advocate for equal rights of gays to garner political mileage. With time, politicians would use the subject to attack their competitors who were opposed to the idea of same sex marriage (Demock, Doherty & Killey, 2013). This increased political support for gay marriage influenced members of the society into changing their attitude towards the same.

The ever increasing number of gays, particularly in the United States, has contributed to a change in the attitude of the world society towards gay marriage. As the number of gays increased in the U.S., it became hard for members of the society to continue opposing this form of marriage (Demock, Doherty & Killey, 2013). Many families had at least one or more of their family members who would turn out to be gay. The perception of gay people by such families would therefore change upon learning that their loved ones were also gay (Demock, Doherty & Killey, 2013). The media also played a significant role in gathering compassion from the members of the society by portraying the injustices that gay people experienced (Demock, Doherty & Killey, 2013). The society would as a result be compelled to sympathize with gays and lesbians and thus change their stance on same-sex marriage.

Further, the judiciary has also contributed to the change in the attitude of the society towards gay marriage. There were states in the U.S. that initially illegalized same sex marriages, prompting gay people to file discrimination lawsuits (Coontz, 2014). Reports indicate that in the year 2014, there were more than 42 court rulings that ruled in favor of same-sex couples (Coontz, 2014). Some critics of same-sex marriage termed these rulings as judicial activism. They argued that the judiciary was frustrating the will of the American society, which was opposed to same-sex marriage (Coontz, 2014). Following these rulings and the increased advocacy for equality and fair treatment of gay people, some states implemented policies is support of same-sex marriage (Coontz, 2014). Today, the entire United States treats the practice as legal, as was determined by the Supreme Court back in 2015.

The increased push for the freedom of marriage has also contributed to changing the attitude on gay marriage. In the early years, there were states, especially in the United States, that opposed interracial marriages, so that a white could not marry an African-American, for instance (Coontz, 2014). In the years before 1967, there were states that restricted people with tuberculosis or prisoners from getting married. Other states also discouraged employers from hiring married women. However, in 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that state governments had no right to deny people of their freedom of marriage (Coontz, 2014). When such laws were regarded as violations of human rights, gay people also termed the restriction of same-sex marriage as a violation of their liberty and freedom to marry.

Supporters of same sex marriage have also increasingly argued that people should be allowed to marry not necessarily based on their gender but on the love between them and their decision as two adults. According to such people, restricting marriage to a union between heterosexual couples only creates a biased view of human sexuality. For example, they point out that this extreme view fails to acknowledge that gay couples also derive fulfilment from their romantic relationships (Steorts, 2015). They additionally contend that an adult should be allowed the freewill to seek for this fulfillment by starting a relationship with a partner of whichever gender of their choosing. Whether they love a man or a woman should not be anybody’s concern. The argument also notes that gay couples who have come out clearly demonstrate that they are happy in their relationships.

Gay marriage has been the subject of social, political, and religious debates for many years but over the past two decades, the attitude of the society towards it has significantly changed. Social gay movements and increased numbers of gay people has compelled the community to accept and tolerate the practice. The judiciary has as well contributed to this change in attitude by pushing the freedom and right to marriage, thereby finally making the practice legal in the United States.

Coontz, S. (2014). “Why America changed its mind on gay marriageable”. CNN . Retrieved June 23, 2020 from http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/13/opinion/coontz-same-sex-marriage/index.html

Decoo, E. (2014). Changing attitudes toward homosexuality in the United States from 1977 to 2012 . Provo, UT: Brigham Young University.

Demock, M., Doherty, C., & Kiley, J. (2013). Growing support for gay marriage: changed minds and changing demographics. Gen , 10 , 1965-1980.

Keleher, A. G., & Smith, E. (2008). Explaining the growing support for gay and lesbian equality since 1990. In Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA .

Steorts, J. L. (2015). “An equal chance at love: why we should recognize same-sex marriage”. National Review . Retrieved June 23, 2020 from https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/05/yes-same-sex-marriage-about-equality-courts-should-not-decide/

Our article explores the intricacies of same-sex marriage discourse, offering a debated essay with a structured outline. Explore our speech writer generator free tool and create a good speech.

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The best argument against same-sex marriage

FILIPINOS, SPORTING #LoveWins hashtags and slapping rainbows onto their Facebook profile pictures, have been swept up in the euphoria over the US Supreme Court decision declaring same-sex marriage a fundamental human right. Law professors are heartened to see Justice Anthony Kennedy’s poetic Obergefell decision shared in social media. However, we must also read the powerful dissents and ask why we might prefer that our unelected justices decide this sensitive issue instead of our elected legislators.

Inquirer 2bu quoted teenagers opining that anyone with the capacity to love deserves to have his/her chosen relationship validated. Obergefell’s logic is equally simple. Forget “substantive due process,” “decisional privacy” and “equal protection.” It takes the simple premise that human liberty necessarily goes beyond physical liberty, and includes an unwritten right to make fundamental life choices. Choosing a life partner is one such fundamental choice and the decision of two people to formalize their relationship must be accorded utmost dignity.

The typical arguments against this simple idea are so intellectually discredited that Obergefell no longer discussed them. (My Philippine Law Journal article “Marriage through another lens,” 81 PHIL. L.J. 789 [2006], tried applying them to bisexual and transgender Filipinos.)

One cannot solely invoke religious doctrine, even if thinly veiled as secular “morality.” Religious groups may confront this issue but not impose their choices on others. Their often vindictive tone contrasts sharply with Kennedy’s, and increasingly alienates millennials who revel in individuality. Those criticized as religious zealots should at least strive to be up-to-date, more sophisticated religious zealots.

The most common argument, procreation, is also the easiest to refute. Philippine Family Code author Judge Alicia Sempio-Diy wrote: “The [Code] Committee believes that marriage … may also be only for companionship, as when parties past the age of procreation still get married.”

Another argument reduces marriage to a series of economic benefits and suggests a “domestic partnership” system to govern same-sex couples’ property and other rights. This parallels having separate schools for white and black children and claiming they are equal because both have schools. It implies that some relationships so lack dignity that they must be called something else.

Protecting the “traditional” definition of marriage is too subjective. Obergefell reminds that traditional definitions evolve and once prohibited interracial and accepted arranged marriages, and “it is unrealistic to conclude that an opposite-sex couple would choose not to marry simply because same-sex couples may do so.”

