We all laugh and smile, when there is joy and wonder to be found. A joke toke by a dear friend or the antics of an adored pet shows us the happiness in the world. But there is also sorrow. We all cry and grieve when there is sadness and pain around us. From the pain of a broken heart, to the death of a loved one; we all shed tears. But every so often, life gives us a chance at the true meaning of happiness; the reason some of us live and breathe. And that reason is love.
If two people love each other and are truly happy being together, and want to get married why should anyone stop them? Why does it matter if they are the same sex or not. Why question if they really love each other? Why should anyone have a say in another couples relationship? Some people believe that they have a say because the gay community is trying to destroy the Catholic faith and tear apart the beliefs of millions. This isn’t true.
There are many reasons for same sex couples to be allowed to marry. For one, they are just like everyone else and they wish to be able to show their love to the world by having the option of marriage. A basic human right denied to them that most people take advantage of every day. Straight couples get married every day and some marriages just don’t last, they end up in divorce and painful settlements. Gay couples are together for years and live with the thought that they’ll live with the one they love for the rest of their lives but never be able to get married. There is hope now. People from all walks of life are working to legalize gay marriage, which includes straight people. People are working to make this a fair and equal country.
Gay marriage is protected by the Constitution's commitments to liberty and equality. America is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, where people leave their homes and their lives to come to America and be free. How can that be possible if we are denying civil rights of Americans everywhere?
According to the Supreme Court case study, “Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur” women should have to give up their teaching positions 5 months before their due dates, for unpaid maternity leave. After giving birth they must give a doctor’s evaluation stating they are in perfect health before they are considered for rehire the following school year. The Supreme Court stated; "Freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause.” This is the same for gay marriage. If you love someone you should have the freedom to marry them and spend the rest of your life with them. There should be no issue
US District Judge Vaughn Walker was quoted on the issue of California’s Prop. 8; "Unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses." California’s Prop. 8 was an attempt to ban gay marriage, one that was ruled out quickly. California now allows civil unions but still bans gay marriage.
Denying same-sex couples the right to marry stigmatizes gay and lesbian families as inferior and sends the message that it is acceptable to discriminate against them. Think of a time in history where some people were thought of as inferior to others, where those people were thought of as dirt and were denied basic human rights, not to even mention civil rights. The right to marry was not as big an issue for them, but they had to fight to use a bathroom, a seat on the bus or to even enter a building. During that time, it was a huge deal and extremely controversial for African Americans to do most anything, but now it seems silly to think it ever happened. We allow them to do anything they want, like everyone else, because they are human, too. They are allowed to do things today that were un-thought of years ago, including be President of the United States. Now imagine how people will react to how Gays were treated, twenty from now?
Civil unions ruled unacceptable alternative to same sex marriage. Unions are not the same thing as marriages or even close to an acceptable alternative. Marriage is about showing someone their love that they plan to stay by their partner’s side for as long as they have on this earth. Why not allow that same right to show the exact same expression of love to the Gay community.
Unions are a way of treating same sex couples as second class citizens, not being able to marry. Why is that? Why treat normal people differently for whom and how they love? It’s not just wrong, discrimination in any form is wrong and is, in many ways, illegal. Gay couples just want to have the chance to be together and maybe have a family.
Gay marriage would make it easier for same-sex couples to adopt, providing stable homes for children who would otherwise be left in foster care. Some argue that children are better off raised in a male-female headed household. Whether there is truth to that argument or not, is not the point. Many couples will marry and not have children: gay and straight. Gay and lesbian couples are having children already without the benefit of marriage. So are single moms, teenagers and drug addicts. Preventing a loving same sex couple from making a legal commitment to each other can only hurt their children. It can send a message, like it did in the case of one Massachusetts couple, that mommy and mommy don’t really love each other, because if they did, they would get married. How do you explain the legal system to a five year old?
100,000 children are waiting to be adopted at any given time and they hope everyday that they will get there family they’ve waited so long for . Waiting for a home filled with the love and acceptance they so dearly need and desire. So many children go to foster families that don’t care or can’t adopt them and are sent to a new home, new school, new everything. Many children grow up in the system and never get adopted or if they do, they’re just children. Most teens in the system don’t get adopted because couples want little kids or babies. Gay or lesbian couples look for kids and teens in need of families. They aren’t picky, they just want a family to love.
