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USA – Gay Marriage should be allowed

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MOST IN FAVOR OF GAY RIGHTS, BUT GAY MARRIAGE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TOO



Viewpoints

By Nicole Kennedy (USA)

7 december 2007



As Woody Allen once said, “The heart wants what it wants.” Ask just about anyone. They’ll all tell you they’re in favor of equal rights for homosexuals. Most of them say, yes, gays should have the same rights in housing, jobs and public accommodations and should have equal access to government benefits, equal protection of the law, etc.


Woody_Allen.jpg«THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS»



Woody Allen


Then you get to gay marriage, and that’s when all this talk of equality stops dead cold. More than half of all people in America oppose gay marriage, even though three fourths are otherwise supportive of gay rights. This means that many of the same people who are passionately in favor of gay rights oppose gay marriage.

The stereotype has it that gays are promiscuous, unable to form lasting relationships and the relationships that they do form are shallow and uncommitted. And yes, gays do have these kinds of relationships, but they also exist in the heterosexual community. These are a small minority and exist mostly among the very young. Homosexuals can be loyal to their mates, and monogamous, devoted partners. They value and participate in family life, are committed in making their communities and neighborhoods safer and better places to live, and they abide by the law. In doing this they take full advantage of their relationship to make not only their lives better but the lives of their neighbors as well.


Many of the reasons offered for opposing gay marriage are based on the assumption that gays have a choice in who they can feel attracted to, but the reality is quite different. Many people actually believe that gays could simply choose to be heterosexual if they wished. But the reality is that very few do have a choice, anymore than very few heterosexuals could choose which sex to find themselves attracted to.



Many people believe what religious organizations are saying — such as homosexuality is about nothing but sex, and most people think that gay sex is repulsive. But the thing is that homosexuality is about much more than sex. It’s much more about love and affection. Sex in a gay relationship is merely a means of expressing that love and affection, just as it is in heterosexual relationships. Some sexual practices that gays are involved in are often engaged in by heterosexual couples.



Being gay is a part of a person’s core identity. It’s like being black in a society of whites, and a blonde European in a nation of black-haired Asians. Being gay is that profound, which few heterosexuals can understand unless they are part of the minority themselves.



Some say that gay relationships are not the optimum environment in which to raise children, and that marriages are for ensuring the continuation of the species. But murderers, convicted felons of all sorts, even child molesters are allowed to freely marry and procreate. Many scientific studies have shown that the outcomes of children raised in the homes of gays and lesbian couples are just as good as those of straight couples. Psychologists tell us that what makes the difference is the love and commitment of the parents, not their gender. The studies are very clear about that, and gay people are as capable of loving children as fully as anyone else. If marriages are for ensuring the continuation of the species, then why are infertile couples allowed to marry? I’m pretty sure that the human race is in no danger of dying out anytime soon due to lack of reproduction. Seems to me that gays would be doing the world a favor by not bringing more hungry mouths into a world where we have huge numbers of humans it must support. Why can’t gays just adopt children? We have so many children out there with no loving homes and parents who love them and we are worried about whether a certain type of people can get married or not.



Many others say that gay relationships are immoral. Who says? The Bible? I thought that freedom of religion meant freedom from religion as well. The Bible has absolutely no standing in American law, which was made clear by the First Amendment. And because it doesn’t, no one has the right to impose rules on anyone else because that’s what they believe in. Not all world religions have a problem with homosexuality. Buddhism, for example, celebrates gay relationships and would like to have the authority to make them legal marriages. Others think that gay marriage would force churches to marry gay couples when they have a moral objection in doing so, which is totally not the case. Gay marriage would not change any church’s right to refuse to marry a couple. It would simply offer churches the opportunity to legally marry gay couples if they wished. Which makes me think that freedom of religion would actually expand by doing this, not contract.



So across the country a debate is taking place: Should gay marriage be allowed? The old definition of marriage no longer seems to apply in America. In reality, it has not for sometime. But who says what marriage is and how it is to be defined? That’s like letting a gas station owner pick and choose who he wants to sell gas to. To ban gay marriage is to openly proclaim that America, the land of the free, discriminates against people. In a country where more than 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, how can legislators say they are preserving the traditional definition when it only survives in less than half of American families? This may require you to stop outside your moral comfort zone. To allow our government to determine what sex must marry just isn’t right. The truth is simply that love and commitment are not under the control of our government. Government is there to make decisions which benefit the entire country, not just individuals.



To put it simply, allowing gay marriage benefits all involved. It allows people of all races, genders and sexual preferences to make their own decision involving marriage. It gives all the chance at happiness and the benefits marriage provides a couple. There is no downside to this proposal that cannot be argued as a benefit or disproved. Banning gay marriage is a dilemma for the United States. I’m straight and I fully agree with it, so I’ve never understood why people disagree with gay marriage. If you love someone, you love them. That’s not something you can change, like Woody Allen said, “The heart wants what it wants.”


Source : www.pressconnects.com

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