Hello everybody. I am surprisingly on time this week. And, I love all of your soapboxes, especially the one on polygamy. I'm the sort of person who thinks that people should be able to be left pretty much alone, so long as they aren't trying to murder each other or start nuclear wars with China (but businesses should be watched carefully because more than one person working together toward a goal equals something epic happening, and many epic things are epic failure). But this is not my soapbox, well, not exactly.
I think gay people should have the option to get married. In every state (and in every country too, for that matter). Also, once married, gay people should be granted the same rights as a traditional heterosexual couple. Also, while I may just refer to gay people, I also include lesbian, bisexual, transexual, transgender, hermaphrodite, and anybody who has human DNA and wants to marry someone else with human DNA (because as of this moment I'm still not sold on this whole bestiality issue) in this argument, because gay is the shortest catch-all term I can use, and I'm a lazy typist.
It is my understanding that as of this posting, the only states allowing gay marriage are Conneticut, Massachusets, Vermont, Iowa, and New Hampshire, as well as the District of Columbia. Three other states recognize same-sex marriage from out-of-state; these being New York, Rhode Island, and Maryland. Three others allow for civil unions with state-level spousal rights, and eight states provide some state-level spousal rights to same sex couples who are unmarried. For more information regarding same-sex marriage rights, I reccommend this website, http://www.care2.com/causes/civil-rights/blog/what-states-allow-gay-marriage/, which gives a brief overview of the history of gay marriage legal issues, and provides links to other sites of the same.
I will admit that I have done very little research for this post, and perhaps that makes me as ignorant as some of the bloggers who take the opposite opinion on this issue, however, I do believe that my points are valid. The major opinion against gay-marriage is that marriage is an institution between man and woman. I personally don't agree with this, as I believe that love is what makes marriage the institution that it is, not the gender of the two (or three or four or more) entering into the union together (how naive does that sound?).
I suppose I could even accept people refusing to call the union between same-sex partners marriage if, and this is a big if, these civil unions carried the exact same rights as married couples. However, this is not the case. Less than half of the states in this country, the United States of America, recognize same-sex civil unions or marriages, and of those states, only 12 of them provide the exact level of rights granted to a heterosexual marriage. The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy in the military was recently repealed (and has yet to be put in effect, but will be), which was a major step forward for gay couples, however, the new policies to be put in effect are still insufficient when compared to privileges and rights that are granted to heterosexual married couples.
I was recently given a brief over exactly what the changes in policy were going to be, and I couldn't help but notice how uneven certain policies were. For example, a service member legally married to a same sex partner cannot receive BAH (a housing allowance) with a dependent, whereas a service member with an opposite sex partner can receive that extra payment. The exception to this is if the same sex couple has a child. Also, there are a lot of deficiencies in the areas of child care and overseas care.
The Constitution states that every person has the right to pursue happiness, and I believe that marriage, for anybody regardless of gender, race, or creed, or other, should be included in this.
And for those who would like to tell me that being gay is a sin, and shouldn't be allowed at all, then I would like to tell you that, according to the Bible, God considers are sins equal, which means that being gay is just as sinful as cheating on your significant other. However, Thou shalt not be gay isn't one of the 10 Commandments.
Thus concludes my soapbox speech of the week.
Shaffer, out.
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