Gay Marriage: For Better or Worse? Research Paper Example

Introduction

There is no real reason at all why I should concern myself with the issue of gay marriage rights. I am not gay, so it will never be something I have to deal with in my own life. Then, it appears that the most respected legal and judicial authorities in our country don’t have any idea of what to do about it; a law in one state legally allows gay marriage while a neighboring state prohibits it, and then these same laws are amended or repealed months later. All in all, I think that gay marriage is a controversial mess and I should steer as far away from it as I can.

These were my feelings and I do not think I need to excuse them. At the same time, I have done some reading about the issue and I have become aware that my views are changing. It seems to me that this could be an element of getting a little older and seeing the world more as what I must move in as an adult, and less as an abstract concept I will one day have to face. I definitely feel that it’s also a case of information creating change in a person, as it should. It is easy to hold onto removed notions and biases when a subject is unclear. You are free to feel strongly, in ignorance. Information and education don’t allow this laziness, and a more informed scope can’t help but increase a person’s sense of possibilities, responsibilities, and all the sides of a complicated and emotional issue.

Loosely speaking, the legalization of gay or same-sex marriage is a new concern, even by the rapidly moving standards of modern times. On an international level, it dates back less than ten years, in terms of national recognition and legalization. Here in the United States, the headlines, arguments and statutes flying back and forth have only been in evidence for the past five years. Naturally, the real history of gay marriage dates back further, as it was introduced by gay advocacy groups from the 1950’s on. However, it remained only a fringe element, often set aside for the sake of more pressing gay rights issues. That has changed. “Same-sex marriages – as well as registered partnerships and civil unions – are part of a brave new world of family law that is now beyond the control of either churches or gay rights advocates” (Eskridge, Spedale 9).

No matter anyone’s opinion on gay marriage, it can’t be disputed that this is very much a controversy of the here and now. I also strongly feel, having altered my own views out of necessity, that this is an issue Americans are obligated to examine as fully as possible, because the crux of the subject goes to civil rights and that, more than anything, is supposed to define what our country is about. Preserving individual liberties is the foundation of the United States’ ideological stand around the world, and I think that gay marriage, supported or fought against, should not ever be mistaken as anything but a civil rights issue.

This is why I have found myself involved in the subject. People from all walks of life argue gay marriage based upon religious or cultural feelings, both pro and con. Then, the entire gay rights movement comes into play and clouds this particular debate even further, because the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of being gay is used as a defining point in any argument. I feel this is a gross error and one that flies in the face of American justice. It is not for our courts to decide if being gay is all right, or acceptable to a society. It is the job of our courts to ensure that every citizen receives equal treatment under the law, period, and those who violently oppose gay marriage are really suspect of wanting to classify gay people as less than full citizens. That is the ultimate and wholly unacceptable truth, as I see it.

Alternatives to Gay Marriage

I think the best means of approaching the opposition to gay marriage rights is to look at the compromises most people feel are acceptable. There are adamant opponents who would never entertain any gay rights at all, of course, but there is no point in addressing radical factions that are inherently unreasonable, and in a minority. For my purposes I would like to look at what the opposition views as its own leniency and fairness. By examining this most ‘middle of the road’ attitude, I think we can more easily see the basic flaws in any such compromise.

Millions of Americans feel strongly that gay men and women should be happy with the civil union option of couplehood. It is legally recognized. It allows for many protections to both partners under the law, and carries many of the same rights and entitlements found in traditional, heterosexual marriages. To these people, this should be more than adequate to placate any unrest over perceived gay persecution, and such people often honestly cannot understand why gays are dissatisfied with this.

First of all, there is an inherently condescending approach in this endorsement of civil union as ‘enough’. By its very nature it grants greater power to those unrestricted in the marriage choice, giving the veto, essentially, to those completely entitled to marry legally. A parallel could be made that this is like granting slaves their freedom to seek employment as they choose and to live wherever they want, but not to vote. As I will state again, the core of the issue cannot be so dealt with. Individual liberties under the law cannot be parceled out in a discretionary way. Either a man or woman is a full citizen of the country, or he or she is not. There is no middle-ground in essential civil rights, and civil union seeks to create one.

Secondly, endorsing civil union as a practical substitute for legal marriage is intrinsically self-defeating because any ‘substitute’ implies concrete differences within the options. The reality is that the institution of marriage contains within it thousands of legal protections and contingencies not evident in a civil union, and of both purely legal and more generally societal in nature. “Gay men have been denied the right to sue for emotional distress over the death of a partner or to stay in an apartment after their lover dies when their name isn’t on the lease” (Clifford, Hertz, Doskow 9).

