Same-Sex Couples Are Getting Married in America

Gay couples no longer wish to be tolerated. Many television shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Will and Grace, and Queer as Folk, prove that mainstream society has accepted their existence. But mere acknowledgment is no longer enough. They want the same rights that all Americans have and one of those rights is marriage.

Gay couples want to be legally married for many reasons. Powers of attorney and wills can be challenged by family members who disagree with the couples' relationship. Gay partners cannot make medical decisions for their partner like a married person can make a decision for their spouse. Hospitals pass up gay partners to call family members who are often estranged and hostile toward their gay relative and will ignore their wishes for treatment. If arrested, a gay person's partner will be compelled to testify against him in court when married couples to not have to do this.

Many states are asking the voters to decide whether or not to amend their state constitutions to ban same-sex marriage or to redefine marriage as between a man and a woman. When you strip away the religious beliefs and prejudices against same-sex marriage, you get down to the law. Separating church and state is what protects our religious freedom. We live in a country where people are free to choose their religion and to choose their partner. The people that argue against same-sex marriage based on their religious beliefs might not even get to practice that religion if they lived somewhere else and that's really the point. If the majority can practice their religion and marry who they want to, then all people in this country should have that right.

If marriage were an agreed upon sacred institution, then our judges would be able to sanctify marriages. But it isn't so. They give us licenses thereby allowing us to marry but it is not their responsibility to sanctify our marriages. If marriage was for procreation then infertile couples would not be allowed to marry. If marriage is traditionally a heterosexual institution then it can be argued that less than 100 years ago it was traditionally a same race institution. That has been challenged and interracial couples are every where in America. So it makes no sense that the heterosexual part of marriage cannot be challenged. Other people against it will say that gay relationships are immoral. Says who? Why, somebody's religion, that's who. If gay relationships were immoral, then the law would ban gay relationships.

How would it feel to be persecuted for actions that seem perfectly normal to you? How would it feel to be slighted certain rights because you were heterosexual? How would it feel to be unable to marry the person you love because that person doesn't fit the majority's opinion of who you should be with? Please set your religions, beliefs, and uneasiness aside for a moment and consider these fellow Americans' rights.

I grew up in the middle of right-wing-Republican, Christian, Conservatism, not far from the hometown of our beloved President I might add, and I support same-sex marriage. I can't explain how I got this minority opinion in a sea of George W's most avid supporters, and I can't explain how I keep it. But I offer it to you not to sway you or even to balance you but to inform you of what a few people in this country think when the television is turned off and the brain is turned on.