Gay Marriage example essay topic

724 words
"I would challenge our society as a whole to move beyond the 'why' and focus on the fact that gay people 'are' " Richard Tyler. Being gay in today's society is probably one of the most difficult things to face considering only approximately 10% of the world's population is gay, according to homosexual advocy groups. Although many more people are openly gay than previous years, their civil rights are not properly addressed. The legal issues concerning the establishment of gay rights in many countries around the world is something most people don't want to think about, let alone talk about. One of the most important legal issues for gay people throughout the world is the right to get married.

This idea seems an absurdity to many individuals who oppose gay rights on religious grounds or those who believe that gay marriages threaten and even violate the sanctity of the traditional values of marriage. The majority of society needs to understand all the aspects of what being gay means, and move beyond the ignorant stereotypes they have believed in all their lives. People need to understand that being gay is not an individual choice, but a fact of who they really are and is something individuals cannot change even if they wished to. One of the main gay stereotypes is promiscuity, and the inability to form lasting relationships. This shows society's hypocrisy especially for North America, whose divorce rate is 43% according to the American for Divorce Reform Association.

On a closer examination of gay couples, it is obvious that the values they exhibit in their daily lives are often indistinguishable from those of their straight neighbors. They value and participate in family life, are committed to making their neighborhoods and communities safer and better places to live, and honor and abide by the law. Many make valuable contributions to their communities, serving on school boards, volunteering in community charities and trying to be good citizens. In doing so, they take full advantage of their relationship to make not only their own lives better, but those of their neighbors as well. A benefit to heterosexual society of gay marriage is the fact that the commitment of a marriage means the participants are not likely to engage in promiscuous sex.

This has the advantage of slowing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases which know no sexual orientation. As an example, these benefits of gay marriage have changed the attitudes of the majority of people in Denmark where gay marriage has been legal for years. Another reason people oppose gay marriage is that they consider marriage is for procreation. The supporters of that argument are really hard pressed to explain why, then, should infertile couples be allowed to marry. It would be interesting to watch the supporter of such an argument explain to the post-menopausal mother or impotent father that since they cannot procreate, they much now surrender their wedding rings. Gays also face condemnation of their relationships as immoral, a belief expressed by different religious doctrines.

As shown in the play, "Inherit the Wind" by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the ingredients to hatred are narrow-mindedness and fear as many people follow religion blindly. How can you reconcile, believing in an all-loving god, and also believing in the exclusion of an entire group of society based on sexual orientation? The Bible is not a legitimate force in courts of law which exist to maintain and safeguard the rights of the individuals in. Not all world religions have a problem with homosexuality. Many sects of Buddhism, for example, celebrate gay relationships freely and would like to have the authority to make them legal marriages. In that sense, their religious freedom is being infringed upon.

The negative forces of prejudice, religious intolerance, racism, and other forms of hatred existed among the generations of people who preceded us; in all probability these destructive elements will only die when the last human being perishes from the face of our earth. Perhaps the only hope humans have of escaping the prison-house of their moral blindness is to see for the first time, and know, that equality is the surest bond of love.