A longitudinal study published in Pediatrics on June 7, 2010 found that children of lesbian mothers were rated higher than children of heterosexual parents in social and academic competence and had fewer social problems. I first hand know how it feels to live in two type’s homes, one run by two opposite sex grandparents, and the other run by my two Moms. My birth mom, Momma, loves me and my 3 siblings. She never stops loving us, even though we get into trouble sometimes and we get on her nerves, too. My other mom is from Germany. We call her Mutti, (pronounced Moo-tea) which is German for Mommy. Even though she didn’t give birth to us, she loves us with all of her heart and we love her, too.

For 18 years I was raised by my Catholic Grandparents, they taught me that being gay was wrong and Bi-sexuality doesn’t exist. We went to church every Sunday, learned from the Bible, and celebrated every Christian holiday at church then with the family. I was taught hate from a young age but in my heart I knew love. My Sunday school teacher was as straight as they come, but his brother was gay and he loved him. He, and my Moms, taught me to love thy neighbor, not to hate anyone who was different. My Moms raised my younger two siblings while my grandparents raised my sister and me.
"We should be begging gay couples to adopt children. We should see this as a great boon that gay marriage could bring to kids who need nothing more than two loving parents." Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein argues.
Marriage provides both physical and psychological health benefits, and banning gay marriage increases rates of psychological disorders. Depression and anxiety are rated among the highest. My Momma didn’t always have Mutti, she was married to my step dad for a long time and neither one was happy. My Momma was always sad and my step dad knew it, he would get angry sometimes because he knew she wasn’t happy and couldn’t help her. When they got a divorce, we were all sad, but they were both happy. My step dad now has a wonderful woman named Joey to make him happy, and my Momma has Mutti.
The American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and others wrote in a Sep. 2007 amicus brief, "...allowing same-sex couples to marry would give them access to the social support that already facilitates and strengthens heterosexual marriages, with all of the psychological and physical health benefits associated with that support.”
A 2010 analysis published in the American Journal of Public Health found that after their states had banned gay marriage, gay, lesbian and bisexual people suffered a 37% increase in mood disorders, a 42% increase in alcohol-use disorders, and a 248% increase in generalized anxiety disorders. This show just how emotionally crushing it is to have one’s hopes of happiness crushed. It’s a common unknown fact that gay or lesbian couples living in states that ban Gay marriage they have none of the legal rights that protect other married couples. They must file their taxes separately, as “single” and can’t be covered on each other’s health plans. If one become sick and has to be hospitalized, their partner has no guaranteed right to be there by their side. If their partner dies, their distant relatives have more claims to their belongings than their partner.
Let’s get to the “valid” point that many people preach. Gay marriage will hurt heterosexual marriage. This is a lie. If one is in love, and wishes to be married, they don’t pick a religion to go after to do so. They pick out cakes, clothing, venues, and things like what color napkins to use when the chicken is served.
Legalizing gay marriage will not harm heterosexual marriages or "family values," and society will continue to function successfully. Legalizing gay marriage will only open the doors to more successful and happy marriages, creating warm loving homes to raise families and allow more couples to finally be together forever. Isn’t that what everyone wants, to live with the one they love for the rest of their life?
A study published on Apr. 13, 2009 in Social Science Quarterly found that “Laws permitting same-sex marriage or civil unions have no adverse effect on marriage, divorce, and abortion rates, or the percent of children born out of wedlock..." It might be just me but, I think that worrying about ones gay child getting pregnant is the one thing that would never cross a parents mind.
The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association found that more than a century of research has shown "no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution.” It seems to be that some people think if gay marriage becomes legal, their significant other will suddenly forget all the love they had for them and leave for a person of the same sex. If you love someone and they love you, nothing should make you lose faith in their love, especially someone else’s love life.
Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies by accepting and showing support for those who love the same sex.
