My motto: As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, you should be allowed to do it
By “allowed to do it”, I mean the law should not prevent you from doing it. That doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.
One way for me to argue for Same Sex Marriage is to counter arguments against it:
- If we let same sex couples marry, why don’t we let humans marry animals? – People should not just be able to do whatever they desire. However, the difference between a person of the same sex and an animal, is that person can consent to terms of the relationship, whereas an animal cannot. Going back to my motto: A person can reject another human if they are being hurt; an animal cannot.
- Same Sex Marriage is not natural – Where is the line between natural and not natural? Computers are not natural, nor Toilets, nor processed cheese. Using a toilet does not hurt anyone else. Eating processed cheese may hurt you, but no anyone else.
- God did not design humans that way – Only God knows how he intended to design humans. Proof from the Bible is like trying to define a word using that word, or having a student grade their own test. This sort of relates to the next item…
- Same Sex Couples cannot reproduce – nor can many whom are not gay (although not by choice so this is not very valid). Also, many Opposite Sex couples are choosing not to reproduce. Are they equally as wrong? Same sex couples can reproduce, just not “naturally” (see above point). Who said we HAVE to reproduce? This was important through most of history since children were needed to work for the family, or because war killed so many etc. People did things for a reason. When that reason is no longer, you don’t need to keep doing that thing. When the world’s population starts to dwindle down, I’ll consider this a valid issue. But we have the opposite problem today.
- It’s gross – Two guys? Yea, good point; but so is a really ugly opposite sex couple.
- Maybe they can get all the legal benefits but they shouldn’t be allowed to call it “Marriage”; that would be re-defining a word – I used to agree with this point and still do to some degree. If we changed the word “Red” to “Blue” and kept “Blue” as “Blue”, how would we know if what color was being described when we see the word “Blue”? This would cause a lot of confusion. Would changing the meaning of “Marriage” to the union of any two adults, as opposed to the union of a man and a woman, what would be the effect? I think in rare occasions, without contextual clues, one might confuse a same sex couple with an opposite sex couple if they were reading an article about Pat and Jean. I just don’t think it’s a big deal. We use labels and categories too frequently. To a degree it is necessary, in order to make discussions more efficient. “I like Rock music” instead of “I like combinations of sounds that come from a group playing guitars, bass guitars, drums etc” But when looking at statistics about society, I’m certain they will break it down by Same Sex Marriages, and Opposite Sex Marriages…no need to create a different word; just use a descriptor before it. I’m still open to this argument.
People do a lot of things I don’t like – listen to jazz, eat artichoke, pierce their nipples – but I don’t think those things should be illegal under law. Marriages took place well before Christianity and is currently a part of state law. Any religious aspects of it should stay religious and out of law. Any Church or religion should be able to reject marrying any couple they want, for any reason. But the law shouldn’t.
Open to Debate (even though everything I post is open):
- Indirect Hurt – Do Same Sex Marriages hurt members of society indirectly, or will they hurt them indirectly in the future as time goes on? For example, polluting the earth hurts the earth, which will hurt humans in the future, therefore it should be illegal. OR Driving a motorcycle without a helmet on is dangerous to you and will highly increase the chances that a crash will give you serious injuries; not being able to care for yourself as a result of these injuries is a burden to society, which hurts members of the society. This will especially be true with Health Care Reform. Is there anything you can think of related to Same Sax Marriage?
qnaminusa 