Should Gay Marriage be Allowed?
| April 2, 2010 | Posted by admin under Bible, English, Relationship, USA, World |
Comments off
|
[That was an essay that was supposed to have two antagonists (one pro and the other against gay marriage) discussing this topic. You can express your objective point of view upon this topic here in the forum. If you find some mistakes (spelling, grammar...), please submit any correction or recommendation. Thank you.]
Marriage is very common in our society no matter what the culture is. This does not mean that everybody agrees about all the customs around this institution. As people are getting more tolerant—which is good for the society—many things are getting very popular. Among others are gay marriages. Gay marriage is legal in many countries and here in the US many States are legalizing this type of union. The debates over gay marriages are very controversial. Some people who are for gay marriage gives many reasons —mostly, those reasons are to protect the homosexual persons— why it should be allowed in the society. In the contrary, a vast majority is against it for a lot more reasons—one of them: this institution will undermine straight marriages. So, should gay marriages be allowed in our society? What can we say about this issue? We talked to two people about this matter; they are John and Belizaire. Each one of them has their own point of view. Let’s see what they have to say so we can be better off taking a balanced decision.
A lot of people are against gay marriages and this for many reasons. John is part of this group. Let us hear his conversation to Belizaire, who is pro gay marriages, about the subject. John: “There are many reasons for which I am against gay marriages. If gay marriages become legal that will damage straight marriages in many ways.” Belizaire, on the other hand, says: “Gays as Individuals will be better off in the society if they are allowed to be legally married otherwise homosexuals will never achieve full citizen status in the US”.
John: “How does gay union undermine the institution of marriage? Let us begging by putting forth some of the benefits of heterosexual marriage. In our culture, when someone falls in love to another one, they decide to get married to legalize their relationship. Since most people are heterosexuals most marriages in most parts – if not all – of the world are between a man and a woman. We all become to get accustom to that, to accept that, to see that as the norm. Married people have a respected social status as married people gain (or are in a status that is supposed to have) more responsibility; marriage is a good ground to raise children; it provides more protection for the woman, the children, and it gives financial security to the family. If we allow gay marriages, all the respect and the importance that heterosexual marriage will be of a lesser value. Other consequences that might come: dissolution of marriages, the traditional value that monogamy has would be lost; many couples would wed just to reap the financial benefits of marriage. According Stanley Kurtz, from the conservative Hoover Institution, “Up to now, with all the changes in marriage, the one thing we’ve been sure of is that marriage means monogamy. Gay marriage will break that connection. It will do this by itself, and by leading to polygamy and polyamory [group marriage]. What lies beyond gay marriage is no marriage at all.”[i] Will not some people ask to be legally married to animals? Well that can be the case just as gay marriages become so popular. A ban for gay marriages can help in preventing that and similar situations.”
Belizaire: “What you say about the importance of marriage is true and interesting. And they can be true for gay couples as well. How can gay marriages undermine marriages while they are supporting it? When gay people are married they become legal as other heterosexual couples and thus their union would have the same protection and importance for the society. Gay marriage ought to be permitted for otherwise homosexuals will never achieve full citizen status in the US. In a society where a minority is condemned to live in a condition that the law refuses to recognize, those people are just not as citizen as other people. They do not have the right to chose what they can do. Their union would not be recognized because they consider them illegal. If one of those gay couple has a problem, the partner would hardly be possible to help because they are illegal. The same financial security you mentioned would not be of any help for them because their union would be banned. In a country that claims that the entire population has the same civil and social rights, why would some people –in our case, the gays– be kept aside?
John: “I understand you Belizaire. But, the problem is not here. You do not try to save someone if by the same time you are nurturing his plagues. Or another example, if some people in the society are thieves, you are not trying to help the society if you are saying that the thieves might be hungry, they have the right to live. In our case, if we want to help the gays to have full citizenship we would better help them to live naturally, that is as heterosexual. I respect human in general and I respect their dignity, but we should face the problem directly because gay unions are unnatural”
John: “Gay marriages are unnatural. Humans where not created to be homosexual. Why? It is just because we can see man and woman as a complement to each other. Men were created to have a feminine partner. Heterosexual couples will have a more balanced family surrounding for children; the toughness of a father to keep control as the head of the family and the affection of the mother: just what the family needs to blossom. Besides, is not that something important to a relationship? Personally, I can see that most people recognize a man gay by “his” feminine attitudes. Why would another man look for someone who adopted feminine attitudes when he could find the natural, real attitudes from a woman? Another thing: why are gay couples are trying to imitate heterosexual couples when they adopt children? Because they cannot procreate – procreation is natural. The fact that they have the feeling to procreate is another point that supports that their unions are not natural. They should marry a person another sex than theirs to procreate.”
Belizaire: “No, Gay marriages are not unnatural. And I will tell you why. First of all, some people do not choose to be gay, they were born gays. How can you explain that some children demonstrate that they are gays even when they are babies? For other, they become to recognize their situation as they grow older. We have the example of two boys who are twin. One of them was gay, and the other one was straight. [ii] They got the same environment, the same education, the same nutrition. It just happened that one was gay and the other one was not. What will the society say about that child that will become a gay adult? Will he not deserve full citizenship rights if he chose to consume a gay marriage?
