An Overview and Argument Supporting Marriage for Gays and Lesbians
The issue disputing the inclusion or exclusion of legislative policy regarding gay and lesbian partnerships has recently increased its momentous gain to become one of our nation’s most passionately argued debates. Its roots are buried deeply in the varyingly disparate social consciousnesses of the American public. The question of whether or not same sex couples should be recognized in unions of equal validity to their heterosexual counterparts is one for which every citizen seems to have a definitive opinion. Pledging either vehement and dogmatic support or righteously indignant opposition, it appears that there are very few in the United States who have adopted an even remotely ambivalent stance on the matter. One can find information substantiating the existence of some level of interest in this topic dating as far back as the Theodosian Code of ancient Rome just as there are parallel controversies of equal merit in a variety of our contemporary nations; however, in the U.S., the discussion is particularly tempered with the melting pot of representative and myriad perspectives of life in America. A review of the major historic milestones referencing the significance of this debate in our society reveals a social awareness contesting the opposition of the reformative, liberally minded proponents arguing in favor of same sex marriage and the alternate view, mired in erroneous religious beliefs, supporting the fundamentally illogical concept that gay marriage is an abomination in the eyes of God. One of the roots of this great debate is the argument over what sanctity can exist in a marriage between two people that do not embody the traditional roles that were typically recognized throughout history. The validity of non-conventional marriages was advocated many years before California brandished its notorious Proposition 8 or Carrie Prejean made her controversial response to the question of same sex marriage in the April 2009 Miss USA pageant. To view this issue at its core, one must make a comparative and historical note to see that the scope of acceptance was first broadened many years ago the integration of the American public school system which led to the worry that “once they started integrating the schools, the kids would get to know one another better; and then maybe some of them would fall in love” (Sullivan xxii). Progress became reality in 1967 with the landmark decision to end anti-miscengenation laws and support the marriage between the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, an interracial couple whose successful court case won their right to marry in a country where such a union had previously met with intolerance perpetuated in legal doctrine.
Nearly thirty years would pass during which individual states would begin legislation to allow same sex couples the right to receive legal recognition for their partnerships. However, it was not until the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that the unions would be called into debate at a national level. The ensuing question looming for our country was one concerning the acceptance of homosexuality as a pot-stirrer of the larger advocacy for our nation’s individual states’ rights. Several states, including Vermont and Hawaii, began enacting legislation to recognize gay marriages and civil unions. Subsequently, 2008 gave rise to the emergence of California as a state where the issue was widely disputed on both fronts following the infamous ballot that included Proposition 8, a measure that eradicated the rights of same sex couples and constitutionally defined marriage as something which could only exist between two people of the opposite sex. The passage of Proposition 8 has had consequences “nationwide among activists on both sides of the marriage question…one of the consequences of the vote is that it has sharpened the debate over what exactly marriage stands for in the 21st century” (Munro). Gay marriage is now just as emotionally charged and controversial an issue as abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment, with several northern states beginning to recognize the validity of these partnerships and asking questions of whether Americans “ think this trend will start to move below the Mason-Dixon line [and] could gay marriage be the new civil war in our country” (Bendersky).
With the approval by the state of Iowa and the media frenzy that followed, became clear that the debate has roots which are buried much deeper than just individual states’ rights, perhaps obscured in the country’s tenuously diverse sense of morality. In his compilation Same Sex Marriage: Pro and Con, Andrew Sullivan cites the zeitgeist that accompanied the aforementioned Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education and the Loving vs. Virginia legislation of the sixties as both benchmarks for social reform and foreshadowing of the evolution to the issue at hand: are the American people ready to pass legislation which would, in essence, equate a tacit approval of homosexuality as an acceptable social norm?
In analyzing the factors that drive opponents on this issue, one will repeatedly find that those who believe the sanctity of marriage must be preserved and protected as an institution defined as being between two people of the opposite sex also report to their opposition that they have the word of God on their side. Of particular note, “a USA Today analysis finds that states where the percentage of ‘nones’ –people who say they have no religion—is at or above the national average of 15% are more likely to push expanding the scope of marriage, or civil unions or same-sex partner rights” (Grossman). However, fundamentalists argue that this issue is both simple and plainly black and white, using contemporary history’s all-time bestselling religious work as a weapon in their quest for the preservation of their ideal for the married state. Admittedly, there are multiple Biblical passages that can be cited to further the argument for the existence of patent disapproval of gay marriage and the broader concept of homosexuality by Christianity’s great redeemer. However, one must analyze these quotations in the contextual format for which they are intended rather than pull out specific quotes to advocate a certain morality.
