Same Sex Marriages

          Should the government legalize same sex marriages?  Should or are these unions be against the laws of God and man?  In my personal opinion I think that yes the government should allow these unions, and who cares if they are against the laws of god, they shouldn’t be against the laws of man, at least not in the United States of America. 

          First I’d like to point out that other countries in the world do acknowledge same sex unions.  What has that got to do with legalizing it here in America you might ask?  The answer is absolutely nothing.  However, did you know that a gay couple could have gotten married yesterday, or plan to today?  How does that affect you in your daily life right now?  The answer should be it didn’t.  So say you live in Georgia, if someone got married in Ohio, does that really affect you?  Here again the answer should be no.  Does it matter the sex of the union?  No, because you don’t know these people.  The point of all of this is to make you ask yourself; what is the point of all this?  The point is, what other people do short of killing, raping, stealing and other really bad things, don’t really affect your day to day life.  So why are you opposed to same sex marriages?  Just because we may allow them doesn’t mean you are going to get one, I mean we are allowed to keep dogs as pets but I don’t have one.  And just because someone gets one, it doesn’t hurt you physically or financially.  So why are you opposed? 

Do you know there are really two types of marriages in this country?  I never really realized this until I got married, but there is all the court paperwork that allows you to get married, a State marriage so to speak.  It grants you a few rights and privileges, even though I’ve never really seen any.  Sure we can file taxes jointly and it probably saves me a few bucks every year, and no one really questions my right to go and see my wife if she is ill, or hospitalized.  And I may be entitled to certain death benefits if she were working.  But all in all what are all those really but privileges that should be afforded to anyone who lives with another person?  The other type of marriage is a religious marriage.  It basically says that you agree to be one in the eyes of your religion.  Do you know you could get married by a priest and it would mean absolutely nothing in this country?  The only way it would mean anything is if you filled out the court paperwork.  The priest, minister or whatever is only the “officiating officer”.  It could be a captain on a boat, a judge, justice of the peace, or people who hold certain political offices.  For instance when I got married I refused to have a church wedding, so we had a mayor of a town officiate our wedding.  It was legal, and binding.  Does that change the way we lived or acted toward eachother?  Absolutely not, in fact shortly after we got married I left her for at least 6 months without ever having seen her in that 6 month time.  We didn’t even live together until a little over two years later.  Why? because I am in the military.  Now before you go off saying that it was just a marriage of convenience or because she was the first woman I really met or had relations with, I want you to know one thing.  I knew this woman for well over five years before we got married.  And the only convenience it really gave us was the fact that my insurance covered her, but she was in college, and at the time her father’s insurance covered her, and that being in the military it did give me a little extra money to help pay for her housing costs and some of her other living costs.  Was that why we got married?  No, actually her parents were against us getting married because they thought she would get pregnant and quit school, but the separation we had allowed her to finish school and me to get started on my military career.  Just knowing that she would always be there for me helped me out a lot. I digress, I will get back to the two types of marriages.  Because there are two types (a secular, and religious marriage), this means that your religion, your priests don’t have to get involved.  It is a State marriage,  and/ or a marriage recognized by the State that gives all the rights and responsibilities afforded a married couple. So two people of the same sex could get married and it would have no impact on your religion.  Your religion can practice the way it wants, and never have to acknowledge same sex marriages.

So… do same sex marriages go against your morals, your religion?  What does your religion or morals have to do with me?  As I just said tow people could get married and have no affect on your religion because it is a secular marriage.  But, we live in a free country, and we have freedom of religion here in this country.  Just because it may go against your religious beliefs doesn’t mean it goes against mine.  Personally I am a Pagan, a Wiccan or Witch to be exact.  Most times this makes me very proud.  Not because it makes me different or special, well… maybe special.  In my experience I’ve found that Pagans in general are more tolerant toward other lifestyle choices, and toward eachother in general.  We recognize that each individual makes their own choices in life, and as long as it doesn’t hurt other people then it should be “OK”.  We can listen to other peoples opinions rationally and then either incorporate them into our own beliefs or explain why those aren’t valid choices for us individually.  And yet, still be “OK” with what you are doing and not holding it against you.  So for someone to say that the Bible says it’s bad or an abomination for same sex couples, I say what has that got to do with me?  If you want to get Biblical, I believe the Bible also says “Judge not least ye be judged”.  So taking that in consideration anyone who believes in the Bible should just let other people do what they want and let their God worry about what is right and just for those other people.  In this country there is a separation between Church and State.  It is very hard to find that expressly written anywhere, but I believe that it was really a Jefferson thing.  I believe that Thomas Jefferson was a major supporter of the idea, and the concept of freedom of religion was supposed to sort of take care of it.  I mean what if we had a Catholic in office that believed that any religion other than Catholicism was the true religion and did every thing he could to get rid of all other religions.  Or, to promote his beliefs, give practicing Catholics extra tax breaks or special privileges, you know not given to Pagans, Lutherans, Methodists, etc..  That would be unfair to all the other religions out there.  So in practice, to ensure equality, because all men are created equal, religion has to be taken out of the political realm.  So with religion out of the picture for political/ legislative purposes, what is there to prevent same sex marriages?  Nothing. 