Recent last-ditch arguments alleged harm to children. No party to Obergefell contested that same-sex couples may build nurturing families after adopting or tapping medical advances to produce babies with related DNA. Prohibiting same-sex marriage harms children by making such families unstable, as only one parent may legally adopt and have rights in relation to a child.

With all these discredited, the Obergefell dissents simply raised that marriage is so central a social institution that it is better redefined by democratic process than unelected judges. Proponents may consider opponents homophobic, bigoted, narrow-minded religious zealots, but none of these disqualifies one from being a citizen. Chief Justice John Roberts argued that proponents should have relied on how popular opinion was rapidly shifting in their favor than ending all debate by court order.

Justice Antonin Scalia decried how the US Constitution was turned into a “fortune cookie” in a “judicial Putsch” that declared a radical unwritten right. Roberts cautioned that the first cases to use similar doctrine upheld slavery and struck down labor regulations in the name of laissez faire economics. Although invoking human rights is not subject to an election, it is wise to consult society in defining these, and Obergefell stressed the lengthy public debates the United States experienced at every level.

One thus asks why an instant judicial solution is more appealing than backing Akbayan Rep. Barry Gutierrez’s proposed same-sex marriage bill. The Philippines has not had serious public debate given how we recently focused on reproductive health, and our high court has not even explicitly recognized “decisional privacy.” Further, the petition to legalize same-sex marriage recently filed at our high court is blatantly deficient.

The petition (like the anti-RH petitions) does not even identify a client. There is no actual Filipino same-sex couple, unlike the real Mr. Obergefell who sought to be named the spouse on his partner’s death certificate after their deathbed wedding. This violates the most basic rule that judicial power may only be used in an “actual case” and the high court should have instantly thrown out the no-case petition (like the anti-RH petitions). The petition also has glaring errors (like the anti-RH petitions). It invoked the Philippine privacy decision Ople vs Torres, which involved information in government databases and has nothing to do with the “decisional privacy” of US same-sex marriage debates. Even liberals should be hard-pressed to support this lest they be intellectually inconsistent and validate the anti-RH petitions’ worst features.

Any citizen lacking the patience to back Gutierrez’s bill has every right to short-circuit democracy by seeking an order from unelected judges. One hopes our high court insists that it be sought properly.

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Here Comes the Groom

Andrew sullivan’s landmark 1989 essay making a conservative case for gay marriage, reprinted in full..

In 1989, most Americans had never even heard of gay marriage, and certainly couldn’t conceive that it would one day be legalized by popular vote. That year, Andrew Sullivan wrote a landmark essay for the New Republic, “Here Comes the Groom: A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage.” Sullivan’s essay is one of the most important magazine articles of recent decades. His argument, which he went on to elaborate in his books Virtually Normal and Same-Sex Marriage and in later essays , is that marriage for gays would “foster social cohesion, emotional security, and economic prudence.” Sullivan’s conservative case would eventually become the intellectual and moral foundation of the campaigns to legalize gay marriage. Sullivan gave Slate permission to reprint his New Republic essay in full.

Photograph by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images.

Last month in New York, a court ruled that a gay lover had the right to stay in his deceased partner’s rent-control apartment because the lover qualified as a member of the deceased’s family. The ruling deftly annoyed almost everybody. Conservatives saw judicial activism in favor of gay rent control: three reasons to be appalled. Chastened liberals (such as the New York Times editorial page), while endorsing the recognition of gay relationships, also worried about the abuse of already stretched entitlements that the ruling threatened. What neither side quite contemplated is that they both might be right, and that the way to tackle the issue of unconventional relationships in conventional society is to try something both more radical and more conservative than putting courts in the business of deciding what is and is not a family. That alternative is the legalization of civil gay marriage.

The New York rent-control case did not go anywhere near that far, which is the problem. The rent-control regulations merely stipulated that a “family” member had the right to remain in the apartment. The judge ruled that to all intents and purposes a gay lover is part of his lover’s family, inasmuch as a “family” merely means an interwoven social life, emotional commitment, and some level of financial interdependence.

It’s principle now well established around the country. Several cities have “domestic partnership” laws, which allow relationships that do not fit into the category of heterosexual marriage to be registered with the city and qualify for benefits that up till now have been reserved for straight married couples. San Francisco, Berkeley, Madison, and Los Angeles all have legislation, as does the politically correct Washington, D.C., suburb, Takoma Park. In these cities, a variety of interpersonal arrangements qualify for health insurance, bereavement leave, insurance, annuity and pension rights, housing rights (such as rent-control apartments), adoption and inheritance rights. Eventually, accordng to gay lobby groups, the aim is to include federal income tax and veterans’ benefits as well. A recent case even involved the right to use a family member’s accumulated frequent-flier points. Gays are not the only beneficiaries; heterosexual “live-togethers” also qualify.

There’s an argument, of course, that the current legal advantages extended to married people unfairly discriminate against people who’ve shaped their lives in less conventional arrangements. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that enshrining in the law a vague principle like “domestic partnership” is an invitation to qualify at little personal cost for a vast array of entitlements otherwise kept crudely under control.

To be sure, potential DPs have to prove financial interdependence, shared living arrangements, and a commitment to mutual caring. But they don’t need to have a sexual relationship or even closely mirror old-style marriage. In principle, an elderly woman and her live-in nurse could qualify. A couple of uneuphemistically confirmed bachelors could be DPs. So could two close college students, a pair of seminarians, or a couple of frat buddies. Left as it is, the concept of domestic partnership could open a Pandora’s box of litigation and subjective judicial decision-making about who qualifies. You either are or are not married; it’s not a complex question. Whether you are in a “domestic partnership” is not so clear.

More important, the concept of domestic partnership chips away at the prestige of traditional relationships and undermines the priority we give them. This priority is not necessarily a product of heterosexism. Consider heterosexual couples. Society has good reason to extend legal advantages to heterosexuals who choose the formal sanction of marriage over simply living together. They make a deeper commitment to one another and to society; in exchange, society extends certain benefits to them. Marriage provides an anchor, if an arbitrary and weak one, in the chaos of sex and relationships to which we are all prone. It provides a mechanism for emotional stability, economic security, and the healthy rearing of the next generation. We rig the law in its favor not because we disparage all forms of relationship other than the nuclear family, but because we recognize that not to promote marriage would be to ask too much of human virtue. In the context of the weakened family’s effect upon the poor, it might also invite social disintegration. One of the worst products of the New Right’s “family values” campaign is that its extremism and hatred of diversity has disguised this more measured and more convincing case for the importance of the marital bond.

