Why Gay Marriage Should Be Legalized

As the years have progressed, it has become increasingly clear that traditional relationships are the thing of the past. After the Civil Rights Movement, interracial couples gradually moved into the forefront of nontraditional relationships and became the brunt of much social commentary and hostility. Eventually, interracial couples were accepted among the majority of Americans and are now an established part of society. However, despite our apparent social progress as a nation, society has pointed an accusing finger at another nontraditional relationship: couples of like-gender. In this paper I will discuss why gay marriage should be accepted by society and legalized in the .

According to the ACLU, in January of 1998 anti-gay marriage laws were passed in 25 states and blocked in 24. Hawaii did not pass these laws until November of that same year, when a bill allowing same-sex marriages was rejected in Hawaii and it was decided only to allow the legal validation of opposite-gender marriages. Homophobia has swept the country and earned itself comparisons to the Red Scare of 1918-1921 (at this time, much of society feared the infiltration of Communism just as there is a fear today of homosexuality). We have, since the Red Scare, learned that mass hysteria brings no reward or benefit, yet we continue as a country to allow it to overtake us. What could this possibly be saying about a supposed superpower?

Common arguments against same-sex marriages are tradition, procreation, and alleged Biblical opposition. Tradition is irrelevant. If the United States had used tradition as an excuse to oppose change, cars, electricity, planes, paved roads, interracial marriages, civil rights, the belief in heliocentricity, and countless other things could have never come about. We could still be under Britain's rule. People could be persecuted for differing religious beliefs. Any scientific theory that went against the beliefs of the "traditional" Catholic Church would be disregarded, and the beliefs' perpetuator would be put to death.