Liberty and Justice for all Word count: 2,299 Our constitutional rights are that we all have the same rights. We cannot be hired nor fired based on age, sex, religion, race, or sexual orientation. We cannot treat people differently for any reason if we do we are punished by our courts. The punishment given to those who discriminate is a severe punishment. We may be charged criminally with a measure eleven which has a mandatory minimum of 72 months (6 years) in prison measure eleven charges are not eligible for early release based on good behavior. I have to wonder why; neither the Federal Government nor the U.
S. Supreme Court will look at gay marriage or domestic partnership the same as a traditional marriage. Gay marriage is not accepted and is not recognized. Making medical decisions for your partner in the horribly tragic situation that they cannot make their own decisions, custody of children in the event that one of the partners is no longer going to be around to raise the child, and being forced to testify against the one you love in the court of law; are just a few of the reasons why gay marriage should be legal Although there are many more reasons I do not have the space to go over all of them with you.
I will then tell you why the Federal Government and the United States Supreme Court do not up-hold the same values that we are forced to follow in our lives, what can we do to change this, and why should we vote to change this. Making medical decisions is huge when your partner is unable to make their own decisions. This is a very difficult time in any person’s life and most couples whether they are gay or straight discuss what they want to happen in this situation even if there is not Last Will and Testament.
With a straight marriage there is no question that the wife would make decisions for the husband and vice versa. There would be no other family member that could take this responsibility away from the healthy spouse; no family member would be able to say that the legal spouse could not be in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). In a gay partnership, however; the partner will not be able to make any decisions for their loved one. If the one who is unable to make the decisions has family members who are against the gay partnership, they could make the decision to not allow the healthy partner to be in the ICU, he family member would also be allowed to make all of the decisions as for how they should be cared for or whether they should continue to remain on life support or not. It would not matter if the gay couple had been together for one year or 40 years they would not be allowed to make a single decision for the one they love, they would be deprived of telling their partner good bye. It would not matter if the family member was a not even a part of the partners life.
To give you an example if the partner had a parent that had disowned them for being gay and had not seen them in fifteen they would have the right to make medical decisions for their child instead of the partner who had lived with and would know what their partner would want in this situation. Custody of children is a touchy subject for both straight relationships and gay partnerships. With a straight couple both the husband and wife can both go to court and fight for custody or visitation; they can also hold the other parent accountable for making sure that the custody agreement is followed.
In the event that one parent is in the hospital or has died then it is assumed that the other parent would inherit all responsibilities of the child. In a gay partnership only one person can legally have custody. This is based on the birth certificate of the child. A man must be named as the father and a woman must be named as the mother, so you can see the problem that arises when the “parents” are the same sex. In the event the couple splits up neither partner would be able to go in and fight for custody.
The custody would be with the partner that is named on the birth certificate the other partner would lose all rights to visitation or custody of the child. In break ups people don’t tend to be able to agree on custody and visitation that is why the court handles these cases. But for a gay couple the court will not take the case so in the end the child is affected more than anyone else. If the partner having legal custody of the child is in the hospital or dies the living partner does not automatically inherit the responsibilities of the child.
The child may be placed with a family member of the partner that had custody, or if there is no family members the child will be placed in the state foster care system. Although if in the child is place in the state foster care system due to death of the custodial parent there is a chance that the surviving partner may be able to adopt the child. If the child is placed with a family member then the surviving partner cannot fight it, even if they are fully capable of raising the child. This has a huge impact on the child (just as in a straight relationship).
The only difference is that with the straight relationship the child would remain in the custody of the surviving spouse and not lose the normalcy and stability of their life as they had known it, in the midst of the traumatic event of losing one of their parents. People that are opposed to gay marriage say that gay couples do not have the best environment to raise a child. They say that gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents raise straight children (Sean) I have to wonder how they can be so one sided?
Sure there are gay couples that should not have children, but there are straight couples that should not have children either. For example take a look into the state foster care system. I would have to say if a gay couple adopts a child, the state checks out the homes before they will allow the child to go into the home. The home would have to meet standards just like the straight couples. The couple would be investigated and their backgrounds would be researched. It seems to me that most gay couples that have children had to adopt as it does not take a scholar to figure out that two people of the same sex cannot create children of their own.
If the child is not adopted the couple either had to pay to have an embryo artificially in simulated or had to find a surrogate mother. They would have put a lot of time, money, and effort into having a child. Most people don’t want to mess up things that they work that hard for. As for the comment about gay couples raise gay children and straight couples raise straight children that is not even close to reality I will use my own family as an example, my mom’s parents, Jack and Pat Anderson (my grandparents) were a traditional couple they waited until they were married and then had three children, my mom, my aunt, and my uncle.