The concept of domestic partnership ignores these concerns, indeed directly attacks them. This is a pity, since one of its most important objectives—providing some civil recognition for gay relationships—is a noble cause and one completely compatible with the defense of the family. But the way to go about it is not to undermine straight marriage; it is to legalize old-style marriage for gays.

The gay movement has ducked this issue primarily out of fear of division. Much of the gay leadership clings to notions of gay life as essentially outsider, anti-bourgeois, radical. Marriage, for them, is co-optation into straight society. For the Stonewall generation, it is hard to see how this vision of conflict will ever fundamentally change. But for many other gays—my guess, a majority—while they don’t deny the importance of rebellion 20 years ago and are grateful for what was done, there’s now the sense of a new opportunity. A need to rebel has quietly ceded to a desire to belong. To be gay and to be bourgeois no longer seems such an absurd proposition. Certainly since AIDS, to be gay and to be responsible has become a necessity.

Gay marriage squares several circles at the heart of the domestic partnership debate. Unlike domestic partnership, it allows for recognition of gay relationships, while casting no aspersions on traditional marriage. It merely asks that gays be allowed to join in. Unlike domestic partnership, it doesn’t open up avenues for heterosexuals to get benefits without the responsibilities of marriage, or a nightmare of definitional litigation. And unlike domestic partnership, it harnesses to an already established social convention the yearnings for stability and acceptance among a fast-maturing gay community.

Gay marriage also places more responsibilities upon gays; it says for the first time that gay relationships are not better or worse than straight relationships, and that the same is expected of them. And it’s clear and dignified. There’s a legal benefit to a clear, common symbol of commitment. There’s also a personal benefit. One of the ironies of domestic partnership is that it’s not only more complicated than marriage, it’s more demanding, requiring an elaborate statement of intent to qualify. It amounts to a substantial invasion of privacy. Why, after all, should gays be required to prove commitment before they get married in a way we would never dream of asking of straights?

Legalizing gay marriage would offer homosexuals the same deal society now offers heterosexuals: general social approval and specific legal advantages in exchange for a deeper and harder-to-extract-yourself-from commitment to another human being. Like straight marriage, it would foster social cohesion, emotional security, and economic prudence. Since there’s no reason gays should not be allowed to adopt or be foster parents, it could also help nurture children. And its introduction would not be some sort of radical break with social custom. As it has become more acceptable for gay people to acknowledge their loves publicly, more and more have committed themselves to one another for life in full view of their families and their friends. A law institutionalizing gay marriage would merely reinforce a healthy social trend. It would also, in the wake of AIDS, qualify as a genuine public health measure. Those conservatives who deplore promiscuity among some homosexuals should be among the first to support it. Burke could have written a powerful case for it.

The argument that gay marriage would subtly undermine the unique legitimacy of straight marriage is based upon a fallacy. For heterosexuals, straight marriage would remain the most significant–and only legal social bond. Gay marriage could only delegitimize straight marriage if it were a real alternative to it, and this is clearly not true. To put it bluntly, there’s precious little evidence that straights could be persuaded by any law to have sex with–let alone marry—someone of their own sex. The only possible effect of this sort would be to persuade gay men and women who force themselves into heterosexual marriage (often at appalling cost to themselves and their families) to find a focus for their family instincts in a more personally positive environment. But this is clearly a plus, not a minus: gay marriage could both avoid a lot of tortured families and create the possibility for many happier ones. It is not, in short, a denial of family values. It’s an extension of them.

Of course, some would claim that any legal recognition of homosexuality is a de facto attack upon heterosexuality. But even the most hardened conservatives recognize that gays are a permanent minority and aren’t likely to go away. Since persecution is not an option in a civilized society, why not coax gays into traditional values rather than rail incoherently against them?

There’s a less elaborate argument for gay marriage: it’s good for gays. It provides role models for young gay people who, after the exhilaration of coming out, can easily lapse into short-term relationships and insecurity with no tangible goal in sight. My own guess is that most gays would embrace such a goal with as much (if not more) commitment as straights. Even in our society as it is, many lesbian relationships are virtual textbook cases of monogamous commitment. Legal gay marriage could also help bridge the gulf often found between gays and their parents. It could bring the essence of gay life–a gay couple—into the heart of the traditional straight family in a way the family can most understand and the gay offspring can most easily acknowledge. It could do as much to heal the gay-straight rift as any amount of gay rights legislation.

If these arguments sound socially conservative, that’s no accident. It’s one of the richest ironies of our society’s blind spot toward gays that essentially conservative social goals should have the appearance of being so radical. But gay marriage is not a radical step. It avoids the mess of domestic partnership; it is humane; it is conservative in the best sense of the word. It’s also about relationships. Given that gay relationships will always exist, what possible social goal is advanced by framing the law to encourage those relationships to be unfaithful, undeveloped, and insecure?

Read more of Slate’s coverage of same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court , including:

What It Was Like in the Supreme Court as the Justices Read Their Opinions
Scalia’s Dissent, Summarized in One Word
How Would Scalia Insult You? Find Out With Slate ’s Burn Generator.

Gay Marriage: Theological and Moral Arguments
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Focus Areas
Religious and Catholic Ethics

Gay Marriage

Theological and moral arguments.

A theological approach that might open up the possibility for greater Christian acceptance of, and ecclesiastical approval for, same sex unions.

It is a pleasure to be here with members of the University community today. It is a special pleasure to be with Father Jerry Coleman and my colleague, June Carbone. I was first going to call my comments as "A Straight Eye for Some Queer Guys," but I see that the name has been taken.

While George Bush calls for 1.5 billion dollars to bolster the sanctity of marriage—especially among the lower classes of society—we live in an unprecedented time of transition with reference to marriage and the family. According to the , only 56% of Americans are married today and, even more surprising, only 26% of all households are the traditional married-couple-with-children homes. One need only look at the recent one-day marriage of pop idol, Brittany Spears, and the shenanigans of "Benifer" about their on-and-off nuptials to realize that tradi-tional marriage between heterosexuals is in deep trouble.

Social conservatives are not only concerned about marriage, but also the rise of a gay and lesbian culture. Statistics suggest, however, that gays and lesbians are not increasing in number, if we accept the best research data of Edward Laumann, who puts the number at about 5% of the population . What has grown is a much greater acceptance of gays and lesbians in our culture, as well as the social and economic freedom for gays and lesbians to emerge from the closet that has confined them for so many generations. The recent addition of same sex commitment ceremonies in the Sunday wedding and engagement announcements and the popularity of shows as "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye…" indicate a shift in our culture's attitude toward gays and lesbians.

