Same-Sex Marriages Should Be Legally Recognized - Essay Example

Same-Sex Marriages Should be Legally Recognized Despite of the principles about the equality of all of the society's members that are declared in the contemporary society nowadays, the phenomenon of discrimination still exists in our country. From one viewpoint it is natural for people to treat those who surround them regarding to their age, gender, religious beliefs, physical condition or some other parameters, but when this peculiarities are used for to determine the person's abilities or freedom of action it created huge problems in social communication and other processes. The issue of the legalization of the same-sex marriages is one of the most controversial nowadays. During the past hundred years the U.S society has become much more tolerant towards people who prefer partners of the same sex as theirs, but still those people experience numerous problems with the state legal system. Those people have to be given the possibility to legalize their relationships. As the relationship between gays and lesbians don't have any legal definition, and they aren't regulated by the government, those couples are left to se the parameters of their partnership by themselves, which sometimes has negative consequences, as Dorothy Pomerantz notes in her article about the legalization of the same-sex marriages published in The Advocate in 2000.1 Marriage has always been an important institution in the American society, as after tying the knot two people became able to make important decisions for each other, and the share the common responsibilities. For the U.S citizens marriage means that two people decided to share their money, resources, and responsibilities as well as their bed, a legal commitment made to the society. Almost any man and any woman in our country can register a marriage, despite of their age, social status, or their feelings towards each other. The few things that are needed to register an official union is being the representatives of the different genders, and being more or less mentally healthy. In the same time, two people who love each other, and want to share their lives, and, maybe, raise children together, are deprived of the possibility to legalize those intentions just because they are of the same gender. Eric Stoltz, the author of the article about Proposition 22, a law project that banned recognition of the same sex marriages in California, writes: I could, for example, fly to Las Vegas tonight, wed a prostitute in a drunken stupor, and return to Los Angeles tomorrow morning to have my marriage fully recognized by the law and society. Fifty women can vie on national television to marry a man they've never met for his money, and that union would be recognized by the state. Any man can marry a woman for her looks in a cynical but legally sanctioned form of concubinage, and that union would enjoy all the rights and privileges of marriage. But if two people of the same sex want to establish rights of inheritance or become legally empowered to make health-care decisions for one another, we are now told that the entire structure of Western civilization will come crashing down. (Commonweal, 2000).2 And, in fact, the situation indeed looks like it. The persuasion that marriage should be a union, which only the representatives of two different genders can enter, is a social norm that was established thousands of years ago, when people created families as they needed to unite in order to survive, and bring their children up. The social roles in the primitive society were very well-defined - men had to bring food, and women were to raise kids and maintain fire, thus such a union was perfectly justified (Sullivan, 2004). 3 As thousands of years passed after people left the caves, the distribution of social roles has changed. Today both men and women can be the breadwinners in the family, the same as both members of the family can stay home to care for the kids. The necessity in the different-gender unity nowadays is much weaker than it had been when this social norm was first formed. Nevertheless, people prefer to stick to the old traditions, thus depriving hundreds of thousands of people of the possibility to enjoy all the benefits of the legal marriage just because they want to share their life with the person of the same gender. The statistic says that there are thousands of same-sex couples throughout the U.S which live together, and many of those have kids. Those people live in together, sleep together, spend money together, they already are families. Thus what is the use in closing the eyes on the existence of the same-sex couples by banning them from registering their relationships officially Nevertheless, there is only one state where the same sex couples are allowed to marry. It's Massachusetts. During 2004 same-sex couples could obtain their marriage licenses in San Francisco, CA, and in various towns in New Mexico and New York, but they weren't able to register their relationships. In other U.S states the situation is much worse, as: 37 states have enacted "Defense of Marriage Acts" (DOMAs) that ban same-sex marriage. Other states have similar legislation pending. 3 states (AK, NE, NV) have amended their state constitutions to ban SSM. 4 states (MD, OR, WI, WY) have marriage laws that specifically prohibit SSM4 Moreover, it's quite possible that by giving homosexuals the possibility to register marriage the state will succeed in making their relationships more stable and prolonging. Nowadays, as Edward Laumann argues in his book The Sexual Organization of the City, "typical gay city inhabitants spend most of their adult lives in 'transactional' relationships, or short-term commitments of less than six months."5 Pollak, the author of the Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times adds that: "few homosexual relationships last longer than two years, with many men reporting hundreds of lifetime partners"6. It's possible that given the opportunity to become a real couple, with all the benefit and responsibilities of the family, gays and lesbians will hold more stable unions. Nowadays the rights of people, who live with the partners of the same sex, are unprotected in most U.S states. One of the most troublesome issues concerning the rights of the gay and lesbian couples is the right to make the health decisions for the partner. The U.S law states that in the situation, when a person is unable to decide about his/her methods of treatment, or other health-concerning issues, his/her relatives and spouses are to make those decisions. Nowadays people aren't able to use this right in case their partner is of the same sex as they are. This issue is very traumatizing for those, who have stable same-sex relationships.