The Right to Gay Marriage

Marriage is one of the oldest institutions in western civilization and is ingrained into American culture and society. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2006 there were 55.2 million married households in America, most Americans will eventually be married, and the total number of American married couples is at its highest in history. Consequently, marriage has worked its way into every facet of society. Businesses, organizations, and local state and national government in America have laws, regulations, and restrictions that deal with marriage.

When a gay couple lives in America's marriage based society they are denied many rights based on the fact that they cannot legally marry. If someone in a homosexual relationship is ill in the hospital, they're partner is denied spousal visitation rights and medical decision making rights. When filing taxes, persons in homosexual relationships are forced to pay a single person's taxes. Benefits given to married people in annuity and retirement plans are denied to gay partnerships. Only legally recognized spouses are allowed to be on each others health plans. Because gay partnerships are denied legal marriage they do not have the right to decline to testify against one's spouse. Among these denied rights to homosexuals, the General Accounting Office of the Federal Government in 1997 enumerated some 1,049 laws giving rights to married heterosexual couples.

This is a problem in America because it contradicts the articles of the constitution. Section 1 of the fourteenth Amendment of the constitution states:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Also known as the equal protection clause, this states that no person should be denied the equal protection under the law. Since marriage is a legal institution, this clause forbids any American citizen from being denied it. Laws that bar homosexuals from marriage are in direct violation of the constitution. The checks and balances system in the federal government of the United States provides that the Supreme Court can rule any federal law written by the congress unconstitutional and thus void. The supremacy clause in the constitution states that the laws of the congress of the United States are supreme to state laws and overrule them. Thus legally, all state laws that limit marriage to only a man and a woman should be null and void.

However, laws barring homosexuals from rights given to all other American citizens are still present and enforced in a large majority of the states. There are a number of arguments that back these laws. The most notable and widely accepted of these arguments states that homosexual relationships are immoral and force the average citizen to accept homosexuality even if they do not agree with it ethically. The problem with this argument is that it is not conducive to any other law or principle in the U.S. government. Outlawing something that the majority does not agree with is the opposite of the principles by which the American government was built around. If this logic were followed in accordance with religion; Islam, Judaism, and Catholicism might be outlawed because their existence offends the protestant majority.

Perhaps in the future, with enough effort and time, homosexuals can gain their legal right to marry and be equal to the average American citizen, as other minority groups have done in history.