Should gay couples be allowed to get married?
This is a very complicated thing. My position is that gay people should have all the same rights as straight people. However, the term marriage is a religious term that our government has adopted. Marriage holds religious connotations and therefore should be left to the church. If a church decided to marry a gay couple, that is their business not the government’s. The government should offer “civil unions,” meaning that in the eyes of the law the couple has a common law marriage and is awarded all the rights of a straight couple, as well as things like the option of adoption. There is no reason on earth why a couple should not be awarded these rights by the government. To deny rights has discrimination written all over it. It is no different than the way that blacks used to be treated in this country. The only thing that is different about gay people is their sexual orientation. They are still good, respecting, productive, law-abiding citizens and should not be denied the rights that all other citizens freely enjoy.
The flip side is that marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman. No one else. Many people are not comfortable with the idea of two men or two women getting married and feel that it is not traditional, is shunned by their religion or feel that it “just isn’t right,” and therefore shouldn’t be allowed. Many people simply don’t understand the concept of being gay and see gay people as having something wrong with them. Many people are even friends with gay people, but still can’t find it in themselves to totally support something like marriage between gays because they have been taught their whole lives that it is wrong and a sin, immoral, and something to be shunned. However if the term marriage is replaced by the term civil union and kept separate from the church, it is amazing how people’s opinions change.
