Research Topic: Why same sex marriage should be legalized.
03/01/13

Is it okay for your favorite color to be blue? Is there a law that says it isn't okay, or a law that says it is okay? If it's okay for your favorite color to be blue or tickle me pink or yellow then why isn't it okay for two people of the same sex to marry. Why is that any different from a man wanting to marry a woman? I can't seem to understand why a decision that should be left up to only two people is being left in the hands of Americans who clearly don't understand love.
In my research, I found that there was a Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that was passed in 1996 that says federal law defines marriage as unity between a man and woman. In addition to that the law allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages entered into other states. In other words meaning, the United States sees marriage as ONLY being unity between man and woman and if you decided to get married in another state and you moved to a state where same sex marriage was legal, your marriage would be completely void and there would be nothing that you could do about it because of the DOMA act.
Most same-sex marriage supporters are under the age of 30, 81% of them are. That is the majority of the supporters. 44% of senior citizens support gay marriage which also goes to show how common it has become in the later generations. 58% of Americans now say it should be legal which is a 26% increase from the poll taken in the 2004 survey of registered voters. Just 24% or America now see homosexuality as a choice, which is a 16% deficit from the 40% who felt that way 2 years ago. These poll tracks just go to show how open America is becoming to same sex relationships. More people are coming around to accepting the fact that gay marriage is a part of our culture now and they have to learn to accept it. It also goes to show how older people don't come around to the idea as much and personally I feel it is because in that time and era not many people were "coming out" and being homosexual was frowned upon.
While reading an article about "10 Really Bad Arguments Against Same Sex Marriage" I came across an argument that really caught my attention. The argument read that if same-sex was legalized it would make heterosexual divorces too easy. The person who wrote the argument didn't have enough evidence to prove this point, but it caught my attention because people read the titles of certain articles and automatically believe what's being said without any form of substance or evidence for it to make sense.
People commonly say "same-sex marriage is untraditional." Well, what is your definition of traditional? Someone's version of traditional marriage today is clearly going to be extremely different from someone's traditional 40-50 years ago. In the past, having many wives and bearing many children was traditional verses getting pregnant out of wedlock and marrying a man who isn't the father of your child is traditional today. What would make same-sex marriage anymore traditional than what we have seen in the past or what we see in marriages now.
Gay marriage is protected by the Constitution's commitments to liberty and equality. The US Supreme Court declared in 1974’s Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur that the "freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause.” US District Judge Vaughn Walker wrote on Aug. 4, 2010 that Prop. 8 in California banning gay marriage was "unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. Prop.8 is also known as the DOMA act in paragraph 2.
Denying same-sex couples the right to marry stigmatizes gay and lesbian families as inferior and sends the message that it is acceptable to discriminate against them. The Massachusetts Supreme Court wrote in an opinion to the state Senate on Feb. 3, 2004 that offering civil unions was not an acceptable alternative to