1Alrashed

Rashed Alrashed Kristean Foster CO150-401 Oct.28.2013 Should the government legalize gay marriage in the U.S.?

This life has a certain cycle that every human been follows expect a very small percentage of them. In one of our lives stages we start looking for a partner in this life that we will have a bound with him and start a family with that person. This kind of acct is called marriage. As it known and familiar by people that marriage is the bond between a man and a woman, but since couple of decades an odd behavior that was starting to show between a very few people has accrued which is gay marriage. Gay marriage has been an issue in the U.S. science a long time and it is illegal in most of the states. The American Nation has been arguing about this topic for a long time, millions of debates have been made about whether it should be legal or not. As soon as I heard about this problem, I directly wanted to know more about it and to get to know every different point of view about. I wanted to have a larger picture on gay marriage and what is the right decision to take about it. At the begging I wanted to know what will happen if we legalized gay marriage. I needed to have some knowledge about the changes that could happen to the United Stated society if gay marriage where allowed. There for, my first source was the article "Apply 'who's hurt' test to gay marriage." This was published in USA Today. This article discusses what will happen if gay marriage is legalized. First, it states that banning gay marriage has disadvantages. Second, it claims that no one will be hurt if gay marriage is legalized. I strongly agree with this article. We should apply who is hurt test and see the effect of legalizing gay marriage. After applying this test we will realize that if we legalize gay marriage, harm or pain will not be experienced by any person. On the other hand, happiness and beautiful life will be allowed for same sex couples. After reading this article, I learned what will happen if we allowed for gay couples to get married, we will give them the opportunity to get attached with the person that they love and want to spend the rest of their life with. I think it would have been better if they included more

2Alrashed

details that will prove no one is going to be harmed from allowing gay marriage. With knowing these information, I wanted to know more about the advantages of legalizing gay marriage and why we should agree with it. To know more advantages about gay marriage, I looked up in Google for articles that are titled with why gay marriage should be legalized? And Ive found the article "Gay Marriage Should Be Legal." Published by Opposing Viewpoints In Contex website and written by Kerrald, James. This source presents counter argument and weakens them. First, it demonstrates that gay marriage is not a threat to the institution of marriage. Second, it states that it wont harm children. Instead it will help to adopt more children. Third, it discusses why it false to say gay marriage is an act that violates religion. At last, the article states that there is no amendment that demands to ban gay marriage. When I finished reading this source, I really started to think that there are no disadvantages for allowing gay marriage and it seems that every argument that is used by people who are opposing gay marriage is wrong. I started to agree strongly with legalizing gay marriage because of all the positive things that would happened when we legalize gay marriage. After all that, I wanted to read about any movements that have been made by a gay couples or a gay institution in order to legalize gay marriage.

I started the research on the internet to find and read an article that talks about a gay marriage case, a law suit that have made to legalize gay marriage. I found the article "Gay Marriage Debate: You Be The Judge." Published by USA Today and the author is Richard, Wolf.. On this article, a case that had been held earlier this year on the Supreme Court has been described. First, it states that gay marriage history will have a massive effect on this case and the decision of the court on it. Second, several statements from justices or lawyers has been used, some of these statements oppose gay marriage and some of them agrees with it. Third, the article anticipates what would happen if the court take a decision of continuing banning gay marriage or legalizing it. This article contains strong statements that support gay marriage and some of them where used in the court. One of the lawyers who are defending gay marriage stated that even Obama the president of the U.S. agrees with legalizing gay marriage in at least 8 states as a medal ground solution. I think that by having the agreement from the president of the U.S. the

3Alrashed

case of gay marriage get stronger and stronger. After doing all this research, I wanted to know what the public opinion is about this topic in the U.S. I can say now that I have understood the positive side of gay marriage and I have enough information about what advantages the society could get if we legalize gay marriage. I know now enough reasons that help me to agree with the case of legalizing gay marriage. Now I wanted to know what the American society thinks about this issue. I was curious about the stand of the Americans whether they agree with gay marriage and legalizing it and supports giving gay couples the same rights that normal couples have. I started looking for an article that included a survey or a statistics that would help me to understand the peoples opinion about this matter. From my search Ive found the article Same-Sex Marriage Is Seen in Poll as an issue for the Stets
published by NEW YORK TIMES. First, the article gives a back ground about the public opinion on

other topic. Second, it states that 56% of people do agree with treating and giving equal rights for gay couples. They want gay couples to have and earn the same rights that any normal couple has. Third, the article shows that 72% are anticipating that gay marriage eventually will be legalized in the future. I do trust all the numbers that were mentioned because it was published in The New York Times. When I saw that most Americans do agree with treating gay couples equally and as the normal couples are treated. Also a huge percentage of them think that gay marriage will be legalized in the following years. Im know completely sure that legalizing gay marriage would be the right thing to do. I can say without any hesitation or having a second thought, the government should legalize gay marriage. On the other hand I wanted to see what the other side thinks about gay marriage. What are the reasons that made them oppose and disagree with legalizing gay marriage and giving gay couples the same right that normal couples have.

