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Same Sex Marriage Should Be Legalized

Imagine the spouse you have loved and resided with for years unexpectedly dies. Her two children from a male/female union were raised by you and her as your own. Now that she is dead, you have no right to burial or funeral involvement, no right or claim to her property or life insurance, and no legal custody or parental rights related to the children. This is because you are also a women and same sex marriage is not an option for you in 50 states in the nation. As such, denying legal marriage status and the rights attendant on it to same sex couples creates enormous emotional and economic pain and suffering to numerous individuals involved in same sex relationships.

One of my strongest moral convictions also happens to be one of my strongest political convictions, that same sex couples should have the right to be legally married in every state in America. Recently California and Massachusetts have not only permitted same sex marriage, but they have also repealed laws that maintain a state cannot marry couples from another state if their state of residence does not validate the marriage. While not gay or lesbian, I hold this conviction and believe it is a conviction all Americans should hold from a moral and political (i.e. legal) standpoint.

The issue of same sex marriage polarizes different groups in American society. Typically opposed to same sex marriage are Republicans, the Religious Right, Evangelicals and conservative family advocacy groups. These groups lobby for a Constitutional Amendment that defines marriage as a union only between a male and female. As the proposed Amendment would read, "Marriage in the U.S. shall consist only of the union of a man and woman" (Let 26). These groups are in opposition to gays, lesbians, and bisexual persons and their advocates who fight to legalize same sex marriage. Politically, denying the full rights of marriage between a man and a woman violates t...

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Same Sex Marriage Should Be Legalized. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:37, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/2000052.html