A Matter of Rights.

I am going to make this brief, because so much has already been said on the subject of same-sex marriage. There are no arguments that can be made against the legalization of same-sex marriages that are constitutionally valid, and most are simply ridiculous.

Looking at the dominate types of opposition in turn, first is the idea that marriage is a sacred rite that has historically been between a man and a woman. Right away this objection runs afoul of the first amendment's guarantee of a separation of church and state. Marriage is a social construct that has been largely regulated by religious institutions for most of history. It wasn’t until the Protestant Reformation that marriage became a state affair with unions simply recorded by government officials. But marriage never shed its religious overtones. Governments merely codified religious doctrine into law because it was commonly accepted. What we have in existence today is religion imposing itself onto civil law, ergo, it is a violation of the constitution.

Another common argument made is that the main purpose of marriage is the production or protection of children. If this was the case, infertile people, postmenopausal women, couples who chose not to have children, etc. would all be barred from marriage. More to the point, this argument suggests that after a couple is done raising children, their marriage should be dissolved. This is an example of the ridiculousness opponents of same-sex marriage have resorted to. Regarding two-sex marriage’s place as a more favorable to children than same-sex unions, the notion is not supported by recent scientific studies or even anecdotally. It has been shown that two-adult households are more “successful” raising children, but this is stating the obvious. What matters is a stable home-front with adequate resources, i.e time to spend with the children, not the gender of the parents.

In civil law, marriage is a contractual agreement of mutual support and responsibilities between two consenting adults. Period. Nowhere within this framework is mention of gender, as that would be patently discriminatory against an entire class of people. Within the U.S., civil rights take precedence over religious doctrine masquerading as law. Let the churches marry who they wish, but let the law recognize personal liberty and allow same-sex couples the same rights as everyone else.