One of the most politically debated topics is gay marriage. The sides include if gay marriage should be legalized or if it shouldn’t. Gay marriage should be legalized because all people are created equal and should have the same rights. 

All people are created equal. In the Bible it states that God loves everybody and everybody in the world are his children. It also says that God loves everybody and that you should love your neighbor. All the religious people saying that gay people are against God’s will aren’t loving their neighbor. Also, if gay people were so bad, then why would God create them? When the Bible was first created, 35,000 years ago, life was very different. It is possible that the Bible is slightly outdated and it is probably time it is thought about differently. Gay people are exactly like you, except they like the same sex. “I’m not gonna let my sexuality confine or define me. It’s a part of me. Not all of me.” - Connor Franta
           

All people should have the same rights. Back in 1861 America had a civil war. This war was about human rights, if it’s really okay to strip somebody of their free will. Of course that is only half of it, many other complications involved the start of the civil war, but simply that is the reason.  Even after it was illegal to own slaves people still questioned the rights of African-Americans. People fought for their rights and people agreed. Now we aren’t as segregated. “Throughout our history, we have fought discrimination. We have joined together to recognize equality for racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, immigrants… legalizing gay marriage is the right thing to do and it’s time.” Former Washington governor Christine Gregoire stated in January of 2012. This whole “should gay marriage be legalized” debate, is just a repeat of history. Do you know why we record history? So it doesn’t repeat itself.

Some people say that gay people should be fine, just dating, gay marriage doesn’t have to be legalized for them to be happy. Saying this assumes everyone should be happy just dating. Marriage brings a lot of benefits. If the somebody’s partner is hospitalized, usually only family can visit them. If they are married, that's no problem, and the person can go visit their hospitalized partner. If they aren’t married, even though they have been dating for a long time, the only thing stopping them from getting married is the law, they aren’t allowed to visit their partner in the hospital, because even though they have been dating for a while, they aren’t considered family. “Marriage can help reduce the tax burden for married couples who file jointly. Depending on the incomes, so-called marriage "penalties" can be avoided. If the taxpaying spouses have substantially different salaries, the lower one can pull the higher one down into a lower bracket, reducing their overall taxes.” TurboTax.com says in their article titled “Seven Tax Advantages of Getting Married”. Marriage is another way of saying “I want to take our relationship to the next level, and be committed to you”. Lots of people strive towards marriage and some people having that denied to them, will leave them very unhappy.
          

“Homosexuality is immoral and unnatural.” Looking at real statistics, there are studies proving that over 9 million Americans are gay, so it’s not uncommon. “Homosexuality is an accepted lifestyle nowadays with most evidence strongly supporting biological causation.” -BalancedPolitics.org. Some religions think this too, the Islamic faith openly rejects gay marriage. Many use this quote from the Bible “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination,”. People also say the whole point of marriage is to reproduce. 6% of married women are infertile, so if the whole point of marriage is to reproduce, then the women that are infertile shouldn’t be able to marry either in their standards, yet the government still allows them to do so. An article from Debate.org states that “Scientific studies have found that children raised by homosexual parents are every bit as capable providing heterosexual parenting later in life.” If somebody is gay all of a sudden they are classified as “unnatural” and it’s arguable if they should have the right to marry.
            

Marriage is a right and by banning gay marriage states are denying a lot of their population that right. Everyone is equal, and everyone should have the same rights. Yet why do we continue to deny and refuse to treat everyone the same?