Audrey Goldman
Persuasive Essay
March 22, 2013
Professor Haspel
Throughout history there have been strongly voiced opinions from people of every race, religion, and creed as to what should be the legality surrounding homosexuality. Some that are highly religious claim that homosexuality is a sin against God, unnatural, and a choice, while those who are more liberal view homosexuality as something natural as opposed to a choice, and essentially similar to heterosexuality in every way except that one’s partner is of the same sex. However, the predominant assumption over time is that it is a sin and immoral, leading to legislation banning gay marriage or civil unions, thus restricting health, tax, and other benefits associated with marriage solely to heterosexual couples. By dismantling the religious and extremist arguments against homosexuality, analyzing the personal perspectives of some of my gay friends, and taking a stance for the legal aspects of gay marriage, I strongly advocate that same sex couples, who love each other with the same passion and loyalty as heterosexual couples, should be granted full equality as a fundamental human right.
One of the most common arguments against the rights of homosexuals and their ability to marry or join in a civil union arises from the religious perspective that homosexuality is going against what God intended, and is therefore sinful and morally corrupt, and in some peoples’ opinions, should be punishable. An argument commonly made by the highly religious claim that gay marriage or homosexual acts in general are sinful because they are “non-procreative” (Liptak). However, in modern day society, there are hundreds, if not thousands of different hormonal medications, injections, implants, and other contraceptives that inhibit procreation, in addition to the fact that many couples simply do not want to have children. In fact, approximately 26,896,000 married couples in the US out of 58,410,000 are without children (“The No-Baby Boom”). And in Obamacare recently, health insurance providers must cover birth control (McIntyre). Though that was heavily debated, it has failed to be repealed, so at least the majority of the American government is of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter that people are becoming less and less procreative. In fact, 99 percent of women from the age of 19-44 have claimed to use contraceptives at one point or another (“Contraceptive Use in the United States”). So why is two gay people having relations any more sacrilegious than two heterosexual people choosing to use contraceptives? While there are still some cultures that highly discourage birth control, such as many African countries, this is not the case in America. For said reason, the argument of non-procreative sex can hardly be applicable to the United States when it comes to gay couples, especially when many of them choose to have surrogates, or in the case of lesbians, have in-vitro fertilization to procreate. To even further drive home the point that the non-procreative argument can essentially be discarded, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, this past Tuesday, dismantled this claim herself during the hearing for the Proposition 8 law in California. The man who had come before the court to support Proposition 8 claimed that homosexual marriage should be illegal since it does not allow for procreation. Justice Kagan argued, “So tell me this. If two heterosexual people in their late fifties decided that they wanted to get married, would you deny them that right? There is definitely not going to be any procreation coming out of a fifty-something year old couple. It’s just not going to happen. Would you deny these two heterosexual people the ability to get married because they are too old to have children? If you are truly arguing that homosexuals should not be able to get married because they cannot produce children, then you must deny the heterosexual middle-aged couple the ability to as well” (Miles). The man stuttered that that was not the argument that he was making, and ended up stumbling over his words as Kagan chuckled and stated that it was his stated position and had been for the whole time that he had been appealing to the court.
Additionally with the religious argument, one of the most common and most parodied is that of “The Bible says Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” As someone who is non-religious but still has an opinion with regards to Christian claims against homosexuality, I think that there are parts of the Bible that should be taken less seriously than others. That people get so caught up about the details in Genesis, the story in which a snake literally tells the only woman on earth to eat an apple, that they tend to miss the overall message of God’s words: to spread a culture of peace and love and tolerance and forgiveness. And yet, many devoutly religious people do not see the irony in their spewing of vitriolic hate propaganda and rhetoric. Additionally, the fundamentally religious view homosexual marriage as defiling the meaning of marriage and its sanctity. They view marriage under God as a holy act, and one that homosexuals cannot partake in. So then why not let them at least engage in civil unions, where they are granted all of the same rights under the law? Additionally, there is no evidence to support that gay married couples are more unstable or subversive than heterosexual married couples, especially in child rearing. There are countless horrible and abusive heterosexual parents, parents who raise their children to be bigoted, parents who don’t take precautions during pregnancy and end up having children with severe diseases or addictions. Yet for some reason, many people seem to believe that being raised by two men or two women would disturb the child, or just mentally and emotionally damage it, when in reality, homosexual couples can provide the same amount of love as would a heterosexual couple. So, in terms of the legitimacy of religious arguments against homosexual marriage or partnership, everyone is welcome to their opinion, though there are some opinions that have no basis in reality. Essentially, if one is religious and thinks that gay people should not get married, the choice is simple—pray to God you’re not gay, and if you are, don’t get married.