Those are only two instances not usually thought of when legal marriage is set against civil unions, yet they are important because they illustrate how marriage covers vital concerns in every conceivable situation, and marriage does this because the institution itself has been steadily refined and expanded over thousands of years. The civil union, the relatively recent invention of the modern legal system, can’t begin to match the levels of powers enabled in the time-honored state of legal marriage. Unfortunately, it is usually only when the unforeseen instances occur that the partners within the civil union find that they are not, in fact, legally protected.

Lastly, despite the well-known and very high divorce statistics attached to traditional legal marriage, the civil union bears a temporary aspect marriage does not, and I feel that this too marks the line in the sand that opponents of gay marriage believe in drawing. Whether they dissolve at a rate of fifty percent or not, marriage is held to be a lifelong commitment. It is still respected as such by the majority, and any variation of it can’t help but imply a short-term, and less seriously entered into, arrangement. I believe that gay marriage opponents endorse the granting of civil union status to reinforce a deeper conviction about gay people in general, one that feels they are typically incapable of sustaining a real, viable, enduring attachment. In this way the civil union serves to shore up, and perhaps even enable, a perceived failure of gays to make the adult and deeply profound choices heterosexuals are supposedly capable of. I see this as legislation-as-discrimination, an insulting halfway measure.

The Wider Arena

When pressed, most people willing to concede certain civil rights to gays will admit to doubts about the lifestyle itself, and more about its morality. “Those who reject same-sex marriage on the grounds that it sanctions sin and dishonors the true meaning of marriage aren’t bashful about the fact that they’re making a moral or religious claim” (Sandel 256).

What I find most interesting about this is that these moral and/or religious objections seem to come from every quarter. Devout Christians denounce gay marriage, but so do atheists with certain moral codes. I have been acquainted with people of the Muslim faith who absolutely feel that homosexuality in any form is an evil deserving of death, yet I also know very casual church-goers who, while not as radical in their judgments, are inflexible about a wrongness they believe gay marriage represents. In a very real sense, moral outrage over gay marriage is a uniting force in an otherwise divided nation.

While it is important to note that many who are against gay marriage because of religious leanings are by no means fanatics, or even hateful to the gay population, the fact remains that all of them miss the point. There has been a gray area in our country ever since its founding in regard to ‘church and state’; while that very separation was deemed crucial to our national identity and a primary reason for our independence originally, it remains a shadow that won’t go away, a catch-22 we have written into our own systems. We address God repeatedly in our greatest documents and God’s name is evoked in every courtroom, yet we nonetheless seek to maintain that the law must be removed from such considerations.

That is correct, I believe, and it is the heart of the whole gay marriage debate. Deeply felt religious convictions color much of what we as a people do, and we are the same people writing and voting on the laws. It is essential that we understand that there are basic human rights and privileges a civilized nation must champion, and that these exist outside of whatever moral framework they may or may not fit into. The two may mesh comfortably, as they do with traditional marriages, or they may appear to be in opposition to one another. The prevailing issue remains the same, and that is the recognizing of fundamental human rights. Moreover, it is dangerous and self-defeating to set limits upon these rights based upon concepts of potentially finer or damaging moralities. If as a nation we generally believe in God, we must acknowledge that it is not in our sphere to make these decisions. All we can do is tend to each other and ensure equal protection under the law.

The Gay ‘Family’

As expected, a major assault on gay marriage rights made is centered around children. Once again bias rears its ugly head and condescension often rules. Even people somewhat sympathetic to gay rights pause here and worry about the typical extension of marriage itself, children, in regard to same-sex unions. It is abnormal, even if it is not religiously sinful or morally wrong, and the children must suffer because of this very abnormality. Then, the vague argument that children require parents of opposite sexes usually comes into play, as necessary for a child to grow into a balanced and solid person.

This is, of course, where gay marriage opponents find themselves in quicksand. Modern life has amply revealed to us, not just how the traditional, mother-and-father household is by no means a reliable source of adjusted children, but how in fact few such ‘traditional’ households are to begin with. Both parents often work outside the home in recent decades, and the Eisenhower-era mythology of the steadfast mom has been long exploded. So too are single-parent homes increasingly evident and greatly supported. They are in fact commonly viewed as a sensible alternative to the potentially emotional disturbances a child may be subjected to in the traditional Above any of this, however, lies an inescapable reality: gay people have been parents for a very long time, either covertly gay within an opposite-sex marriage or as single, separated parents. There is no way to evade the facts here, I feel: gay people are adults, and adults have children. Even removing all the modern means by which Lesbian or gay male couples can have children of their own, it is inescapable that the gay parent is here to stay, as he or she has been for some time.