All three of them had the same mom and dad. Neither of my grandparents ever experimented with another person of the same sex and had only been each other. They raised my mom, my aunt, and my uncle in the same home, the same church, the same schools, and when they were in daycare which was very rare they were all in the same daycare. My mom is a heterosexual woman, my aunt is gay she has only been with women and is disgusted by the idea of being with a man (she recently adopted a little girl), and finally my uncle he has just never een with anyone he has been on a date or two with women but nothing serious. This is just my own family so I can only imagine that there are more stories like this because my family if as normal as any family can be. With in a traditional straight relationship the court cannot compel one spouse to testify against the other, in the event of a criminal trial. Marriage gives the spouse the responsibility to protect the other spouse therefore testifying against each other would not protect. This is not the case in a gay partnership.
It does not matter how long the couple had been together, the court could compel one of the partners to testify against the other. This is a very difficult situation all in its self. The reason that straight marriages have been given the privilege of not testifying against one another is simply because, although the spouse testifying would be placed under oath how could you testify against the one that you love. Any jury could be made to believe that the testimony of the spouse was altered simply because they do not want to see their loved one go to prison.
In the courts eyes a spouse may not tell the whole truth or any of the truth in order to protect the spouse that is a party to the case, so instead of wasting the courts time in deciding if the spouse is “telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth” they just went ahead and gave them the privilege of not testifying at all. One would think that in a gay partnership the same questions would arise as to them telling the whole truth, part of the truth, or none of the truth.
Those who are opposed to gay marriage say that marriage is a sacred institution and gay marriage violates that sanctity. They also say redefining America’s idea of marriage to include gay marriage would affect its cultural meaning and function. By changing this it would damage Americas ability and, thereby, society’s capacity to protect the inherently procreative relationship. Does the court honestly think that gay couples love differently than a straight couple or that the gay couples would not have the same bias toward each other that a straight couple would have?
Although gay partners are unable to create their own children or have sex in the traditional manner they are not animals, they are human beings just like the rest of us therefore it makes sense that they would love their partner the same as a straight couple would love one another. They would modify their testimony in order to protect the one that they love just as a straight spouse would. If gay marriage were legal then they would be given the same privilege of not testifying against one another as a straight couple. The real reason behind the Federal Government and the U.
S. Supreme Court not recognizing gay marriage is that those who are opposed to it say; marriage is a union between one man and one woman, designed of God to last so long as they both shall live. (Robinson) The only place that this could have come from is the bible. I have been raised that the church and state are separate. I also thought that we had been given the freedom of religion so why is it that they can base their decisions to not recognize or to issue marriage licenses to gay partners, on something that comes from religion.
This is simply a situation that is “do as I say, not as I do” and that is not how our government is supposed to work. How can we change this? How can we get the Federal Government and the U. S. Supreme Court to recognize gay marriage? How can we get all of the states to allow gay marriage? One possible way by which same-sex marriage may be possible in the U. S. A. is by the courts overturning laws that prevent people from marrying one another if they are the same sex. If the state has no compelling interest in preventing same-sex marriages, then the state can be ordered to issue licenses without discrimination.
The privacy and equal-protection provisions of the Constitution might include the right for people of the same sex to get married. (Park) In other words there is nothing in the Constitution that says that people of the same sex cannot get married. In order to change the state laws and overturn them, we need to vote in officials that are open to the idea and then we need to show the rest of America that gay marriage is not as “icky” as they have made it seem to be. We need to stand up and be united.
We need to show the government that we do not get to judge against race, age, sex, religion, or sexual orientation so neither do they. As we have seen, the arguments against gay marriage don’t hold up to close scrutiny. Neither the arguments traditionally raised nor the real feelings of the opponents make much sense when held up to the light of reason. So let’s get on with it. Let’s get over ourselves and see that what we oppose gay marriage based on silliness, irrationalness, and our reasons are based on ignorance, faulty assumptions, and fear.
Make our society a more just and honorable one. Let our nation stand united and finally honor the last phrase from our Pledge of Allegiance; “With liberty and justice for all. ” (Bidstrup) Works Cited * Bidstrup, Scott. “Gay Marriage: The Arguments and the Motives”. 7/17/2010 . * Bonner, Sean. “top 12 reasons against gay marriage”. seanbonnerdotcom. 7/22/2010 . * Park, James. “Four Ways to Achieve Same-Sex Marriage”. 7/22/2010 . * Robinson, B. A.. “Homosexuality and bisexuality”. Religious Tolorance. 7/22/2010 .
