Gay Marriage
By: Bryan Thompson

There is a class of people who are not afforded one of the most basic civil rights; the rights to marry. Homosexuals who are taxpaying citizens of the United States, who obey all laws and are productive members of their society, are not allowed to marry each other, as all heterosexuals are allowed to do. Massachusetts has been one of the states to attempt to correct this problem. Recently, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in a ruling on November 18 that denying homosexuals the right to marry is unconstitutional under the constitution of MA and thus, MA will legalize gay marriage on May 17. Furthermore, the United States constitution could require that a marriage honored in MA must be honored in any state in the nation (Cauchon 2). While advocates of Homosexual Marriage laud decisions such as this, opponents fear that these decisions could soon mean the legalization of Homosexual Marriage in the full United States; these opponents are attempting to fight back with an ammendment to the United States constition (CNN).
I believe that the prohibition of Same-Sex Marriages is both unconstitutional and morally repugnant. I also believe that if many opponents of Same-Sex Marriages saw the oppression of not being allowed to marry was extended to a religious or racial group, they would be infuriated; I believe that this is hypocrisy and should not be tolerated. As Scott Bidstrup said in his Essay “Gay Marriage: The Arguments and the Motives”, “Ask just about anyone. They'll all tell you they're in favor of equal rights for homosexuals. Just name the situation, and ask. They'll all say, yes, gays should have the same rights in housing, jobs, public accomodations, and should have equal access to government benefits, equal protection of the law, etcetera, etcetera. Then you get to gay marriage. And that's when all this talk of equality stops dead cold. Nearly three people in four in the U.S. oppose gay marriage, almost the same proportion as are otherwise supportive of gay rights. This means that many of the same people who are even passionately in favor of gay rights oppose gays on this one issue.". Finally, many of the opponents of Same-Sex Marriages state that marriage should remain

Work Cited

Cauchon, Dennis “Mass. About to alter gay-marriage debate” USA Today 12/25/2003, www.usatoday.com/news/nation , 1/25/2004

http://www.bidstrup.com/marriage.htm
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/1/afa/202004b.asp