This research provides a counterargument to advocacy of gay marriage. The research will set forth the cultural context in which the issue has arisen in recent years and then discuss reasons that prevent acceptance that institutionalizing gay marriage is either necessary to or desirable for the integrity or the benefit of American civil society. An Associated Press poll conducted in 2000 found that by a thin majority (51%), Americans are opposed to single-sex marriage; 34% are said to approve of such marriages, while 41% are said to approve of single-sex "domestic partnerships." More than 50% of the poll sample supported the rights of homosexual couples to receive insurance, Social Security, and inheritance benefits from their partners (Barillas, 2001). Numbers may not suit the strongest advocates of gay marriage, but significant segments of society seem to have relatively high comfort levels with legally sanctioned homosexual unions.
Those levels have been tested in US legislatures and courts in recent years. In Vermont in 2000, civil unions between same-sex couples were legalized, enabling same-sex couples to receive virtually all reciprocal rights and responsibilities of traditional marriage. Other states and the US government have passed "defense-of-marriage" laws, which restrict legal marriage to heterosexuals; the federal law specifically states that one state need not recognize the legal validity of a homosexual civil union sanctioned by another state (Sullivan, 2001)
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