Same-Sex Marriage: Time to Step Into the 21st Century

Suppose that you’ve been living with your significant other for ten years and you intend to stay with her or him forever. Your significant other is your soul mate and nothing is more important to you than having the whole world recognize you as a legally and morally committed couple who pledge themselves to the other. Now throw a little chink into the machinery: you and your soul mate are members of the same sex. Do you, should you, have the right to enter into a formal marriage just like members of the opposite sex?

Several enlightened states have laws sanctioning same-sex marriages. The Supreme Courts of several states have held that denying a same-sex couple the right to marry unlawfully and unconstitutionally discriminate against them and have ordered that procedures be set up giving same-sex couples the same rights to marry as opposite-sex couples.

In California, the state Supreme Court held that it violated that state’s constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry and ordered that same-sex couples have access to the right to marry. Unfortunately, a few months later the California voters approved an amendment to the California Constitution stating that marriage is a union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, ending the right of same-sex couples to wed.

A few other states, mostly located in the Northeast portion of the United States like Vermont, Connecticut, and New Jersey have similarly held that a requirement that the two persons be of the opposite sex to marry violate fundamental state constitutional guarantees of equality and fair treatment. Surprisingly, the Iowa high court also held that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the state’s constitutional guarantees.

On the federal level, while President, Bill Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which recognizes only opposite-sex marriages and denies many federal benefits to the same-sex partner of a person. However, the question of who can marry is one of state rather than federal law, and gay rights advocates have been working hard in the states to get the laws banning same-sex marriages overturned.

There is no legitimate rational reason to prohibit same-sex couples from declaring their love for and commitment to each other and having that declaration sanctioned in a formal legal marriage. Take a look at opposite-sex marriages: half of all heterosexual marriages end in divorce, and of the remaining 50 percent who stay together, many do it just for the kids’ sake or because they would lose healthcare and other benefits.

As a friend of mine once said, “Same-sex couples should have the right to get married and be as miserable as opposite-sex couples.” Although facetious, it points out that the institution of marriage means that two people are in it for the long run, come hell or high water. To love and comfort each other in the bad times and share in the celebrations of the good times should not be reserved for opposite-sex couples. Gay couples have shown that their relationships last just as long, if not longer than, same-sex relationships, and they should accordingly be given the right to marry.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.