The American Colonies rebelled and fought a war against England primarily because of taxation without representation. The newly formed United States of America ratified the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing its rights to all Americans. Despite these momentous events in U.S. history, in contemporary society gay couples are denied equal rights with heterosexual couples. The controversy over gay marriage involves, in part, legal and religious issues. Despite many opponents of gay marriage claiming that marriage is defined as the union of a man and a woman, Hare and Gray (1994) report that as of the 1990 Census, ôOnly 16 percent of all American families comprised the so-called typical American family, that is, a married couple who are the biological parents of two children, where the father works outside the home and the mother is a homemakerö (1). Further, the U.S. divorce rate is approximately 1-in-2, or 43% as of 1997, (Divorce 2003, 1). Despite such changes in family constellation and the high rate of divorce, many remain opposed to gay marriages on religious grounds, even though a greater number of courts are legally sanctioning the right of gay couples to marry. Despite religious objections, gay marriage should be sanctioned because it is unconstitutional to prohibit such unions.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently struck down state anti-sodomy laws as unconstitutional, and a number of state Supreme Courts have ruled that prohibiting marriage between same-sex couples violates their constitutional rights, (Michigan, Hawaii, Oregon, etc.). According to a recent survey by the Pew Forum, Americans are split down the middle when it comes to opposing or favoring granting legal marriage status to same-sex couples (PEW 2004). Despite the legal decisions that support marriage between same-sex couples, religious conservatives and activists are strongly opposed to granted such status to same-sex couples.
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