Above is a video about a man who was raised up by a homosexual family. Zack Wahls is an amazing man who has been raised very well because his parent made the best of him and give him the basic to success in real life.
Ask just about anyone. They'll all tell you they're in favor of equal rights for homosexuals. Just name the situation, and ask. They'll all say, yes, gays should have the same rights in housing, jobs, public accommodations, and should have equal access to government benefits, equal protection of the law, etc. Then you get to gay marriage. And that's when all this talk of equality stops dead cold.
Nearly seventy percent of people in the U.S. oppose gay marriage, almost the same proportion as are otherwise supportive of gay rights. This means that many of the same people who are even passionately in favor of gay rights oppose gays on this one issue.
Why all the passion?
It's because there is a lot of misunderstanding about what homosexuality really is, as well as the erroneous assumption that gay people enjoy the same civil rights protections as everyone else. There are also a lot of stereotypes about gay relationships, and even a great deal of misunderstanding of what marriage itself is all about.
1. Just not comfortable with the idea. The fact the people aren't comfortable with the idea stems primarily from the fact that for many years, society has promoted the idea that a marriage between members of the same sex is ludicrous, mainly because of the objections raised above. But if those objections don't make sense, neither does the idea that gay marriage is necessarily ludicrous. Societies have long recognized that allowing civil rights to certain groups may offend some, and at times, even the majority. But that is why constitutional government was established -- to ensure that powerless, unpopular minorities are still protected from the tyranny of the majority.
2. It offends everything religion stands for. No offense but whose religion? Many mainstream Christian denominations, to be sure, and definitely most branches of Islam and Orthodox Judaism, but outside those, most religions are unopposed to gay marriage, and many actually favor it.
3. Marriage is a sacred institution and gay marriage violates that sanctity. This is, of course, related to the motives. But it is really subtly different. It's based on the assumption that the state has the responsibility to "sanctify" marriages - a fundamentally religious idea. Here we're dealing with people trying to enforce their religious doctrines on someone else, but by doing it through weakening the separation of church and state, by undermining the Bill of Rights. Not that there's anything new about this, of course. But the attempt itself runs against the grain of everything the First Amendment stands for - one does not truly have freedom of religion if one does not have the right to freedom from religion as well. It would seem to me that anyone who feels that the sanctity of their marriage is threatened by a gay couple down the street having the right to marry is mighty insecure about their religion anyway.
4. Gay sex is unnatural. This argument, often encoded in the very name of sodomy statutes, betrays a considerable ignorance of behavior in the animal kingdom. The fact is that among the approximately 1500 animal species whose behavior has been extensively studied, homosexual behavior in animals has been described in at least 450 of those species. It runs the gamut, too, ranging from occasional displays of affection to life-long pair bonding including sex and even adopting and raising orphans, going so far as the rejection by force of potential heterosexual partners. The reality is that it is so common that it begs for an explanation, and sociobiologists have proposed a wide variety of explanations to account for it. The fact that it is so common also means that it has evolutionary significance, which applies as much to humans as it does to other animal species.
5. A man making love to another man betrays everything that is masculine. There was a long-honored tradition of gay relationships among the tough and macho cowboys of the Old West, and many diaries exist, detailing their relationships. In fact, the Autrey Museum of the Old West in Los Angeles once did an exhibition of this little-told story. Plenty of masculine, respected movies stars are gay. Indeed, Rock Hudson was considered the very archetype of a masculine man. Came as quite a shock to a lot of macho-men to find out he was gay! So what's wrong with all these kinds of men expressing love for each other? A society that devalues love devalues that upon which civilized society itself is based. Should any form of that love for one another be discouraged?
6. The thought of gay sex is repulsive. Well, it will come as some surprise to a lot of heterosexuals to find out that, to a lot of gays, the thought of heterosexual sex is repulsive! But does that mean the discomfort of some gays to heterosexual couples should be a reason to deny heterosexuals the right to marry? I don't think so, even though the thought of a man kissing a woman is rather repulsive to many homosexuals.
7. Gay marriage would legitimize homosexuality. This presumes that homosexuality is anything other than simply a normal variation of human development. The reality is that every mental health association has recognized that homosexuality is a perfectly normal variation on how humans develop, and there is now a substantial body of evidence from science that there are sound reasons why it has evolved, and why it is not selected against in evolutionary pressure. It is not perverted, it does not degrade human culture, and it is not a threat to humankind in any way. All those stereotypes, long cultivated by homophobes, have been disproven both by experience and by scientific research, but that does not prevent the homophobe from holding to them dearly. And allowing state sanction in the form of marriage, threatens the stereotype by undermining the justification for it.
So let's get on with it. Let's get over our aversion to what we oppose for silly, irrational reasons, based on ignorance and faulty assumptions, and make ours a more just and honorable society, finally honoring that last phrase from the Pledge of Allegance; "With liberty and justice for all."
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