Same Sex Marriages Essay, Research Paper

Marriage is understood to be the decision of two people to commit

themselves to each other. Marriage has no conditions, which would

prohibit same sex partners. If we look closely at the purpose of

marriage, we would see that it is actually in the best interest of our

society to allow same-sex marriages. Marriage is an institution which

promotes stability, family, and is societies lawful way of connecting

two people.

Marriage is more than just a way of making relationships permanent.

Society recognizes its importance by attaching benefits such as special

tax treatments, social security, veterans’ benefits, lower insurance

rates, and property and supports rights upon divorce. Therefore,

restricting the rights of marriage also restricts the many privileges

that go along with it. Homosexuals want to marry for the same reason

that heterosexuals have and there should be no reason why they are not

allowed to. America went through the same sort of arguments with,

whether or not to allow interracial marriages, and I believe that the

same outcome will follow.

Homosexual couples are now trying to win the privilege of marriage,

just as interracial couples were fighting for the same thing some 35

years ago. In Loving vs. Virginia, the state was challenged by an

interracial couple who married in Washington D.C. and then moved back to

Virginia (Price). Virginia did not accept their marriage license as

valid and the couple was sentenced to one year in jail or to leave the

state of Virginia for 25 years. The sate of Virginia had a law that

prohibited marriages between people of different races, which read:

"All marriages between a white person and a colored person shall be

absolutely void without any decree of divorce or other legal process."

This is a horrifying resemblance to South Dakota’s anti-gay marriage

bill, which says:

"Be it enacted by the legislature of the State of South Dakota: Any

marriage between persons of the same gender is null and void from the

beginning."

These laws against interracial marriage were common years ago, just as

the state laws against gay marriage are now common.

When the Loving vs. Virginia went to the U.S. Supreme Court, it ruled

that "The freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race

resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the

state"(Richardson). Before that decision, California was the only state

that had made interracial marriage legal. This is exactly what our

nation is now looking at with the state of Hawaii in the process of

legalizing same-sex marriages. The two issues also have similarities in

our Presidents’ opinions. Just as President Clinton signed the Defense

of Marriage Act which limits federal marriage rights to homosexual

couples, Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman agreed that races should not

intermarry years ago.

Another issue that is similar is the fact that racist and gay marriage

laws were never at the top of the list of priorities. The government

did not think that America was ready for such a dramatic change in 1954,

when the whole discussion of interracial marriage was brought up. But

by 1967, the court had been hearing the same arguments over and over and

even the Brown vs. Board of Education law had been passed. The first

mention of gay marriages was brought up in 1972. If history has any way

of repeating itself, this could mean that homosexual couples have some

hope. Also, by the time Loving vs. Virginia was finally heard, the

couple had three children. An argument about this was that it was wrong

to let the children have two illegal parents. This also led to the fact

that all marriage-based benefits were denied and inheritance rights are

lost. This is a major argument in the gay marriage issue as well. Many

people used to see interracial marriage as a threat to the natural order

of things, many people also see this as a reason to keep same-sex

marriage illegal.

It is unbelievable how similar the arguments once used against people

of different races wanting to marry are to the ones now used against

same-sex couples. Both were based on the fact that marriage is only a

right to certain people. Both were seen as unnatural and forbidden by

God. Both were seen as how things always have been and are meant to

be. Both have similar histories in court. Now we can only wait and see

if both will have the same outcome.