Gay marriage is incompatible with the beliefs, sacred texts, and traditions of many religious groups. This is one of the arguments made by many politicians have made in the past and are probably using this same argument right now. This may be what some believe, but I ask you to read me where in the Bible or in the Koran it specifically says that gay marriage is wrong.
The Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church, Islam, United Methodist Church, Southern Baptist Convention, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, National Association of Evangelicals, and American Baptist Churches USA all oppose same-sex marriage. This is no longer true for the Catholic Church, or at least not for Pope Francis.
“If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis is quoted by reporters aboard the papal flight returning from Brazil on July 29, 2013. Pope Francis reached out to the Gay community during the news conference on that plane ride, saying he wouldn’t judge priests or regular people for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide ranging conversation as he returned from his first foreign trip. He is the first Pope to embrace the Bible’s true meaning and lesson, to spread love and not hate.

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone. ‘Father, what about the Atheists?’ Even the Atheists. Even the Gay Community. Everyone!” Pope Francis said during Mass on May 22, 2013.
Expanding marriage to include same-sex couples may lead to churches being forced to marry couples and children being taught in school that same-sex marriage is the same as opposite-sex marriage. God preaches love to everyone, this does not exclude a certain person or people.
As for the Bible, you have to look at the context and put the meaning behind the words. Leviticus was all about putting things into categories and different categories didn’t mix. Technically you are breaking g\God’s law and sinning if you wear clothes that are a blend of two different fibers. Divorce is also condemned in Leviticus but no one forbids people to divorce. It also says you should be condemned if you touch any woman in any way within 7 days of her period. What Leviticus actually means when stating “Man shall not lie with man as he does with a woman” refers to not treating fellow man as his inferior, like he would a woman. This is because treating a man as a woman was wrong.
During that time period, every woman belonged to a man, she was property. She either belonged to her father or to her husband. Consummating the marriage on their wedding night was the man officially claiming ownership of his new woman. Having sex with a virgin woman whom you have not married was considered damaging another man’s property. So in essence, Leviticus was property law, the argument against gay marriage, is now invalid.
Nowadays, the Bible is used selectively as a weapon, taking things out of context and used inappropriately. People use this book of love and compassion as a weapon of hate and discrimination. To show the world “God’s love” through the vicious way of discrimination is just wrong and, in my point of view, dumb. That is not the purpose of the bible. So unless one wishes to kill all unmarried, non-virginal women, divorcees, and all people who wear mixed fabrics, they should stop using the Bible to fight their battles for them and reread it till they understand what it is that God is saying.
There is a section of the Bible that says divorce is a sin and even a few passages that say that the wife should be stoned to death. We choose to overlook the consequences of divorce because time has proven that forcing two people to stay together when they no longer love each other is inhumane and cruel. The Bible doesn’t say anything about the consequences of a homosexual lifestyle. Yet, we seem to be spear heading the campaign to ruin the lives of people we don’t even know. The Bible says love thy neighbor, not hate them for showing the world who they are. To love thy neighbor means to show compassion for who they are.That’s it. There are no other rules or restrictions to that passage.
Even through the hate and pain, the LGBTQ community just wants acceptance. Gay marriage is the only thing that millions of people want. They don’t want to destroy people’s lives or tear their beliefs away from them. They just want their chance at happiness and a way to show their love. They want to start a family by adopting children in need and give them homes to love and grow in. They want to be able to introduce their partner as their spouse, to file taxes as a married couple, to be able to have their family covered on their insurance, to be able to take care of their loved one. How can we deny them? Why deny them this chance?

If two people love each other and are truly happy being together, if they wish to get married why should anyone stop them? Why does it matter if they’re the same sex or not. Love is love, it comes in so many shapes and sizes, coming in forms sometimes strange and sometimes more beautiful than even thought imaginable. It is amazing how much people say they have no flaws or that they are perfect. No one is perfect, no one is better than anyone else or is flawless. Hate is one huge example, it shows exactly what that person is made of, that they can’t tolerate someone for being who they are. If one practices what their God, Gods or Goddesses preaches, then everyone should show nothing but love for their fellow man. There is no reason for picking and choosing who one believes their god loves, there is no one person that god hates, he/she loves everyone. Everyone.