John: “I am really sorry for the children who are born with a deficiency. Whether it is some hormone deficiencies that cause them to display feminine attitudes, I feel them just as I feel pity for a child who was born deaf or blind. Some more research must be done to determine exactly the reason why someone becomes gay. No matter what, their situation is not a pass for them to choose a course of live that displeases God. Being disabled does not mean that someone has the right to steal. The same way, if a child was born with abnormal feelings toward people of the same sex, we should help them. The following article can help to avoid homosexuality, Homosexuality—How Can I Avoid It? [iii] It gives some practical counsels to help people coping with feeling toward persons of the same sex to overcome homosexuality. Some cases would necessarily need medical attention (probably the case of the boy you mentioned). Because we are born with some imperfection, we have some deficiencies. That does not mean they are natural. Let me cite a widely known source: the Bible. According to the apostle Paul (one of the Bible writer) it is unnatural to have same-sex sexual relation: “Females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature”, “males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males”, he wrote, when he was talking about some bad habits.[iv] If the Bible says so, why should I say the contrary? So, according to the Bible, even if someone has some kind of feeling toward people of the same sex, that person should not ‘change the natural use of his/her body’ to become gay. If gay marriages become legal everywhere, more and more people would become gay. (Let me point that not all gays have some biological problem; the proof is so many are bisexual). So, less and less people would have heterosexual marriage and thus undermine this sacred institution.”
Belizaire: “So, what if someone does not trust the Bible? What is someone is an atheist? I mean, by the way you talk you are trying to convince me to accept the Bible. So many people do not. The Bible encourages us to love one another; do we have to force gay people on account of ethics?”
John: “Ignoring the Bible does not make the Bible useless. Do not trust in God’s existence does not mean that He is not real for that; the same way: if someone does not believe the force of gravity that would not make that force inexistent. ”
John: “I mean even if someone chooses not to believe in God, that does not mean gay marriage for that person is less immoral. Well, I know you will tell me that ‘morality is relative, what is moral for me is not obligatory moral for you’. But I am talking from the Bible’s viewpoint. Just after the creation of Adam and Eve God said, “That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife and they must become one flesh.” And, remember, according to the Bible, God is the author of marriage; he married our first parents after creating them.[v] So, if we respect God and the Bible, we will follow the pattern He sets for us as we see in the Bible, that is “a man… to his wife”; this wife can only be a woman, so gay marriages are against this pattern. Furthermore, throughout the Bible we see a lot of references that condemn same-sex marriages. Among others: The Mosaic Law –the law that God gave the Israelites through Moses– was clear in Leviticus 18:22: “And you must not lie down with a male the same as you lie down with a woman. It is a detestable thing.”In other words, people of same sex should not have sexual relation because it is something “detestable”. Not only that, the Christian apostle Paul, cited earlier, condemns “men who lie with men” just as he condemns “thieves”, “idolaters” and “adulterers”. I am not saying that it is immoral just for the sake of saying that, but for the consequences on the society. Consider the following.”
John: “Some scientific-fact resulting from gay marriages: ‘Same-sex registered partnerships in Scandinavia have coincided with a sharp rise in out-of-wedlock births. Divorce rates: from 1995 to 2002, male homosexual couples were 1.5 times more likely to divorce and female homosexual couples 3 times more likely than heterosexual marriages. A 1997 Australian study showed that only 13% of homosexually active males aged 50 or over had had as “few” as 1-10 sex partners “lifetime”; three-quarters had over 20 sex partners and half had over 100.’ That is gay marriages change nothing, but in the long one is a bad example for the society.”[vi]
We were paying close attention to John and Belizaire as they discuss the subject concerning gay marriages. Belizaire was very logic to argue that having gay marriages as illegal will reduce the full citizenship’s rights of gay people. Because, the gays will not have the protection the heterosexual couples have, that is social and financial benefits. He tried his best to defend gay marriages.
John, on the other hand was very bold, while he respect the rights and dignity any gay would as a human being, to show that gay marriage would undermine the sacred institution of the marriage. The Creator set the example, “a man with his wife”, while talking about Adam and Eve. When people do not respect this pattern – a man and a woman—they weaken the institution of marriage. He pointed out that, instead of supporting marriage, gay marriage lead to more open unions (as some gays themselves are bisexual, or have multiple partners), thus so many do not respect marriage at all. That would diminish the value that heterosexual marriage has and the consequences are for the whole society: high rates break ups in gay marriages compared to heterosexual ones, and a society which would encourage unnatural and immoral practices citing the Bible as authority.
John also ask some stirring questions such as: ‘If we legalize anything that anyone feels like doing, what if we are asked to legalize marriage between human to animal? If we do not do anything, the world might be like that.
I think the issue should change now to ‘what will we do to help gay people to admit their problem and to help them to live a normal heterosexual life?’
Works Cited
[i] WiseTo Social Issues Digest. The Gale Group, Inc. Marriage between Same-Sex Partners Subverts the Institution of Marriage (2007) <http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/FO3020630116/>
[ii] Neil Swidey What Makes People Gay? (2005) <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/08/14/what_makes_people_gay/>
[iii] Awake! Homosexuality—How Can I Avoid It? (2007) <http://www.watchtower.org/e/200702b/article_01.htm>
[iv] Romains 1:26-28: “That is why God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; 27 and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene and receiving in themselves the full recompense, which was due for their error. 28 And just as they did not approve of holding God in accurate knowledge, God gave them up to a disapproved mental state, to do the things not fitting.” — New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
[v] Genesis 2:24; Genesis 1:28: “God blessed them.” — New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
[vi] Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D. Why “Gay Marriage” Is Wrong (2004) <http://www.robgagnon.net/homoPresbyTodayArticle.htm>
Click here to COMMENT about this topic in the forum
This is the default footer layout. You can easily add or remove columns in the footer.
Recent Comments