Let me share a brief personal note: I have been teaching Theology of Marriage at Santa Clara since 1983. In every class, for the past 20 odd years, I have invited a gay former student, Lee FitzGerald, to speak on gay relationships. My intent was two-fold: first to invite students into dialogue with people different from themselves; second, to work to eliminate, in whatever small way I could, homophobic attitudes on our campus and in our community. Lee's classes over the years have been uniformly successful and very worthwhile. The attitudes of Santa Clara students have evolved significantly in the last two decades vis à vis gay and lesbian relationships.

My purpose today is not to support or defend gay and lesbian marriages—indeed, many gays and lesbians do not want to marry—but simply suggest a theological approach that might open up the possibility for greater Christian acceptance of, and ecclesiastical approval for, same sex unions. Let me begin by suggesting a tentative definition of marriage, even if such a definition is, as my dear friend Ted Mackin said, "an elusive enterprise. Even the married find it so." Marriage is an unconditional, life-long commitment between two persons who promise to share all of life and love, home and hearth, body and soul; marriage necessarily involves both the fullest of communication, the deepest of understanding, and the strongest of personal loyalty and trust between two people.

In this definition, the unconditional element is most striking. Marriage is unconditional in two senses: first, the commitment is not conditioned by other commitments, no matter what they may be. Such commitments include parents, friends, one's psychological needs, career goals, spiritual interests, sexual drives, addictions of any sort, and the like. Second, in the marriage relationship, both partners confront the unconditional dimension of life and find it deeply and profoundly personal. This means that in and through one another, each partner confronts the ultimate meaning of his/her life precisely by sharing life unconditionally with another person; put differently, husband and wife discover the presence of God in the sharing of daily life with another.

Marriage is exclusive in so far as everyone else is excluded from the innermost circle of intimacy, both sexual and personal, shared between the two partners—no one else has access to the inner heart and mind, as well as the body, of the partner in exactly the same way. For this same reason, marriage is also inclusive because all of one's life—one's finances, career, leisure time, friendships, relationship to family friends, even one's other so-called soul-mates—must be understood from the stand-point of, and in light of, the marriage commitment. Put differently, the whole of one's life, history, successes, failures, hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows, are included in the relationship between two people.

In defining marriage this way, I am also defining what Catholicism calls a sacramental marriage. For the Catholic tradition, marriage is a commitment between a man and a woman that is modeled on the commitment of Christ and his Church, on a commitment of unconditional love. Ted Mackin defines sacramental marriage this way:

This then is what it means for a Christian man and woman to live their marriage as a sacrament: that they find in one another's habitual attitude and conduct evidence of the presence of the Creator; more particularly that both believe, and rule their conduct by the belief, that they are held in existence by divine creation and that they are drawn to God by their love for one another and the intimate sharing that acts out this love; in short that they are instruments, willing instruments, of the Creator.

More particularly still, a man and woman live their marriage sacramentally if they believe that in loving one another they are responding to the Creator's call to intimacy with Godself, into a communion consisting of knowledge and love that begins in their lives this side of death but can continue through and past their deaths into unending communion with the divine life; [if they believe that this invitation to intimacy is at the same time the Creator's effort to rescue them from their sinfulness, their powerful tendency to protect themselves, to distrust the other's invasion of their privacy and freedom, and to stay closed off from intimacy, using one another merely for pleasure and security.

In this unconditional relationship, the quality of relation is unexceptional—the good husband and father will also be the good friend, priest, son, or daughter; the mediocre man or woman will be mediocre in all of his/her relations. This is just as true if the person is gay, lesbian, or straight. Being a person means understanding that he or she is only one individual among others and not the center of the universe, that his/her will can not always be satisfied but must often be subjected to the will of others for the common good. Without this awareness of self, the individual will never be able to come out of his/her inflated self-importance and share his/her life with another. Marriage offers us the ideal human setting for us to surrender our own self-importance and discover, through intimacy with another, the real heart and center of the universe in God—whether one uses the word God or not. This unconditional giving of one's self is at the core of a sacramental marriage in the Catholic tradition.

My question is this: In the ideal order, what would prevent this sacramental understanding of marriage from being applied to two persons of the same sex in the same way these words can be spoken about a man and woman? One need not use the word "marriage," but the reality is the same. A gay or lesbian orientation is not a matter of choice but simply the way an individual is. A person is born gay and lesbian and grows up this way; it is not a matter of decision, one possibility among others for the mature individual. The Pastoral letters of the Catholic bishops realize this fact.

While it is not likely that official Roman Catholic theology will sanction same sex relationships in the near future, two significant changes have taken place in the last half century in our understanding of marriage. , the concept of marriage has moved from a legal contract to a personal covenant between two people in the pres-ence of God. Marriage is rooted, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, in "the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent." , the act of procreation within a marriage (until recently seen as a duty so the race may survive) is no longer the only purpose of marriage. In marriage, the partners, as the Council says, also "render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and their actions." Since not all marriages between a man and a woman end in offspring due to physical problems or personal choice, it is clear that the concept of procreation as essential to the marriage bond should be explored in a wider sense and include the creative spheres of the spiritual, moral, and cultural. Likewise, our understanding of family has broadened. In a 1980 statement, the Catholic bishops of Western Washington suggest that "whenever a relationship is formed based on mutual caring and interdependency, family is not merely a metaphor but the proper term to describe such a relationship." The Catholic theologian Rosemary Haughton suggests that perhaps the most important thing about a family is not the blood relationship, but the fact that it is a community, a group of people sharing their lives."

In this context, then, the possibility exists for a broader and more inclusive understanding of marriage and family. Such an understanding may ultimately include same sex relationships. The norm ought not to be gender but the quality or unconditional love and commitment that exists between two people. If Jesus as God's face among us could reach out to the Samaritan woman at the well and promise her living water, I cannot imagine a God who would not be pleased by deep and intense love and commitment in any of its forms. For Jesus reveals a God who wants more than obedience to the law but a God who wants nothing less than our whole hearts and minds and souls. All that matters to God is what is in the hearts and souls that God has given to us and that we seek to give to one another.

