Homosexual Marriage At the end of fairy tales, princes and princesses always live happily.

When I was a little child, I was deeply influenced by large numbers of stories. In my simple viewpoint, happiness means a boy and a girl love each other and live together in perfect union, like my father and mother. It seemed that happiness could exist only between heterosexual lovers. However, as I age, I accept and support same-sex marriage now. Fears, egocentrism, and movies have a great influence in shaping my current views. Human beings are gregarious and social animals. We prefer to stay with people with similar characteristics. We often feel relaxed and comfortable when we are in a group. Nosich states in his Learning to Think Things Through that people fear of making mistakes, of looking foolish, of trying something new and of sticking your neck out as well (22). As a result, people are more willing to stay in a group and to accept what the majority considers right as their own opinions. I was born in China, a country with a long history and a splendid civilization and culture. Influenced by Confucian culture for thousands of years, people who lived before the reform and opening-up in China, had conservative views on a lot of things, such as sex, marriage and career. When I was a young child, I did not have my own judgment so, I passively accepted what elders told me to believe as the right moral code. The main reason was that I feared to be different from others. Keeping unique and unusual opinions can often lead to isolation. If I considered same-sex marriage to be normal while the majorities opinion was opposite, my parents or other seniorities would spend lots of time talking to me, trying to correct my view. The neighboring children

would be told by their parents to not to be friends with me. In that case, nobody would talk to me in school and nobody would play games with me after class. I would always be alone. Since I feared to be lonely, I hid my own judgment and views and accepted the mojorities opinion as my own. As a result, I objected to same-sex marriage. However, with the progress of the era, peoples opinion on sex and marriage has changed a lot. Today, the idea of enjoying the pleasures of the here and now, in the limited life period, has been an important part in peoples attitudes and values. Homosexual marriage can also be accepted as long as they themselves feel comfortable and happy. Some countries in the world have legalized same-sex marriage, such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. With some improvements of the society, more people consider same-sex marriage to be reasonable. I do not have a concern about others strange looks because of my unique ideas. Furthermore, after 15 years of education, I have always been encouraged to speak out my own opinions. Moreover, with my growth, I have established my own value system and lifestyle. I have built up necessary courage to keep some unique opinions and I feel much more comfortable to stay alone. Same-sex marriage is not a strange idea for me. It appears to me that the nature of marriage is to accompany and take care of each other, no matter whether those two are same-sex or opposite-sex companions. Even though some people still keep their opposing opinion to homosexuals, I have enough courage to keep my own point of to accept it. Egocentrism is the second impediment which shapes my views. People all have their own world in their mind and each of them is the protagonist of that world. In our own world, we can absolutely decide our opinion about each outside event, based on our own feelings, pains, and

pleasures. When thinking about some issues, people always put themselves first. Nosich reminds us that people always tend to make judgments about how things are based on wishful thinking or mere self-interest (24). For example, when I am invited to a friends birthday party, what I take into consideration first is whether I can gain some benefits from that attendance. I often think over whether the party will make me fall behind in my work and will there be any possibility that I can meet some new friends who can help me with my study and career. If no benefit is found, I could probably find an excuse to cancel the appointment. In those situations, I always consider myself first, even though my friend would feel upset for my absence. However, it is a little different in the case of my opinion about homosexual marriage. When I first had contact with the idea of same-sex love, I tried to look for some experience of mine to compare to it, but never succeeded in the end. In my actual daily life, without consideration of novels or movies, I never found any homosexuality around me. Moreover, I actually considered that same-sex marriage had nothing to do with me and it would not lead to any harm to my life. Hence, I am not against the idea of same-sex marriage and even willing to accept it as a new concept. In addition, movies also have a great influence in shaping my opinions. Over the past 20 years, some homosexual stories have been made into films. In 2005, a movie about homoeroticism, named Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and ranks 10th among the highest-grossing romance films of all time. At the beginning of this year, I watched a Thai movie, named Yes or No, which confirms my

opinion about same-sex love. In the movie, one of the chief actresses, Pie, changes her attitude to homoeroticism from a strong aversion to an acceptance. Finally, Pie even falls in love with Kim, another chief actress in the movie. In this movie, Pie changes her attitude toward homoeroticism because of a gradual, better understanding of Kim. Same-sex love is not as sick and unacceptable as she thought before. This movie let me know that homosexuals can also have rights to pursuit of happiness, just through different ways and it shows me different life styles. I can feel the harmony and happiness between two same-sex lovers. This movie helps me get rid of my doubt that whether homosexuals can reach the perfect union in reality and it shows me the real lifestyle that I have never seen before between homosexuals. That should be my reason to accept and support homosexual marriage. As mentioned above, fears, egocentrism, and movies help to shape my attitude towards homosexual marriage. Fears slow down my pace to accept new items in society, but they also help to construct my habit to accept the idea of the majority. As a result, when the society develops and peoples ideas change, I can easily take the new one as my own opinion. Egocentrism makes me consider my own benefit first. However, it also helps me to get rid of my prejudice towards same-sex marriage and set the stage for me to accept new ideas. Movies are the last step to shape my opinion. It shows me the life of homosexuals. It lets me know something new that never happens in my real life and it helps me to understand homosexuals emotions and wishes to pursuit of happiness. As a result, I consider same-sex marriage reasonable and I will accept it as a new life style. I have to say that impediments have a big

influence on my opinions and outsider environment often prevents me from deep thinking. I realize that to form my own value system, I should have courage to break the thinking barrier and remove the impact that impediments have on me, thinking objectively and independently.

Work Cited Nosich, G. M. Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2009. Print.