Should Gay Individuals be Allowed to Legally Marry?
Gay individuals in this country have recently begun fighting in earnest for the right to legally marry. Some states allow them to have civil unions, but they are generally not happy with this and they want the full rights that marriage would allow them, such as insurance and other issues. There are other states and other countries, though, that have ruled in favor of gay marriage. When couples get married in these areas and than move to places where gay marriage is not recognized, it becomes a problem, and they have to fight for many of their rights. However, there are many reasons why gays should be allowed to legally marry, and the most compelling reason is that gay marriage goes along with natural law. For purposes of understanding, natural law will be discussed here, and then it will be shown how this law ties into the gay marriage issue. Natural law is based not on what is created by man, but on the laws of reality. In other words, what is real is law, regardless of what man has to say about that reality. Laws of nature and unexplainable issues that are related to natural occurrences (and some people would relate to religion) are seen as natural laws (Dolhenty, 2003. It is somewhat complicated to explain, but expla
Those who are pro gay marriage are arguing that it is only the radical right that are trying to campaign to amend the Constitution and deny this marriage right to many same-sex individuals across the country that are in committed relationships (Take, 2004). This particular amendment would also render invalid all local and state domestic partnerships and destroy the civil rights protections that these individuals have received based on marital status in states that are allowing gay marriage or civil unions (Take, 2004). Those same individuals argue that there was a long time in this country's history where Catholics and Protestants could not marry, or where people of different races could not marry (Take, 2004). Their argument is that these things changed and ended up being acceptable and this is the same issue with gay individuals (Take, 2004). While it may or may not be the 'same issue' to allow gays to marry, it is arguable that gays should be able to have this union. Many opponents talk of marriage being between a man and a woman only, but yet many gay people spend their lives together, love each other, adopt children, and so on. Essentially, they do everything that married male-female couples do, and they undoubtedly have the same feelings for their partners, but yet there are denied the basic right of making their love for one another official and legal. This is unfortunate, and when natural law is looked at, it is difficult to understand how gay couples can be refused when they want to marry. is an unchanging rule or pattern which is there for human beings to discover; nation is still necessary. Natural law does not change, and must be discovered by people. It involves moral law, ethical law, and other issues that are not changed based on what men decide or whether they think that these laws are appropriate. To sum up, it can be said that natural law (Dolhenty, 2003): Despite all of the opinions that Aristotle held, however, and the fact that he saw many things as being a person's 'right by nature' he naturally did not address specifically the
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Approximate Word count = 1406
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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