Marriage Equality

One of today's societies major flaws, in my opinion, is the massive effort to block marriage equality for the LGBTQ community, and the homophobia that has erupted as a response to this equality movement. It boggles my mind how so many people can ignore hard facts and persist in their unfounded hatred for human beings. There are so many things that are just logically wrong in opposing marriage equality like how homosexuality is a relatively common phenomenon is nature, or the fact that marriage wasn't originally a Christian institution, or the fact that, in the United States at least, there is a clause is the constitution that expressly prohibits legislation based on religion. These are just some of the various flaws and loopholes in opposing marriage equality.

Despite what some opponents of marriage equality believe, homosexuality is a natural phenomenon and is actually pretty prevalent in animal species. In an entry posted in Nature Magazine called Bisexual Species, Emily Driscoll states that as many as 1,500 animal species have been observed exhibiting homosexual behavior both in the wild and in captivity. She goes on to say that homosexual behaviors are used to diffuse social tensions within living groups and that the trend seen in groups with homosexual behavior is that the more homosexuality that occurs the more peaceful the entire social group becomes. So, while homosexuality is used in the animal kingdom to promote peace and social harmony, in the human social structure we use it to sow hate and discontent.

The second argument that many opponents of marriage equality use is that "marriage is a holy institution of the christian church" and therefore should not be fouled by the "sinners" from the LGBTQ community. This is also an invalid statement. Originally marriage was an economic partnership to help bear the burden of raising kids and was only later adopted by the church as a religious institution. That is why you must get a marriage license from the government but you don't have to have a wedding in a church to be legally married. A sub-argument to this one says that in this day and age marriage is a christian institution and that the LGBTQ community can have a different type of civil union, but not marriage. The supreme court has already ruled that separate but equal institutions are inherently unequal. The supreme court is in place to uphold the constitution and protect the citizens of the United States from being taken advantage of by the law.

According to the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The vast majority of those opposed to marriage equality do so for religious reasons, citing whichever religious text pertains to them. In this country, that is illegal. While you do have the right to voice your complaints, and the right to assemble to protest against what you view as wrong, you do not have the right to infringe on the rights of other American citizens by legally denying them access to public institutions because of your religious views. This country was built on people fleeing from the injustices of religious zealotry in England, why do we think it is justified to do the same to human beings a little less than 300 years later? The pilgrims believed so strongly in their religion that they were willing to cross an ocean, and settle a completely wild land instead of submitting to another religion. The founding fathers and other revolutionaries fought the strongest world power on the Earth at the time to ensure the freedoms in the constitution for "ourselves and our posterity". Why is it deemed acceptable today to persecute a completely peaceful group of people for loving someone different than the rest of the population? The answer is that it isn't acceptable. It is an injustice on the same level as segregation of blacks and whites.

Our country was built on the idea that everyone, no matter the color of your skin, your land of origin, the language you speak, or the religion you practice, everyone is given equal footing to achieve what they can through hard work and skill. Why are we discriminating now based on who people love? Of all the emotions to persecute, love should be the last on the list. We are all human beings, we should not judge each other with stereotypes or preconceived notions of what people "should be like". We should instead work together to build everyone up and continue to strive for equality for all.