Widely referenced is the Old Testament book Leviticus, a section largely dealing with shiqquwts, or abominations, toward specific diets, activities of daily living, sustenance, and a variety of sexual transgressions, all of which have been named in a lengthy list of the favors, disapprovals, and rites of worship, reportedly from the mouth of God. Of particular note is the brief passage that one should “not lie with a man as one lies with a woman [as] that is detestable” (NIV Leviticus 20:18). What many fail to realize is that many of the citations from this particular book of the Bible may elicit a greater number of questions rather than certainties when applied to the dynamics of any time other than when the book was written. Leviticus also states that “when a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening” (15:19). Furthermore, along with deriding homosexuality and menstruation, the book of Leviticus states that any form of sexual release without the intent to procreate a male heir is an abomination just as reprehensible as the act of homosexuality. Examples could also include oral-genital contact, masturbation, birth control, and condom use, all of which are widely practiced observed by heterosexuals in the United States and all over the world every day.
In addition to the sins of sexual deviance, Leviticus also describes abominations of diet which include the eating of rabbits, pigs and shellfish, further admonishing that one must not even touch the meat from these animals (11:4-9). In the state of Louisiana alone, many natives may be just as guilty of abominable behaviors as homosexuals if they have ever consumed bacon, devoured a shrimp cocktail, or enjoyed the festivities of a crawfish boil at Easter. Another blatant example of information from Leviticus that begs the reader to place its value in the context of its time is the idea that “your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves” (25:44), something which must have pleased many plantation owners prior to the years fought to abolish the practice of slavery. Is it no coincidence that the possession of African American slaves in the Old South was a predominantly accepted custom in the same states that seem to have the most objections to equal rights for gay and lesbian couples today?
Perhaps the greater conflict is more in the words that would appropriately describe the unions. In an effort to dispense with any problems in the semantics of this idea, several states have adopted alternate phonology to describe marriage between gay and lesbian couples. In his book Why Marriage Matters, Evan Wolfson suggests that lawmakers can use the terms “civil union” or “domestic partnership” when their citizens have difficulty accepting the term “marriage”, but Wolfson states that these only further the overall idea of discrimination, calling these pseudo-terms “second-class marriages for second-class citizens” (155). Wolfson also states that we are in “a period when some states move in the direction of equality and inclusion, while other states dig in their heels or pile on resistance and discrimination” (154). Although that may be a fact, and this debate could be one that circulates for several years to come, there are obvious advances taking place wherein states such as “Vermont, Iowa and D.C. are the natural outgrowths of almost five years of married lesbian and gay couples disproving daily the apocalyptic lies spewed by right-wing, anti-gay forces….the sky has not fallen” (Stone).
The United States is entering a new phase in its history. Our current president promised a new and radical change, building a campaign strongly wrapped in those ideals. Although the eventuality of the recognition of gay and lesbian marriage as a legally binding union equal in its validation to those of opposite sex people is inevitable, it may be many years and many more great struggles before it is a reality. Most likely, there will be the passage of a variety of laws including and excluding equal rights and “there will be litigation, though for every case in court there will be thousands of other day-to-day moments in which gay married couples and their kids encounter a mix of respect, discrimination, and uncertainty from the institutions and neighbors they deal with” (Wolfson 155).
There are many great and admirable Americans in history who have fought and struggled to achieve equality not only for themselves, but for their families, contemporaries, and the generations that have followed. In an effort to abolish the historic prejudices that face gay Americans today, it may take a single gay or lesbian couple as confident as Rosa Parks and as persevering as Richard Love and Mildred Jeter to stand up and tell the world that they deserve the same advantages afforded to everyone else in this country to which they pledge their allegiance.
Works Cited
Bendersky, Ari. “Gay Marriage: The Next Civil War?” Gay.com. 16 April 2009. 21 April 2009.
<>.
The Discovery Study Bible, New International Version. Dr. Larry Richards, ed. Grand Rapids:
The Zondervan Corporation, 2004.
Grossman, Cathy Lynn and Jack Gillum.. "Same-sex Proposals Rise in New England." USA
Today (n.d.). Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Watson Library, Shreveport, LA. 13 Apr. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=J0E333828445009&site=ehost-live>.
Munro, Neil. "Proposition 8's Embers Smolder." National Journal (13 Feb. 2009): 16-16.
Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Watson Library, Shreveport, LA. 13 Apr. 2009
Stone, Andrea. "Vt. lawmakers legalize gay marriage." USA Today (n.d.). Academic Search
Complete. EBSCO. Watson Library, Shreveport, LA. 13 Apr. 2009 <
Sullivan, Andrew, ed. Same-Sex Marriage: Pro & Con. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
Wolfson, Evan. Why Marriage Matters. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
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