Gay Marriage
Running head: Week 5: Final
“Gay Marriage”
Nena McAnally
SOC 120 Introduction to Ethics & Social Responsibility
Professor Falloon
July 03, 2012
In the 1950’s it was unheard of for a white person to be dating a person of ‘color’. After decades, centuries really, of marches, pickets, rally’s, riots, and speeches that would still be spoken today, the civil rights movement against the oppression of ‘colored’ people ended and slowly it became more and more acceptable for people of different races not only to attend the same school but to use the same bathroom, eat at the same restaurants, date, and then to marry. It took some time, but it would seem that multicultural relationships are something that most people don’t even give a second look at. According to the Pew Research Center, “a record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another.” (Pew Research Center, 2012) It seems people have gotten bored and chosen a new civil right to attack; the right for homosexuals to marry. Gay marriage has been the topic of debate for several years now; a matter that became close to my heart when my sister and her girlfriend (of four years) wanted to be married. Prop 8 was gaining a lot of momentum and forced my sister into the gay version of a ‘shot-gun’ wedding because Prop 8 passed and her window to have a fairy-tale wedding was slowly closing in around her. Gay marriage has been plastered in the media as the new civil rights movement. People are quick to cite the Bible as reasons for and against this issue but perhaps they need to look at something that is a little more politically correct, and much kinder, to the masses. Virtue ethics is a way of seeing people as they behave, their character-rather than just seeing their sexual orientation and their choices resulting from it, like gay marriage. And perhaps
“Gay Marriage”
Nena McAnally
SOC 120 Introduction to Ethics & Social Responsibility
Professor Falloon
July 03, 2012
In the 1950’s it was unheard of for a white person to be dating a person of ‘color’. After decades, centuries really, of marches, pickets, rally’s, riots, and speeches that would still be spoken today, the civil rights movement against the oppression of ‘colored’ people ended and slowly it became more and more acceptable for people of different races not only to attend the same school but to use the same bathroom, eat at the same restaurants, date, and then to marry. It took some time, but it would seem that multicultural relationships are something that most people don’t even give a second look at. According to the Pew Research Center, “a record 14.6% of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another.” (Pew Research Center, 2012) It seems people have gotten bored and chosen a new civil right to attack; the right for homosexuals to marry. Gay marriage has been the topic of debate for several years now; a matter that became close to my heart when my sister and her girlfriend (of four years) wanted to be married. Prop 8 was gaining a lot of momentum and forced my sister into the gay version of a ‘shot-gun’ wedding because Prop 8 passed and her window to have a fairy-tale wedding was slowly closing in around her. Gay marriage has been plastered in the media as the new civil rights movement. People are quick to cite the Bible as reasons for and against this issue but perhaps they need to look at something that is a little more politically correct, and much kinder, to the masses. Virtue ethics is a way of seeing people as they behave, their character-rather than just seeing their sexual orientation and their choices resulting from it, like gay marriage. And perhaps