by Gabriella Grimando, staff reporter
Same sex marriage is one of the most controversial topics ever. Thirteen US states have banned same-sex marriage.
These Thirteen US states have taken their citizens rights, straight out from under them. Penalizing someone for wanting to marry the person they love, even though that person is the same sex as them, is unconstitutional and completely wrong.
As of March 2015, 59% of Americans support same sex marriage, 31% oppose it, and 8% aren’t sure, according to pollingreport.com
Some people might ask why same sex marriage should be legal, but what a lot of people say is that there should not be someone who decides whether or not gay marriage should be legal.
“I support same sex marriage because marriage isn’t between a man and a woman. Marriage is between love and love,” senior Quincy Tunstall said.
If a man and a woman get married, nobody’s affected and nobody has any opinions. That’s two people who have love for each other and want to start a family together. It makes no sense for anyone’s opinion to change when it’s two men who want to start a family together, or two women.
“I support gay marriage because it’s everybody’s legal right to be able to marry who they love,” mathematics teacher Mrs. Johnston said.
When it comes to the opposing side of this dispute, religion may play a huge role. Some may say God was against homosexuals, and others say God was a supporter of love, and if two people love each other, man and man, woman and woman, or man and woman, so be it.
In the bible, it’s written “Love does no harm to it’s neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Roman 13:10) Love is love.
“If God wanted the human race to be fulfilled through both heterosexual and homosexual, he would have created us to be able to reproduce through both ways, and he would have made both ways safe and natural, and possible. Homosexual intercourse has a high chance for getting AIDs, and other diseases. If God wanted men to be with men, or women to be with women, there wouldn’t be consequences for it,” sophomore Anthony Grimando said.
Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage in the U.S. After Julie and Hillary Goodridge walked into City Hall and applied for a marriage license, they became involved in a court case titled Goodridge v Department of Public Health, which legalized same-sex marriage in the first state in the country.
According to msnbc.com, 17 other states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage. One of the states that legalized gay marriage is New York itself. As of July 2014, citizens of New York are legally permitted to marry whoever they’d like. Same sex marriage has been recognized under the Marriage Equality Act, and was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
37 U.S. states support same sex marriage. There are more U.S. states that support gay marriage than there are states against it. Hopefully, as time progresses, decision makers will open their eyes, and make the right choice.