__________________________
See Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Gina Kolata. . Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1994; and Edward O. Laumann, Robert T. Michael, John H Gagnon, and Stuart Michaels. . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Good Disagreement: The Same-Sex Marriage Debate Shows We Still Have a Long Way to Go

Joel Harrison

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Joel Harrison is Senior Lecturer in the Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University, Sydney.

Australia has now completed its postal survey "vote" on whether marriage should be redefined at law to include the union of two persons of the same sex. 61.6% are in favour of the change.

In the wake of the result, we should spend time reflecting on the nature of the debate and what lessons it may hold for civic - and civil - engagement. In particular, what did this debate reveal about our capacity for respectful conversation ?

Advocates on both sides of the question repeatedly used this term as an aspiration, also indicating that there was a conversation to be had. However, both No and Yes groups claimed offence, vilification and bullying .

This is not surprising. I want to suggest at least two structural and conceptual reasons why the postal survey was ill-suited to engendering respectful conversation. Both reasons transcend the current issue of same-sex marriage, relating more generally to how we engage in moral debates.

First, the debate was characterised by an emphasis on "getting out the vote" or marshalling one's own side; and second, claims of offence and bigotry are how we often stake a political argument in an age focused on rights (or, more specifically, rights-talk of a certain brand).

In contrast, I want to consider an alternative. A truly respectful conversation will be one that sees the task before us as a collective endeavour. In this case: a quest, however contested, to understand the relationship between the good of marriage, the ends of the person, and the goal of politics or formation of a community. In such a conversation, we are responsible to each other in at least two ways: first, rather than simply asserting a subjective right, we are all seeking to understand an objective, shared good, one central to our political community or common life; second, as such, we may see the other person not as an enemy (the "religious bigot" or the "radical gay propagandist"), but as an interlocutor refining our own argument or offering something for contemplation.

But such a conversation arguably also requires shared space for deliberation. We not only need a shared language or goal, but sites for encountering one another in order to cultivate the sense that the other person is someone whose flourishing I have an interest in or care for.

This kind of conversation was arguably not evident recently in Australia, but it is possible.

"Get out the vote"

The very use of a plebiscite - or, in this case, a postal survey - was contentious . In our parliamentary democracy, persons are elected to take part in deliberation orientated towards passing laws for the common good. This entails exercising wisdom - leading popular opinion as much as reflecting on it - in order to discern what that good requires. Indeed, such an exercise requires being attentive to different communities and their claims.

Instead, before reaching this form of deliberation, we have had a postal survey. Here, deliberation is largely replaced with attempting to marshal one's side or "get out the vote." Campaigners have been explicit , stating they were targeting those likely to have sympathy for their position.

This follows from reducing moral and political deliberation down to, ultimately, a yes-no binary. Of course, there may be attempts to engage with and persuade those who disagree, but such attempts are surely rarer when the task is simply one of securing votes.

Doing so can largely take the form of galvanising the base with (sometimes ambiguous) horror stories, explosive wording, "right side of history" claims, or blatant attempts to engage in civic alienation - determining who are the friends and who are the enemies. Such galvanising tactics have typified the Coalition for Marriage , campaigning for a No vote. Its repeated exhortations against "radical gay sex" during the postal survey can only be understood as attempts to rally the troops against a spectre of ambiguous import.

Indeed, the act of persuasion becomes almost entirely an appeal to caution, if not fear. Of course, changing the definition of marriage does raise important questions concerning education and religious liberty. But the Coalition for Marriage's campaign, judging by its publicly available resources, explicitly targeted these concerns alone and did so more in the vein of political slogans - flyers and videos to stir those already committed or those amenable to the messaging. Perhaps ironically, given it is the Coalition for Marriage, material on what marriage is and why this is a good - indeed, something attractive - did not feature heavily in its campaign. Such attempts were instead made by individuals .

Within this context, appeals to respectful conversation appear to have a distinct meaning. They largely seem to concern the liberty to state a view, arguably in order to marshal the base, with the proviso that this must not amount to vilification. Here, the postal survey, with its crystallising of our current debate into a push for Yes and No votes, highlighted how for some the political task has become simply the goal of winning through securing numbers.

Rights-talk

But there is, I think, a second reason why respectful conversation has become difficult: the reigning concepts employed arguably hinder it. In our current debate, rights-talk is particularly prominent. In one banal sense, this is inevitable. Amending the Marriage Act 1961 would create a new rights-claim, entailing a duty on the part of the state to recognise a union between any two persons under the Act as a valid legal marriage.

But the appeal to rights ordinarily says much more than this; typically rights-talk is appealed to as the justification for changing the Marriage Act . For example, in her Monthly essay , Senator Penny Wong principally refers to the "equal treatment of people" which requires "granting the same rights."

What, then, does equality of rights mean? Of course, rights discourse is complicated by different strands or traditions of argument that shape the purpose and content of rights-claims; there is no settled meaning. For example, some have argued that a right to marry is a right to participate in a conditioned role or responsibility that entails certain duties to the spouse and children. On this (typically more Catholic) view, the duty is primary. The purpose of marriage is inferred from the natural relations between men and women, and the building of a community; marriage exists to sustain children and a tradition. But appeals to rights in the current debate typically draw from a different tradition of argument - call it liberal egalitarian .

Senator Wong goes on to appeal to Obergefell , the United States Supreme Court's decision holding that states must extend the status of marriage to same-sex couples. For the majority in that decision, Justice Kennedy stated, "the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy." This was not the Court's sole proposition; however, it was the guiding light or principle. A right is linked to the "liberty ... to define and express ... identity." Marriage is cast as one form of intimate decision central to this. It thus serves the underlying goal of what others have referred to as self-actualisation, self-fashioning, or facilitating different lifestyles. Equality consequently means equal regard or respect for a person's (at least intimate) choices.

Rights-talk is often characterised as a neutral language, transcending different religious and non-religious views. It appears well-suited to the reality of no single view achieving universal acceptance. But I suggest that rights-talk of the kind just described, arguably a dominant strand, can engender conflict and inhibit dialogue.

A person may argue that a choice is not conducive to human flourishing, personally and socially. However, if rights are directed towards equal respect for an individual's freedom to cultivate his or her understanding of the good life, then this moral claim may be characterised as imposing an "external preference" (to borrow from the late Ronald Dworkin) upon the ethical preferences of another individual. Such claims then register in public discourse, and legal decisions, as statements that the other is of less worth because an ethical choice is not being respected.