As far as morals go, it is basically a concept for what is right or good.  What is wrong about same sex marriages?   Does it hurt anyone?  Just because you believe that it is right for you doesn’t mean that it should be right for me.  That would be like me saying; “well hey I don’t speed in my car, so anyone who speeds should get their license taken away on the spot, and if and when they get it back they should be immediately be sentenced to life imprisonment.”  That may be right for me but would it be right for you.  Or say I have a certain way of thinking that a child be raised, if you don’t live up to my standards or way of thinking then your children should be immediately taken away with no hope of ever getting them back.  Or better yet, you have to take a test to prove that you will be a fit parent.  This could get really ugly with all the what if’s.  The whole point of this is basically what adverse affects are there on your own personal life if two men or women get married?  It doesn’t really hurt you at all, it may hurt your ideals or religious beliefs, but one person’s religious beliefs shouldn’t mandate conduct for the entire human race.

Now what about child rearing?  Can a same sex couple raise children?  I don’t see why not.  Heterosexual couples have problems with it, I don’t see how same sex couple will have it any easier or more difficult.  Our children are growing up faster than we did, and they are doing things that I wouldn’t have thought about when I was a child, but what is that due to?  Personally I think it is discipline.  Back in the olden days if your child did something wrong you could spank your child.  Actually I’ve heard many stories of small towns where a child did something wrong at school they got spanked in the school, then on the way home friends of the parents would also discipline the children, so by the time they got home they may have been spanked by five to ten individuals, and then they got spanked when they got home.  This is a bit extreme, but it got the message across, that if you were part of the community you had to live by the community rules.  In today’s society we’ve lost much of that trying to be nicer to children.  I believe there is a difference between disciplining and abusing children, and it is a fine line.  However, if you don’t discipline children correctly when they are young, and have varying degrees of punishment, then how will they know that when they do something wrong as an adult or older child that they will get punished. Living in a Navy community, I’ve actually heard of a parent getting in trouble with child services because they took a phone out of a teenage daughter’s room.  Can you believe that, punishing the adult for trying to discipline a child?  If things like that continue in this country then we can forget about trying to punish criminals.  I mean if you can’t punish a child to teach them right from wrong, how are they supposed to understand that they can be punished for stealing a car or killing someone?  Why not start trying to sue judges and juries for punishing criminals.  The point is that we as a community are getting too involved in relationships between children and parents.

We don’t take away children from parents when they get divorced, separated, or when their partner dies.  What about a single mom that hires a female babysitter, should we not allow that.  Just because a person has both a mother and a father doesn’t guarantee that the father or mother will be a good role model, and it doesn’t guarantee that either of the parents will love the child.  In my opinion children need two things growing up; a loving environment, and discipline when needed.  Can two men or women give this to a child? I don’t see why not.  I’ve recently heard on the news about statistics of children being raised by same sex couples.  But these probably aren’t married couples because most states won’t allow same sex marriages, and I’m kind of dubious on how many same sex couples are going to come out and say they are same sex couples just due to all the hate and discrimination they are facing. So where are these statistics coming from and how trustworthy are they?  How much would change if these were actually married couples?  Probably not much, but it would make things easier for children to understand.  Is it any harder to explain to a child that they don’t have a parent due to a death or divorce, or to explain to them that sometimes love knows no gender and that’s why they have two loving dads or moms?  We have to give our children more credit.  No children are not young adults, but they are not stupid either.  Given enough love and understanding they will grow up to be intelligent, tolerant of their fellow man, and they can understand why some people make different lifestyle choices then others.

In conclusion, a lifestyle choice should be just that, a choice.  Homosexuals are just the same as heterosexuals, they are people.  As long as people are loving and caring toward eachother, and are willing to commit to eachother, we as a people should welcome that and acknowledge that.  If they want to be able to get married we should afford them that choice.

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