Marriage part of equality for homosexuals

Homosexuals can have equal rights but they cannot be considered married. Why? Because marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. If this argument was logical, I might believe that civil unions would work. But it is not, and marriage is the only way to provide for equal rights in America.

Many people believe marriage is a sacred institution, which is great. The problem is, they want to define what is sacred by law, and let “unsacred” unions not be legally recognized. However, how sacred is an institution that allows 70-year-old men to marry 21-year-old women? That allows pop singers to fly down to Las Vegas and get drunk, married and divorced the next day? For some reason, opponents of gay marriage support these unions as sacred, but not a union between two loving, same-sex individuals. Perhaps if they were to ban all unsacred unions, their argumentation would make more sense and sound a lot less discriminatory against a minority population.

Other opponents of gay marriage believe that marriage is about effective child-rearing, and since homosexuals cannot bear children, there is no reason for them to be married. Again, this argument is only targeting homosexuals, and their reasoning is not universal. If it was, all infertile couples would not be granted a marriage license. If we tried to have a constitutional amendment banning infertile couples from marriage, it would have little to no support, so why is there so much support for banning homosexual marriage?

The biggest problem with granting civil unions instead of marriage licenses is the inherent inequity between the two. It’s like saying you are equal and have the same rights, but we are better than you so we must differentiate between my union and yours.

There is no such thing as separate but equal. There should be no compromise on civil liberties. If we are going to recognize homosexuals as equal under the law, we must grant them marriage licenses and not some strange substitute in it’s place.

KAYOMI WADA

Federal Way

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