Framed in this way, rights-talk can contribute to what Steven Smith has called a "discourse of denigration." The strongest available argument is to cast one's opponent as engaging in hate. Thus the prevalence of "bigot" in public discourse. Of course, such bigotry and denigration does exist - homophobia is real, as is animus against religious persons. But the label is frequently extended to an opposing view as such. The person arguing marriage is a union between persons of the opposite sex is not simply raising a definitional or ontological argument, but is rights-limiting, imposing a preference on the freedom of another, and thus denigrating another's identity. In return, this precipitates a counter-claim of bigotry, sourced both in the original claim - labelling one's opponent a bigot is itself a form of bigotry - and any attendant denial of the right to religious liberty.

Unsurprisingly, then, much of our current political argument registers as claims of offence and protest. By this I do not mean protest necessarily linked to a shared good - for example, care of the planet or a cessation of war. Rather, what we now increasingly see in a debate like this is the potential for an almost wholly "negative" phenomenon of protesting against offence occasioned by the rejection of one's own ethical choices. Solidarity is found - and votes marshalled - in mutual offence at, for example, someone believing that children are ideally raised by a biological father and mother or questioning the influence of a person's religious beliefs.

This is deeply ironic. Rights-talk of the kind I am discussing is grounded in equal regard for another's identity. And yet what we actually have much of the time is mutual disrespect . Indeed, if rights-talk refers to respecting an individual's self-actualisation or ethical freedom, then we arguably do not need to engage the substance of the person's actual argument. Rather, each claim is simply a matter of respecting, as far as possible, self-defining.

This presents questions of law: how do we "balance" what are arguably structurally similar claims, if our concern is ethical freedom, namely same-sex marriage and religious liberty? But we are arguably beyond respecting - by, in fact, engaging - the other person's substantive view.

Good disagreement

The alternative is to understand our conversation as a shared endeavour. I have argued that our current debate has two features: politics as simply an interest in securing one's base to win, and a focus on a rights discourse that reflects arguments of personal autonomy and private choice. In contrast, focusing together on the substantive moral question (what is marriage? how does it relate to our common life?) allows, I suggest, for a kind of displaced agreement. Participants may not agree on a particular conclusion - here, whether marriage can extend to a same-sex couple. Nevertheless, they may agree in part, agree on the moral vocabulary, or agree that the differing party is conscientiously pursuing a real human good. This would contribute to what the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, calls "good disagreement."

A conversation of this kind can be fruitful. Here, I am drawing from the structuring of debates within parts of the Anglican Communion. Some churches have grappled with what it means to disagree, while nevertheless seeking and affirming a "right" position. While these debates are not perfect, I think they offer potential insights for our political communities.

Consider, first, how the argument of "traditionalists" argument clearly points to two matters that may make a "revisionist" pause: the status of objective goods in our common life, and the importance of marriage to a civil society independent of the sway of government and market.

Traditionalists argue marriage points to a fundamental unity-in-differentiation. Marriage draws together the two halves of the human race (as the typical cases) in a union that gives positive meaning to gender difference: we need each other, which is then most centrally expressed in the common endeavour of procreation and child-rearing. On this account, marriage is fundamentally "traditional." As John Milbank has argued, it entails forming kinship structures, transmitting virtue and a tradition, and the continuity of humanity itself from one generation to the next.

Framed in this way, the traditionalist argument clearly points to genuine, desirable human goods. Indeed, importantly, it typically contends that marriage is an objective good purposed towards particular ends. This raises a fundamental question in our debates: are there goods whose nature or shaping is not simply a matter of individual will?

Liberal-egalitarian rights-talk in this field can be construed as respecting the choice to enter into a status (marriage). However, there is also more than a hint that this respect extends to the individual's own understanding of what that status is. Such a determination is part of a person's capacity to "define one's own concept of existence." Some commentators then echo this by grounding marriage in contract, which casts marriage as an agreement entailing the allocation of rights and duties as determined by individual willing.

For the traditionalist, this is rank individualism. It adopts a mistaken view of freedom as the absence of restraint, rather than the pursuit of what is truly good. And this view, at one with a neo-liberal focus on choice, then clearly relates to changing practices of child-bearing, which in turn affects the political meaning of the family.

On the traditionalist account, marriage as an objective good entails the potential for a child who is uniquely of these two people. Marriage is political because it is the basis for forming and extending communities; it is our first society. But uncoupling marriage from gender-differentiation (for example, rendering it a matter of contract) potentially transforms parenthood from a matter of natural affinity, with a relative independence and authority, into a subject under the sway of commercial enterprise, contractual design, and state regulation and recognition.

Revisionists can and have responded to these claims.

For example, I have noted previously a consistent thread of argument that characterises marriage as a school of virtue. Marriage on this account is a humanising act - it teaches us, through intimacy with a spouse, what it means to be a person, rightly formed. It orientates us towards our right end of human flourishing - a life characterised by fidelity, patience and charity, for example. It teaches us the disciplines necessary to achieve this. It awakens "knowing yourself to be seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted." And, in turn, it entails learning to accord and recognise the worth of the other. Thus the Book of Common Prayer states, "With my body, I thee worship."

Grounded in such mutual love and support, the marriage partners can then be a gift to the community. On this, the biopolitical concern of state and market sway over parenthood can be accepted as real, but not inevitable. As a gift to our common life, the marriage may not entail child-rearing at all, or, if it does, it may focus on adoption as a vocation. (Indeed, this would be consistent with biblical images of marriage, which typically do not depend on child-bearing, but point to faithfulness and a place for erotic desire.)

Importantly, here traditionalist claims are not "overcome" by an appeal to rights discourse. Rather, the traditionalist claims are taken seriously, as a partner seeking common meaning. This means the revisionist argument, focused in this way, also discusses marriage as an objective good fundamental to our common life. As Sarah Coakley has noted, it remains "traditional."

I am suggesting, then, that a more respectful conversation - if that is our goal - is furthered by attending to and cultivating a shared language. Here our disagreements may not amount to simply claims of rights-limited, but rather contested conclusions in a shared project: understanding marriage and its importance. Indeed, each side may then be pointing to something right, something of a shared concern or even desire. This does not mean agreement, but it does point to the possibility of some shared norms. And if there can be mutual recognition of the other's argument this should make us more open to the possibility of conscientious difference and disagreement, even as we continue to seek to persuade.

