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Rian Frate
Mrs. Dimoulas
Honors English II
3 May 2015
The Freedom of Marriage
In George Orwell’s
1984
, the government controls the marriage of citizens to eliminate the emotion of love by marrying people for the sole purpose of procreation. In America, there are many couples who wish to marry for love, however only couples of different gender are legally allowed to do so. Orwell’s warning to have the freedom to marry whom one wishes by not allowing marriage to be controlled by the government is not heeded in America.
America has not heeded Orwell’s warning because the government, by not legally allowing a couple who loves each other, regardless gender, is controlling marriage spouses. In 1996, a law called the “Defense of Marriage Act”, DOMA, was passed. Ari E. Waldman, in his iconn.org article, defines DOMA as “...a federal law that denied federal recognition to lawful same­sex marriages in the states”. By creating a law that does not allow people of the same sex to marry, the government is limiting the rights of American citizens as well as, nonetheless controlling ultimately all marriage in America after all. This, of course, is exactly of what Orwell warns his audience. Many Americans, are outraged and seek action. Some are “...taking a strictly mathematical approach to the supreme court to prove how an anti­same­sex marriage decision would curtail another constitutional right: the freedom of speech…”. The American government’s control of marriage is evidently infringing upon many rights supposedly granted to all American citizens. This law is discriminatory of an aspect that cannot be changed in an individual. During

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times of racial segregation, individuals of darker skin could not change their skin color; during
Hitler’s reign, people of the Jewish faith could not stop believing in their religion; and, individuals who love each other and are the same gender can not change the way they are. The American government’s control of marriage directly violates many freedoms.
Opponents of this argue that marriage should be government­regulated because it is a
“tool” for many reasons today. Spade and Wilse, in their Galegroup.com article, argue that this government control is essential in procreation. However, with a dense and continually growing world population, there are thousands of un­adopted children. There are nearly four­hundred thousand recorded children who have not found permanent families in the United States alone. By allowing same­sex couples to wed, because married couples are much more likely to decide to start a family of their own, can adopt a child which may be a solution to the current problem of unadopted children in America. Many opponents, blind to the possibilities of solving other issues, dispute that it is a societal myth that “marriage is about love, about