The United States of America is a country that has always believed in pride. As an American citizen, I have heard my parents and friends remind me dozens of times how lucky I am to live here. Many people around the world envy those who live in the United States. Large numbers of us have shelters over our heads, food on our plates, access to medicine, and education.
People in the United States like to boast about one main thing: we are a free country, or so people say. In the United States, you have the freedom of speech. You are allowed to say what you believe in. Supposedly, in the United States, everyone has equal rights. Supposedly, in the United States, there is no discrimination.
That is a lie. Even today, after years of being proven wrong by minorities who have been discriminated against, gay and lesbian people are not allowed to get married. Out of fifty states, only five allow gay marriage plus Washington D.C. California was about to be the sixth state to legalize gay marriage when in the 2008 election, Proposition 8 stating, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” passed in a close vote, 52.24% for Proposition 8 and 47.76% against it.
Gay marriage is one of the most controversial debates in the United States today. Those who are against gay marriage claim that, quoting protectmarriage.com’s position on a time before Proposition 8, “By saying that a marriage is between ‘any two persons’ rather than between a man and a woman, the Court decision has opened the door to any kind of ‘marriage.’ This undermines the value of marriage altogether at a time when we should be restoring marriage, not undermining it.”
Why does allowing gay and lesbian people to marry undermine the value of marriage? Does allowing women to vote undermine the value of an election? No is the answer.
There are countless reasons why the United States should and needs to legalize gay marriage. The main reason is that by not allowing gay and lesbian people to marry, the United States is discriminating against gay and lesbian people. Discrimination is a very sensitive issue that is brought up far more than it should be, not because we should not talk about it, but because it should not be happening. In our country’s history, people have been discriminated against many times, whether it was for the color of their skin, their religion, their gender, anything that has some variation from human to human.
Why are we so scared of being different from one another? Love is love, defined in the dictionary as “an intense feeling of deep affection." It should not matter whether or not you can reproduce with the person you are in love with. All that should matter is the feeling.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are just as capable of love as straight people. Just because the majority of the population loves one way does not mean that it is the right way, or the only right way. If you write with your right hand, it does not mean that you are a better writer or artist than those who write and draw with their left, or those who are ambidextrous.
The main argument people who were for Proposition 8 used was that allowing gay and lesbian people to marry would undermine the value of marriage. It would not. A marriage is a unity. A marriage is a pledge to love and cherish a single person forever, or until you sign the divorce papers. Perhaps a marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman, but forget tradition. As a world, we are moving forward. Time is moving forward. We need to let go of our past views of what love or marriage or normal was and embrace the new, or what we were too ignorant to realize was normal all along. A marriage between two people of the same gender is just as real and love based as a marriage between two people who have the ability to make a baby together. Allowing gay and lesbian people to marry would not destroy what a marriage fundamentally is: a unity based on solid love.
Tradition, normal ... all these words that hold us back from moving forward and making the world a better place need to be ignored. Ten percent of our country has moved forward from old views of what being gay or being lesbian meant and has embraced the true meaning: that everyone is human and that no matter who you love, the love is real. Only ten percent of our country has stopped subscribing to the majority’s vulgar belief that there is only one way to love.
It is time that we change. It is time that we decide to stop discriminating. It is time that we legalize same-sex marriage throughout the United States.
I am not proud to live in one of the many states that is afraid and unwilling to accept people for who they are. Until same-sex marriage is legalized in all fifty states including California, I will not be proud to live here.
People in the United States like to boast about one main thing: we are a free country, or so people say. In the United States, you have the freedom of speech. You are allowed to say what you believe in. Supposedly, in the United States, everyone has equal rights. Supposedly, in the United States, there is no discrimination.
That is a lie. Even today, after years of being proven wrong by minorities who have been discriminated against, gay and lesbian people are not allowed to get married. Out of fifty states, only five allow gay marriage plus Washington D.C. California was about to be the sixth state to legalize gay marriage when in the 2008 election, Proposition 8 stating, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,” passed in a close vote, 52.24% for Proposition 8 and 47.76% against it.
Gay marriage is one of the most controversial debates in the United States today. Those who are against gay marriage claim that, quoting protectmarriage.com’s position on a time before Proposition 8, “By saying that a marriage is between ‘any two persons’ rather than between a man and a woman, the Court decision has opened the door to any kind of ‘marriage.’ This undermines the value of marriage altogether at a time when we should be restoring marriage, not undermining it.”
Why does allowing gay and lesbian people to marry undermine the value of marriage? Does allowing women to vote undermine the value of an election? No is the answer.
There are countless reasons why the United States should and needs to legalize gay marriage. The main reason is that by not allowing gay and lesbian people to marry, the United States is discriminating against gay and lesbian people. Discrimination is a very sensitive issue that is brought up far more than it should be, not because we should not talk about it, but because it should not be happening. In our country’s history, people have been discriminated against many times, whether it was for the color of their skin, their religion, their gender, anything that has some variation from human to human.
Why are we so scared of being different from one another? Love is love, defined in the dictionary as “an intense feeling of deep affection." It should not matter whether or not you can reproduce with the person you are in love with. All that should matter is the feeling.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are just as capable of love as straight people. Just because the majority of the population loves one way does not mean that it is the right way, or the only right way. If you write with your right hand, it does not mean that you are a better writer or artist than those who write and draw with their left, or those who are ambidextrous.
The main argument people who were for Proposition 8 used was that allowing gay and lesbian people to marry would undermine the value of marriage. It would not. A marriage is a unity. A marriage is a pledge to love and cherish a single person forever, or until you sign the divorce papers. Perhaps a marriage has traditionally been between a man and a woman, but forget tradition. As a world, we are moving forward. Time is moving forward. We need to let go of our past views of what love or marriage or normal was and embrace the new, or what we were too ignorant to realize was normal all along. A marriage between two people of the same gender is just as real and love based as a marriage between two people who have the ability to make a baby together. Allowing gay and lesbian people to marry would not destroy what a marriage fundamentally is: a unity based on solid love.
Tradition, normal ... all these words that hold us back from moving forward and making the world a better place need to be ignored. Ten percent of our country has moved forward from old views of what being gay or being lesbian meant and has embraced the true meaning: that everyone is human and that no matter who you love, the love is real. Only ten percent of our country has stopped subscribing to the majority’s vulgar belief that there is only one way to love.
It is time that we change. It is time that we decide to stop discriminating. It is time that we legalize same-sex marriage throughout the United States.
I am not proud to live in one of the many states that is afraid and unwilling to accept people for who they are. Until same-sex marriage is legalized in all fifty states including California, I will not be proud to live here.
joy_the_supporter13
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