After having a very good look at the positive side of legalizing gay marriage and the benefits that we would have for our society if we allowed same sex marriage, I needed now to say the other points of view about this problem. I wanted to have information about the opposing side of gay marriage and what arguments they are presenting to show that allowing for same sex couples to get married is wrong and shouldnt happen. I searched for article that follows this kind of thinking about same sex marriage . I found many articles but the one Ive chosen was the article Five Arguments Against Gay Marriage : Society Must Brace for Corrosive Change

4Alrashed

which was written by Forman, Seth. This article was published on NYdailynews web site. The article discusses five arguments that oppose gay marriage. First, it states that same sex marriage supporters claim that they have the right to demand legalizing gay marriage because it is an open-minded right and religion doesnt oppose it. Second, the author claims that children who are raised in gay families will suffer because of not having at least one biological parent. Third, Seth states that it will change the meaning of marriage which will advocate relationship problems between men and women. Fourth, he describes that it will affect the education because we will have to teach our children that there is no problem in same sex marriage and it not against morals. At last, the author states that it will change one of the marriage goals which is reproduction and the gender of your partner will not be considered. I started thinking about these arguments whether they are enough to make me change my mind about gay marriage or not. The strongest argument that shakes my opinion a little bit is the second one. The author said that any childe that will be raised by gay parent will suffer emotionally in the future because of not having at least one biological parent. In my personal opinion, indeed it is a huge obstacle. When that child grow up a little bit and start thinking, he will be asking himself why I have two fathers or two mothers. And the rest of his friends have a father and a mother. This questioning could lead to the feeling of depression or feeling weird which will make that child miserable. The other argument was wake and didnt convince me. After reading one strong arguments from this article, I wanted to read about more disadvantages about same sex marriage. I started to think that maybe there are some stronger reasons for the opponents of same sex marriage to oppose it and I should know about.

I needed to search and read about more arguments that disagree with gay marriage. I wanted to be sure that there are no other strong problems that could be created by legalizing gay marriage besides the children emotional suffering. I wanted to be confident about my opinion. Therefore, I started to search for the second time on the web. From the search I found the article Same-Sex Marriage Isnt about Freedom. This article was written by Donald, Devine and published by The American Conservative. At the beginning of the article, the author explains the meaning of the individual freedom and then he starts narrating where the concept of the individual freedom came from. He states that Christianity had come and taught the humans this

5Alrashed

concept. He claims that in the old civilization married happened only between the families and relatives. People couldnt get married with someone that is not a part of the family. When Christianity came, this tradition was vanished and it taught people that they can get married with someone even if he wasnt a relative. That is the individual freedom. After that, the author states that people who support gay marriage argue gay marriage as an individual freedom. They have misunderstood the concept and it is not individual freedom, it is something against our morals according to the author. I agree with the author that Christianity was the source of individual freedom, but he gave his own explanation for this concept. He is satisfied with his own understanding to the individual freedom. If we wanted to ask philosophers or any experts to define the concept of individual freedom, properly we will get different explanations. So it is a week argument and doesnt show in any way that gay marriage is wrong.

After being through all this research process and reading different articles with different points of views, I can confidently say that I agree with same sex marriage. Before I started the research I thought that the controversially of this topic was only whether is it moral or not., but now I understand that this issue has more dimensions than that. My final opinion about this problem is that I completely agree with legalizing gay marriage and giving gay couples the same rights the normal couples have. From my research, I concluded that allowing gay marriage will have a lot of advantages on our society. It is now clear for me that the right decision for the government to take is to legalize gay marriage in the United States of America. We should try to make all the society aware of the entire positive outcome that will be gained from legalizing gay marriage. The government should be able to recognize that the allowing gay marriage will have a great impact on the U.S. nation.

6Alrashed

Work Cited "Apply 'who's hurt' test to gay marriage." USA Today n.d.: Academic Search Premier. Web. 19 Oct. 2013.
Kellard, James. "Gay Marriage Should Be Legal." Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 20 Oct. 2013.

Richard, Wolf. "Gay Marriage Debate: You Be The Judge." USA Today n.d.: Academic Search Premier. Web. 13 Oct. 2013. Stolberg, Sheryl, Sussman, Dalia. Same-Sex Marriage Is Seen in Poll as an issue for the Stets New York Times. June 6, 2013. Forman, Seth. Five Arguments Against Same Sex-Marriage: Society Must Brace for Corrosive Change Nydailynews.com. Web 23.June.2011. Devine, Donald. Same-Sex Marriage Isnt about Freedom. The American Conservative. Web. 27.June.2013