This then refutes gay marriage opposition on its own, hallowed ground. If gay people have lived lives reputedly frivolous and lacking in responsibility, as many people see gay life even today, what better change than that of gays wishing to openly raise children, and within the confines of legal marriage? “If the presence of children is what makes a marriage matter in the eyes of society, then same-sex relationships can certainly pass the test; and if the welfare of the children in those relationships matter, then marriage seems the best bet” (Rauch 75).

It appears to me that the factor of children in gay marriage is really where the battle lines are drawn. Some people are happy to sign off on gay marriage, but only until children are mentioned. It seems that this is where the greatest moral objections center, and it can only be because, civilized debate and educated opinion notwithstanding, there remains a ‘sinful’, or certainly unhealthy, aspect within the gay relationship to begin with. In other words, it’s fine as long as they restrict it to one another, but it’s clearly dangerous to children.

Studies have been done and will be done, illustrating how well or how badly children grow within gay households. I do not understand the point of any of it, for children grow in all sorts of ways under the influences of all sorts of parents anyway. Abusive parents produce sane, loving children, and excellent parents produce sociopaths. To determine that the ‘gayness’ of the parent within the marriage will of itself have a positive or negative impact on a child’s developments ignores everything we have learned about how children evolve, and is utterly inapplicable as an argument against gay marriage rights.

Conclusion

I came to this subject, as I have said, apathetic. I did not see it as touching me or my life in any meaningful manner. However, reading and research has dramatically altered my outlook, and in more than one way.

There are, I discovered, very different approaches from both camps in the gay marriage debate. As facts and histories were revealed to me, I saw that some were cloaked in a specific agenda, and a poorly disguised one at that. These were the sources emotionally fueled, and they were speaking from either side. I think I quickly learned to disregard them; I did not feel I could trust information conveyed with so deliberate a purpose, when the object is to arrive at a personal viewpoint and truth.

Then, I came to see that the vast bulk of material on this issue currently raging across the country is, to my mind, misguided and not relevant to the issue itself. From dry judicial documentations to heated arguments, a basic goal of defining morality overshadowed everything. I found it was difficult to locate information, or even opinion, that was not heavily colored by concerns over the correctness of a gay lifestyle to begin with, and focuses on the marriage question were just as concerned with an underlying definition of its essential ‘rightness’.

Most surprising to me were the gay opponents to gay marriage, who feel that its legalization automatically both reduces gay culture and conceded authority to a power gays should not have to acknowledge. “Queer theorist Michael Warner regards marriage as part of a larger push toward gay ‘normalcy’, and he sees this trend as a threat to the variety that has flourished in the queer community…” (Graff x)

This strikes me as self-defeating and blinded as the arguments based upon religious beliefs, because in its own way it categorizes the gay community as ‘different’, creating a further stereotype not very removed from the most anti-gay sentiments. Why can’t variety and unique culture flourish as liberties are universally maintained? How can a cultural identity, if that is what gay culture has, be threatened by the recognition of basic rights?

Ultimately, the issue to me is a huge jumble around a largely ignored core element. If we as a society and a nation accept that a substantial percent of the population is gay, and we do not in any legal manner prohibit this population from sharing in the liberties accorded to every other citizen, there is absolutely no grounds for the government to render gay marriage an illegal act. This to me is a blatant violation of the separation of church and state, and even virulent anti-marriage proponents object to the crossing of this line. Our government’s job is not to define what we do with our liberties. Were that the case, it is not far-fetched to foresee a day when that government may declare divorce illegal. It would be a similar and completely inappropriate intrusion into private choice.

Our government’s job, more simply, is to guarantee human rights, and to do this across the board. To withhold any legal advantages enjoyed by some is to tacitly pronounce a second-class citizenship on those deprived of these rights, be they African-American, physically disabled, blonde-haired, short or tall, or a gay couple wishing to legally marry.

Works Cited

Clifford, D., Hertz, F., and Doskow, E.  A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples. Berkeley, CA: NOLO Press, 2010. Print.

Eskridge, W.N., Spedale, D.R. Gay Marriage: For Better or Worse? What We’ve Learned from  the Evidence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.

Graff, E.J. What Is Marriage For? Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2004. Print.

Rauch, J. Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., LLC, 2005. Print.

Sandel, M. J.  Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do? New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Print.