Ever since I was young I’ve always known at least one person that was gay or lesbian. My aunt Clare is bisexual, one of my mom’s closest friends from growing up was a lesbian while her other close friend was gay, my grandmother’s brother is gay, and when I was old enough that my friends and I started thinking about sexuality, I came to learn that two of my closest friends for years were both lesbians. My one friend, Megan, I have known since third grade. We became better and better friends starting in freshman year of high school and have been ever since. She wasn’t girly by any means—she preferred her converse, skinny jeans, and a plaid button-up to a dress, of which I am certain that she doesn’t own even one. However, I never suspected that she would be gay. I had always sort of envisioned lesbians as having masculine faces, being athletic, and having a sort of, to put it bluntly, bitchy attitude. But my friend Megan wasn’t like that at all; she was funny, incredibly intelligent, nice, and really pretty. So when she told me one night in tenth grade that she was gay, I was initially surprised, but it all made sense in my head after pondering it for a few minutes. I felt so honored that she had decided to come out to me, as one of three people at the time that she had told; she has only just as of a week ago come out to her family. My other friend, Sierra, I met in ninth grade, and we immediately hit it off. She was very girly, into Taylor Swift’s music, exceptionally brilliant, funny, and a lot of fun to be around. She and Megan became best friends in tenth grade—they were inseparable, and as I came to learn in senior year, they had been secretly dating for two years. Since revealing said information to me, they’ve always been open to talking about their relationship with me, so upon deciding that I would choose gay marriage as my topic for an argumentative essay, I reached out to them and asked them a few questions. I initially asked them whether they thought that they were born gay, or whether they had chosen to be. They both laughed. Megan responded, “Why would anyone choose to be a part of a minority that is heavily discriminated against, demonized, and even punished in some countries? They wouldn’t. It’s not a choice, it’s who I am and it’s who I’ve been since as long as I can remember” (O’Keefe). Her sentiments echo the common response to the question when it is asked of members of the gay community. There is no incentive to being gay, in fact, in most societies today there are disincentives to being gay, such as the legal restrictions that I will discuss in a bit. I also asked them whether or not they have an opinion as to whether civil unions and marriages should be legalized in the United States. Sierra responded, “I think that it would be nice if marriages were legal, so there could be a priest, or rabbi, or other religious leader to conduct the ceremony. Not all gay people are atheists. In fact many of them, myself included, consider themselves religious. I know I would like to be married some day, but if that isn’t a possibility, I think that at the minimum, civil unions should be legalized on a national scale. There’s no reason not to. If heterosexuals are intimidated or scared by homosexual marriage or civil unions, all I have to say is that they shouldn’t be gay and get married. It’s that simple. It’s not hurting them to have homosexuals be able to marry, but it does hurt homosexuals to see heterosexuals marry and know that they themselves cannot” (Larson). I thought a bit more on that sentiment and realized that in many cases, the people that are making the wedding cakes, designing the wedding dresses and tuxedos, decorating the venue, and organizing marriage ceremonies are gay themselves. How hard must it be to stand on the sidelines and think that they may never be able to have the ability to do so for their selves one day? By hearing what my friends had to say, the voice of reason and logic, unclouded by the words of religious deities or prominent figures, seems to dawn on the argument of gay marriage and civil unions.
Lastly, one of the most tragic, yet amendable facets of homosexual marriage or civil unions is the legality of it all, in terms of the rights that are denied to couples, and what the effect would be on the United States if they were to be legalized on either a federal or a state-to-state basis. Currently in the United States, there are several immense inequalities between the rights granted to heterosexual couples and those granted to homosexual couples. For example, unless gay marriage or civil unions are legalized, one cannot make medical decisions on behalf of his or her partner in an instance of an emergency. So, instead of having one’s partner make said decisions, the right to do so would be transferred to “next-of-kin,” which would be either a sibling or parent of the person in the emergency. What a partner would do, possibly with the knowledge of what the individual in the emergency would want him or her to do, may be vastly different from what a parent or sibling would choose to do. And the partner has no choice but to go along with the decisions made by the next-of-kin, without any say. Additionally, the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows individuals up to 12 weeks off of work to care for a husband, wife, or parent of a husband or wife, but not for a partner, or a parent of a partner (Orman). So, if one’s partner were to get terribly sick, one would not have the right to take time off of work to care for them. Similarly, homosexual partners cannot receive the same healthcare benefits as would a married spouse in a heterosexual partnership in terms of insurance discounts. The same goes for tax benefits that are given married heterosexual couples, but cannot be received by homosexual couples since they are not married under the law. Married couples pay a joint 29% of their combined incomes to the government in the form of taxes, as opposed to the 35% that a single person would pay by himself or herself (Orman). Additionally, car insurance companies place married couples into a lower risk category of people, therefore saving them some money as opposed to unmarried people who would pay a higher premium as a result of being in a higher risk category. Not only, in my opinion, is this highly alarming, since those couple of dollars here and there can accumulate to a huge amount of money over time, but it is also highly discriminatory. By not having the ability to be married or be in a civil union, homosexual couples are literally paying for their sexual orientation.
In conclusion, homosexual couples are a group of people that are denied what I believe to be a basic human right, the ability to join in a legal union with their partners and are paying the consequences socially, domestically, as well as financially. While countries like Argentina, Denmark, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and South Africa have all legalized gay marriages or civil unions, in addition to other countries and nine of the 50 states in the United States, America as a whole suffers on a federal level when it comes to their legalization and recognition. However, with an average of 51% of Americans in favor of, and an average of 42.5% of Americans opposed to gay marriage and civil unions, hopefully in the next decade there will be a significant paradigm shift towards their legalization (Silver). And if that were to happen, America may have a chance yet again of being at the forefront of the fight for civil and human rights.
