Same-Sex Marriage

     onoes! gay peeple R geting mareed! teh bible sez u cant do that! the end of teh world is coming! god will punish them 4 doing that!

     Yes, California recently legalized same-sex marriages. Seeing as how it’s been a few days and the Earth hasn’t burst into flames at God’s alleged rage at this, I think it a fair assumption that the world’s not going to end.

     California is the second state in America to legalize more than just a civil union. As an advocate of getting rid of illogical nonsense, I’m going to show you why there’s really no logical argument against it.

     The most common type of argument against it, religious-based, should really carry little weight as a factor in secular marriage. Ideally, America has separation of church and state, but most of us know just how true that is in practice.

     Just to add in a little more reason that “because it shouldn’t,” let’s look at it this way: assuming many gays have been chased out of their religion by extremist nut jobs (never a good thing), they are not part of that religion. A Christian (or any other religion for that matter) wouldn’t tell a Jewish couple they shouldn’t do the traditional “breaking of the glass,” so why should any religion tell someone else who is not of their religion how to run their wedding?

     There are passages in the Bible that do say something about the relationship for men and women. I have heard that these are often taken out of context, and looking at the quotations it could be a misinterpretation.*

     Next we come to another common argument type: the social aspect. One can argue that marriage is nothing but a pure social pressure anyway, and that it’s not needed. However, there are some benefits for being married, which is why it’s even an issue.

     “Attraction that leads to procreation is the driving force behind marriage” is the common social argument. Gay couples alone can not have children, therefore there is no procreation, and therefore they can not marry. However, a man and a woman can still marry even if one or both are sterile. This argument is null. Gay couples can desire to adopt just as sterile straight couples can, so there isn’t even an argument of desire versus ability.

     Child raising is an important subject. Two dads or two moms is not “normal” therefore the child must be “different” when he/she grows up. Well, I might agree if the “normal” couples have never raised a “different” (messed-up) child. There’s no proof that it is worse (or potentially better) to raise a child with two dads or moms. This argument is null.


     Tradition based arguments don’t even get off the ground. That marriage is a tradition and should be protected as such isn’t much of an argument. Think of other traditions we’ve had. We traditionally kept slaves. We traditionally kept whites separated from colored people. We traditionally kept women at home and in the kitchen. We stopped following these traditions. You know why? We realized that these traditions made no sense whatsoever and were unjust.

     but u guys can alredy have civil unions! u r alredy a cuple! y do u stil want sumthing mor?

     Ah, Civil Unions, the “let’s compromise by giving them half of what they ask for” technique. I myself was unaware of this; I thought it was just a renaming to silence the religious people. Civil Unions are not the same thing as marriage. There’s a lot of legal work involved in getting things like power of attorney, health-care decision making powers, and inheritance of the spouse rights that automatically come with true marriage.

     Alright, so some may think at this point, “Well they can still get ‘technical marriage,’ right? It just requires a little more work.” This isn’t fully true. Those rights previously mentioned can be contested by a relative of the spouse. There are some marriage-only tax breaks (and consequently, tax add-ons, although not as significant) that are not available to civil union couples.

     1138 laws are in effect that include marriage as a factor.** Civil Unions do not get all of the benefits marriages get under these laws. If a woman from another country comes here and marries a man from America, she becomes a U.S. citizen. If a man from another country comes here and forms a civil union with a man from America, he does not become a U.S. citizen.

     “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” ~Excerpt from the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

     What this says is that all the citizens of America are entitled to equality and that life, property, rights may be not be taken away without good reason. The right to marry is not available to gay citizens, violating this amendment. What this comes down to is “separate but equal,” and anyone with a knowledge of recent American history knows just how equal those separate were.

     Just let the gays get married. With the divorce rates so high chances are a quarter of them won’t stay together for more than a year anyway.

The Dragon of Logical Arguments, Raltz Klamar