But a respectful conversation arguably requires more than attentiveness to the contours of a debate; it requires a context for this. It requires, in other words, time, space and encounter - all things that arguably were lacking in the compressed context of a postal survey.

For those who see same-sex marriage as a pressing matter of justice, the wait has been too long. This is understandable, but if we are to take conscientious difference seriously and engender a respectful conversation, then time is needed. One unfortunate characteristic of the current debate is the absence of the rhetorical virtue of decorum . Speaking generally, John Perry describes "the arrogant assumption by some that they have been there from the beginning and therefore control the terms of discussion, as well as the foolishness of the newcomer who doesn't wait and listen for long enough to hear what the argument is about." Simply understanding the moral claims, lines of argument and implications from argument found in this debate takes time. But the need for time extends also to building relationships across an "opposing" side.

Reflecting on the parallel debates in the Anglican Communion, Justin Welby refers to "an honest reinforcement of the bonds of relationship." Our moral debates, while fraught, are also an exercise in virtue . Respecting the other person in conversation means cultivating the capacity to care for the other person. This is consistent with understanding our conversation as shared . We share a common life, and so should be concerned with sustaining bonds of trust and even affection. We may come to understand our interlocutors as not simply the holder of a competing view, but as someone who as a member of my community may be a gift to me. They may illuminate a question in surprising ways. Moreover, they may contribute to what Iris Murdoch called "moral perfection." Through active attending to the other person, I may come to see them "justly and lovingly" - virtues that, as she argued, are fundamental to being a person.

That would typically mean cultivating shared spaces for encounter. We may think of this tangibly. Rather than the echo chamber of social media, let alone the world of robocalls and pamphleteering, actively attending to those who share with us the project of discerning and debating right is more likely done in the act of sitting at a table (or in a pew), at which the other person is immediately before us and concrete.

This is not to say that conversation will lead to some kind of middle-of-the-road agreement. Such conversations are not divorced from pursuing the truth. Indeed, from a perspective of Christian political ethics, if not more widely, we are concerned with articulating right - that is, asking what justice requires, understood as discerning right relations within a created order. This requires engaging in criticism where justice goes awry and then arguing for what is right.

However, Christian thought emphasises within this the cultivation of virtues. We are in right relationship not simply when we have reinforced a position with those in agreement, but when we have acted out of an attentive love or else care for mutual flourishing. Respectful conversation consequently means understanding that what is cultivated - the character of the person and of the polity - is an end in itself.

The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage Argumentative Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

Relationships between sexes have been traditionally streamlined into the heterosexual standards of behavior. Marriage, as a union of two people before the law and the church, is mostly perceived as such comprising representatives of different sexes, a man and a woman.

However, apart from heterosexual couples, there also emerge occurrences when two people of the same sex desire to form a matrimonial unit. In such cases, the term of same-sex marriage or gay marriage is applied whenever such union is officially recognized by the legal system of a country. The attitude to gay marriage has differed throughout the existence of humankind, varying from approval to indifference to persecution.

After a historical wave of human rights movement, modern society appears to be reconsidering its attitude to gay marriage on the whole, and a number of countries have already accepted gay marriage as legal. Despite this change, the opposition between the proponents and the opponents of gay marriage remains tense, nurtured by a wide range of mutually exclusive arguments for and against gay marriage.

The first argument typically used to defend gay marriage in public opinion is the populist slogan of human rights movement that every person, irrespective of sexual background, has the right to love and family life. Indeed, by denying marriage among representatives of the same sex, the principle of majority rule, minority right is violated (Messerli).

If homosexually oriented people are viewed as a minority, then it appears that denying marriage to them is similar to denying marriage to people of non-Caucasus race, etc. In fact, such prohibition of gay marriage appears nothing less than mere discrimination, a phenomenon that modern society is trying to eradicate by all means.

Counteracting the argument that prohibition of gay marriage appears similar to discrimination is the idea that marriage, in the traditional understanding of the word, is the union of necessarily different sexes, a man and a woman. The main function of a traditional heterosexual marriage is viewed in producing children of their own, a function that a same-sex marriage cannot physically perform.

Adopting children or getting offspring via artificial fertilization (in couples consisting of homosexual females) cannot be viewed as reproduction proper since either both or one of the partners are not directly involved in the process of conception and childbearing. Therefore, due to the inability to perform the basic function of the family, gay marriage can hardly be recognized as marriage proper.

Another argument in defense of gay marriage is viewed by some of its proponents in the fact that the practice of adopting children by gay couples promotes adoption rates and benefits the situation with parentless children. The more gay couples are legally married, the more chances there are that they will be officially allowed to adopt and raise children (Messerli).

Considering that the numbers of parentless children in the world is overflowing, gay marriages could be a beneficial solution to this problem. In addition, gay marriage would promote the sense of family among the homosexual couples and make this sense complete with adopting a child.

Opponents of same-sex marriages arduously refute the argument of the beneficial effects of child adoptions by gay couples. For one thing, the standard type of family accepted in a traditional society and still dominating in modern world is a family where one of the parents is a man (or a father) and the other parent is a woman (or a mother).

In case with gay marriages, this balance of sexes would be impossible to maintain, and therefore the child may get confused about his or her family composition. In its turn, this may lead to misunderstanding of masculine and feminine roles and messy behavior with lack of own definition. For another thing, parent-child relations in a gay marriage are quite obscure.

It is a widely known fact that many people who grew up homosexual used to be sexually abused in their childhood. This closed circle may engross the adopted children into unwanted sexual practices that would streamline their life in a direction undesired by them.

A legal case in support of same-sex marriage is the idea that marriage as a social institution is readily recognized by the general public. Having concluded a legal marriage, a homosexual couple can enjoy the same citizen and family rights as traditional heterosexual couples.

Moreover, being officially registered as spouses brings homosexual more understanding in daily situations. In an interview to the Bay Area Reporter, policy director for Marriage Equality USA Pamela Brown states that “No one questions your spouse in the hospital if you’re married; but in a domestic partnership, you’d better bring your paperwork” (Laird). Community welcomes legalized marriage and demonstrates more tolerance if a homosexual couple is joined by official conjugal ties.

Despite the arduous support of institution of marriage on the example of gay marriages, there exist certain dangers connected with accepting same-sex marriages as legal. The basis of social respect for the institution of marriage lies in the uniqueness of the union between the man and the woman, since they are the only couple between sexes able to procreate (Messerli).

