The President of the United States: Legalize same-sex marriages

I realize that, upon reading the introductory statement, many of you will turn your heads. While I do support gay marriage, I am not going to push my belief, simply state proven facts.

In March of 2007, South Carolina officially banned gay marriage. According to the Huffington Post,   “…legislative leaders ratified a constitutional amendment approved by voters in November.” Now, it would seem that this means it was put to a vote. Since when do people have to vote on a marriage? Did the government have to vote ‘yes’ for you to marry your husband or wife?

I understand that there are arguments that gay marriage is a sin. It would be, if the government ran based on the Bible or the Ten Commandments. But since when does the government base its laws off of the Ten Commandments? When the “Constitution” was drafted, it was debated between the writers for three and a half months as to what to put in it as a rule. It was finally decided to create a constitution that was secular, and therefore it did not include the word ‘God’. Double check- the word ‘God’ does not appear ANYWHERE in the US. Constitution. Even our forefathers realized that not everyone adheres to the same beliefs and decided not to rule based on that conception.  

Consequently, the “Declaration of Independence” was re-drafted to say that the rights granted to man are endowed by their ‘Creator’, not by God. This leads to the separation of church and state. Three years before the “Declaration” was signed, Reverend Isaac Backus, a prominent Baptist minister, fought the odds and noted that when “church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued.”  This, coming from a reverend.

Even more amazingly, a CONSERVATIVE UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, stated about gay marriage: “I once stood before a Conservative conference and said it shouldn’t matter whether commitment was between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and another man. You applauded me for that. Five years on, we’re consulting on legalizing gay marriage. And to anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it’s about equality, but it’s also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative."

In the 1950’s, the biggest fight was against interracial marriage. It was thought to be an act against God, but again, there is the separation of church and state. This law was finally overturned, but the state of South Carolina still had an anti-miscegenation law on the books as late as 1998, although it was not applied. The fight was that the laws against interracial marriage were not constitutional. It went against the 14th amendment, which does not directly include marriage, but won the fight regardless.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has interpreted the 14th amendment to protect against state infringement of certain unenumerated rights including, among others, the right to send one's children to private school and the right to marital privacy.

Therefore, the fight against gay marriages, which is today’s big argument, could also be considered unjust and unconstitutional.  The 9th amendment to the US Constitution states that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This also could include the rights to marry whomever you choose.

Many states have laws now which grant homosexual couples the right to a civil union, however, a civil union is not the same thing as marriage. Civil unions grant couples only certain rights, which do not include the rights to hospital visitation, the rights to a legal will, or the right to be included on someone’s insurance. There are innumerable other rights in the financial, medical, and social realms that are not granted to homosexual couples that heterosexual couples get to enjoy.

Gay marriage will also help the divorce rate. The United States has held a steady divorce rate of 50% (give or take a percentage point a year). This is not, by any means, the way to help protect the “sanctity of marriage” that the government is supposedly fighting so hard to keep intact.

The biggest reason to legalize gay marriage, however, is that it will have absolutely no effect on the heterosexual community. The integration and interracial marriage in the 50s and 60s had no effect on the majority, or white, population, execept for an outbreak of angry people because they did not agree with the decision. But, like everything else, it is an issue of the past and people have come to accept it. The same thing will happen with the legalization of gay marriage. A national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted 2/22/11 – 3/1/11 among 1,504 adults, finds about as many adults now favor (45%) as oppose (46%) allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally.

But since homosexual couples already are living in society and live as married couples, without the rights, granting them the right to marry legally will not change the society in any way.

Just a few statistics:

• In a 1992 study, 55.5% of gay men and 71.2% of lesbians were in steady
  relationships.
• An estimated 6 million to 14 million children have a lesbian or gay parent.
  Courts in 11 states have ruled that gay men and lesbians, on the basis of
  their sexual orientation, are unfit to receive custody of their children.
  A review of 9 studies of aspects of personal development--such as
  self-concept, moral judgment, and intelligence-revealed no significant
  difference between children of lesbians and gay men and children of
  heterosexuals.
• In 1965, 82% of men and 58% of women said that homosexuality represents a
  "clear threat" to the American way of life.
• In 1977, 56% of Americans said homosexuals should have equal rights in
  employment. By 1992, that number had risen to 74%.
• In 1993, 66.3% of the American population believed that sexual relations
  between two consenting adults of the same sex were always wrong.
• In a 1993 U.S. News and World Report poll of 1,000 registered voters, 53%
  said they knew someone who is gay of these, 73% supported equal rights for
  gays. 46% said they do not know someone who Is gay or lesbian; of these, 55
  % supported the same rights.
• Among world religions, Buddhism is notable in that it does not condemn
  homosexuality.
• The word "homosexual" did not appear in any translation of the Christian
  Bible until 1946. There are words in Greek for same-sex sexual activities, yet they never
  appear in the original text of the New Testament.
• In 1972 the United Church of Christ became the first Christian denomination to ordain an openly gay candidate.
• Lesbians and gay men have virtually no legal rights when a partner becomes
  incapacitated because of accident or illness. –and well over half of all partners are in a steady relationship…yet they have no rights. Does this seem fair?
• The first openly gay or lesbian elected official was Kathy Kozachenko, who
  was chosen for the Ann Arbor, Michigan, city council in 1974.
• In January 1980 there were 5 openly gay or lesbian elected officials in the
  USA.
• In January 1994 there were 133 openly gay or lesbian elected officials in
  the USA.
• The Democratic Party first adopted a platform plank favoring lesbian and
  gay rights in 1980. The Green party has a gay rights plank. No Republican
  Party platform has endorsed gay or lesbian rights.
• Bill Clinton received 89.2% of the lesbian and gay vote in 1992.

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