The issue to be discussed is whether or not homosexuals should be allowed to marry one another. There are a number of rationales that have been offered by those in the gay community as to why they should be allowed to marry, and generally the impetus has come not from a desire to be married as such but as a result of various social and economic benefits denied to gay people because they cannot marry. For some in the gay community, demands for gay marriage may in fact be a form of challenge to the "straight" community, but those who are truly serious about the issue are attempting to secure for homosexual partners such rights taken for granted by heterosexual married couples as the right to inheritance, to insurance benefits, for one partner to visit the other in a hospital, and so on. Society has so far deemed marriage to mean more than this and to have at least the possibility of procreating children, and this idea, sometimes but not necessarily touted as a demonstration of dedication to family or so-called "family values," is used as an argument to deny gays the right to marry one another.
Tensions between the gay and straight cultures of America have been noted by sociologists and the news media for some time. The gay community has taken a lead from the civil rights movement and more and more has asserted itself as a political force, demanding recognition, respect, and equal treatment under the law. One of the results, probably a predictable result, has been a backlash on the part of many against the gay community, leading to incidents of gay-bashing as well as the passage of laws against the so-called gay lifestyle and against giving gay people civil rights as a group. The picture that much of America has of gays is based largely on media images from urban centers, but this ignores the fact that gay people are found throughout America, in every walk of life, and probably in every community, though they may not be open ab...