The traditional understanding of family as a husband, wife, and children has been the sacred notion that has helped people survive through most dreadful challenges. The dream of true family has led soldiers to fight for their motherland, and the vision of homely comfort and cozy family hearth is the one that helped survive economic depressions.

If this standard of family is changed, the consequences might be drastic. Expanding the borders of marriage to the point where they are blurred is threatening the stability of the institute of marriage. People will then be tempted to claim that any union be called a marriage, be it a union of one men with ten wives or a couple of blood relatives. Therefore, the borders of marriage should be kept inviolable, otherwise the whole institute can collapse.

Last but not least, the most stable basis for decision on legality or illegality of gay marriage should be the Scripture that has served as a guideline for moral standards for thousands of generations. However artfully it might be misrepresented by wishful interpreters, the Bible clearly states the standards of sexual behavior since the very first days of existence: a couple is heterosexual, “male to female, joined as God intended them to be” (ProCon.org).

This absolute truth should be taken as a model on which the whole institute of marriage is based. Any other digressions and variations can only be viewed as transient and therefore cannot be accepted as a standard, since they violate the ultimate dispensation granted to humankind.

Works Cited

Laird, Cynthia. “Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage Debated.” The Bay Area Reporter Online . 2007. Web.

Messerli, Joe. “ Should Same-Sex Marriages be Legalized? ” BalancedPolitics. 2009. Web.

ProCon.org. “ Top 10 Pros and Cons: Is Sexual Orientation Determined at Birth? ” BornGay.ProCon. 2009. Web.

Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage in San Francisco
Same-Sex Marriage: Sociopolitical
Gay Marriage and Bible: Differences From Heterosexual Practice
Social Justice and Gay Rights
Polygamy in America: Between Society, Law, and Gender
“Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing a Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusal” by Kitzinger and Frith: Summary
Same Sex Marriages Impact on the Children Social Growth
Sociological Concept: Intersectionality
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, July 5). The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-pros-and-cons-of-gay-marriage/

"The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage." IvyPanda , 5 July 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/the-pros-and-cons-of-gay-marriage/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage'. 5 July.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage." July 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-pros-and-cons-of-gay-marriage/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage." July 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-pros-and-cons-of-gay-marriage/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Pros and Cons of Gay Marriage." July 5, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-pros-and-cons-of-gay-marriage/.

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In Gay Marriage Debate, Both Supporters and Opponents See Legal Recognition as ’Inevitable’

Section 1: Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Inevitability
Section 2: Views of Gay Men and Lesbians, Roots of Homosexuality, Personal Contact with Gays
Section 3: Religious Belief and Views of Homosexuality
About the Survey

As support for gay marriage continues to increase, nearly three-quarters of Americans – 72% – say that legal recognition of same-sex marriage is “inevitable.” This includes 85% of gay marriage supporters, as well as 59% of its opponents.

The national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted May 1-5 among 1,504 adults, finds that support for same-sex marriage continues to grow: For the first time in Pew Research Center polling, just over half (51%) of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. Yet the issue remains divisive, with 42% saying they oppose legalizing gay marriage. Opposition to gay marriage – and to societal acceptance of homosexuality more generally – is rooted in religious attitudes, such as the belief that engaging in homosexual behavior is a sin.

At the same time, more people today have gay or lesbian acquaintances, which is associated with acceptance of homosexuality and support for gay marriage. Nearly nine-in-ten Americans (87%) personally know someone who is gay or lesbian (up from 61% in 1993). About half (49%) say a close family member or one of their closest friends is gay or lesbian. About a quarter (23%) say they know a lot of people who are gay or lesbian, and 31% know a gay or lesbian person who is raising children. The link between these experiences and attitudes about homosexuality is strong. For example, roughly two-thirds (68%) of those who know a lot of people who are gay or lesbian favor gay marriage, compared with just 32% of those who don’t know anyone.

Part of this is a matter of who is more likely to have many gay acquaintances: the young, city dwellers, women, and the less religious, for example. But even taking these factors into account, the relationship between personal experiences and acceptance of homosexuality is a strong one.

Yet opposition to gay marriage remains substantial, and religious beliefs are a major factor in opposition. Just under half of Americans (45%) say they think engaging in homosexual behavior is a sin, while an equal number says it is not. Those who believe homosexual behavior is a sin overwhelmingly oppose gay marriage. Similarly, those who say they personally feel there is a lot of conflict between their religious beliefs and homosexuality (35% of the public) are staunchly opposed to same-sex marriage.

The survey finds that as support for same-sex marriage has risen, other attitudes about homosexuality have changed as well. In a 2004 Los Angeles Times poll, most Americans (60%) said they would be upset if they had a child who told them that they were gay or lesbian; 33% said they would be very upset over this. Today, 40% say they would be upset if they learned they had a gay or lesbian child, and just 19% would be very upset.

Favorable opinions of both gay men and lesbians have risen since 2003. Moreover, by nearly two-to-one (60% to 31%), more Americans say that homosexuality should be accepted rather than discouraged by society. A decade ago, opinions about societal acceptance of homosexuality were evenly divided (47% accepted, 45% discouraged).

The religious basis for opposition to homosexuality is seen clearly in the reasons people give for saying it should be discouraged by society. By far the most frequently cited factors –mentioned by roughly half (52%) of those who say homosexuality should be discouraged – are moral objections to homosexuality, that it conflicts with religious beliefs, or that it goes against the Bible. No more than about one-in-ten cite any other reasons as to why homosexuality should be discouraged by society.

Widespread Belief that Legal Recognition Is ‘Inevitable’

Despite the increasing support for legal same-sex marriage in recent years, opinions about the issue remain deeply divided by age, partisanship and religious affiliation.

By contrast, large majorities across most demographic groups think that legal recognition of same-sex marriage is inevitable.

Republicans (73%) are as likely as Democrats (72%) or independents (74%) to view legal recognition for gay marriage as inevitable. Just 31% of Republicans favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, compared with majorities of Democrats (59%) and independents (58%).

Similarly, people 65 and older are 30 points more likely to view legal recognition of same-sex marriage as inevitable than to favor it (69% vs. 39%). Among those younger than 30, about as many see legal same-sex marriage as inevitable as support gay marriage (69%, 65%).

Just 22% of white evangelical Protestants favor same-sex marriage, but about three times that percentage (70%) thinks legal recognition for gay marriage is inevitable. Among other religious groups, there are smaller differences in underlying opinions about gay marriage and views of whether it is inevitable.

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