(Canada and the World Backgrounder, 2003).7 One more issue of concern for those, who fight for the rights of GLBT, is the fact that the widows and widowers whose partner was of the same sex, are unable to get the pension after his/her death, while the situation when the member of the gay or lesbian couple is left without the means for existence after the death of the breadwinner is as frequent, as for the heterosexual couples. The American law does not allow homosexual couples to adopt children, while in some states they are allowed to have stepchildren. Many gay and lesbian couples confess that this is the most painful restriction for them, as, like most of the heterosexual couples, gays and lesbians want to raise children with their partner, to have a normal, loving family. The restriction that exists in our country deprives homosexual couples of the possibility to establish a family, a social union they dream off, and off the chance to grant their love to children who were deprived of parental care for different reasons.( Sullivan, 2004)8 In fact denying homosexual couples the privileges the heterosexual unions enjoy, is discrimination. Also it is unconstitutional, as, according to this document, all the citizens of the U.S have to be granted equal social rights. To fix this situation the government has to make a decision about permitting the same-sex couples registering their relationships officially. Some people say that homosexuals should be punished for their "crime", but, this position is totally wrong, as the recent researches proved that sexual orientation is not the matter of choice for humans, as it's programmed genetically for all of the dwellers of our planet, like the eye color or complexion. Therefore, if we discriminate homosexuals, we give other people the right to treat us unfairly because they don't like our hair color or the length of the nose. Moreover, homosexuals do not hurt or offend anybody by their choice of partners, as long as they do not force heterosexuals to have romantic or sexual relationship with them. In the same time, there are a lot of believers in our country whose religious feelings are severely offended by the displays of homosexuality. Their religious principles dictate them homosexuality is sinful and has to be punished. Thus we get the conflict between the civil and religious laws, which creates severe problems inside the state. It's also true, that lots of Americans believe that homosexuality is some kind of mental or physical illness and thus they try to restrict or minimize their communication with representatives of this group. As the members of most religious confessions widespread in the U.S are often the most active persecutors of the LGBT the particular attention of the human rights defense activists' should be paid to increasing tolerance towards them among the believers. Pity to say, but religious people are often easy to manipulate, as they hold a strong belief in the words of their leaders. Those, who studied world history, will easily recall the crusades, which were one of the most violent wars in the history of the humankind, and were dictated by "love" to God. Thus it's important to remind the believers that violence is forbidden either by the spiritual laws and the civil ones. Luckily, nowadays lots of church officials stand for limiting violence against homosexuals, and some of them even acknowledge same-sex unions as the acceptable ones, in case both partners love each other. The believers often support their position towards legalization of the same-sex marriages by the claim that it will ruin the institute of marriage that exists in the society nowadays. Raymond Miller objected to this statement saying that: "Promoting hatred and bigotry in the name of God is what destroys society, not the marriage of two loving people of the same gender."9 The lack of knowledge about the genetic nature of homosexuality leads to some social activists opposing severely the government initiatives for legalization of homosexual marriages and giving LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered) the right to adopt and raise children. That is why the initiatives of those, who work in order to legalize same-sex marriages, invoke such fierce protests from ordinary Americans. Most people tend to follow the rules and accept norms the society proposes to them. Also, most of us want to be accepted by our social group. To achieve this group identification, every member of the group has to possess something the other members have, and he has to share some particular group beliefs and values. At a childhood and teenage age group identification is the most important. Thus, we have to make tolerance towards various minorities, including homosexuals, the obligatory value to enter the society and become its full and equal member. Homophobes often say that homosexuals should be punished and homosexuality forbidden by law, motivating their statement by the fact, that homosexuals were and still are one of the main spreaders of AIDS. On the contrary, the author of the article "Studies Discover Clues to the Roots of Homophobia" published in the New-York Times in 1990 state that;" since the beginning of the epidemic rather than creating the new hostility, researchers have found, the disease has given bigots an excuse to act out their hatred."10 Same-sex couples, in fact don't differ much from the ordinary ones. They live together, raise kids together, and spend their free time like most of the American families do. They are "the family next door", thus there are no reasons to ban them from registering their relationship officially. Works Cited 1. Pomerantz, D. "More Perfect Unions - same-sex marriages". The Advocate, 2000 2. Stoltz, E. "THE LAST WORD - signs of the times - personal viewpoint: the highly controversial and divisive Proposition 22, which deals with same-sex marriages". Commonweal, 2000 3. Sullivan, M. Sexual Minorities: Discrimination, Challenges, and Development in America. Haworth Social Work, 2004 4. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. Same-Sex Marriages and Civil Unions. Religious Tolerance Website, 1997-2006. Retrieved June 7, 2006 from http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_marr.htm 5. Laumann, E. The Sexual Organization of the City. University Of Chicago Press, 2005 6. M. Pollak, "Male Homosexuality," in Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, ed. P. Aries and A. Bejin, translated by Anthony Forster. New York, B. Blackwell, 1985 7. n.d. "Redefining family: Some say marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman, but others say marriage can be between couples of the same sex and is the logical next step in the battle for equal rights for gays and lesbians". Canada and the World Backgrounder, 2003 8. Sullivan, A. Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con. Vintage, 2004 9. Know Your Neighbor Website, 2006. Retrieved June 8, 2006 from http://knowthyneighbor.blogs.com/home/2006/01/springfield_fra.html 10. Goleman, D. "Studies Discover Clues to the Roots of Homophobia". New York Times, July 10, 1990 Read More