Should Gay Marriage Should Be Legal In The Entire United States

As years go by, the word ‘’marriage’’ has evolved in its meaning many times. Marriage is not exactly the same as it used to be interpreted. For example, wives used to be considered their husband’s property. At one time, interracial marriage used to be illegal. It was not until 1967 that interracial marriage was accepted in The U.S. However, those definitions of marriage changed as people’s attitude changed and people became more open minded about human rights. It was only 40 years ago that the United States Supreme Court upheld interracial marriage in 16 States. Women did not have the constitutional right to vote until the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920. Black men did not have the constitutional right to vote until the 15th amendment was ratified in 1870 (Christopher). Laws are adjusted according to people’s needs. People’s beliefs are changing. Today, many laws have been changed to allow equality for homosexuals.
Recently, the controversy about same-sex marriage has resurfaced. In order to understand this controversy we should remember that Proposition Twenty-two was a law enacted by California voters in March 2000 to restrict marriages to only those between opposite-sex couples. In May 2008, this proposition was struck down by the California Supreme Court as contrary to the state constitution. In May 15, 2008 the California Supreme Court, ruling on In re Marriage Cases, declared that same-sex couples had a constitutional right to marry. As a result of this decision, a debate and an opposition movement appeared against same-sex marriage. Therefore, Six months later, in November 2008 California voters overturned the In re Marriage Cases decision by approving an amendment of the state constitution called Proposition 8. This proposition restricted marriage exclusively to only men and women. By restricting marriage to only men and woman, this proposition is directly overturning The California Supreme Court ruling. That is why the issue was dragged to the United States Supreme Court: the maximum authority in law cases.
In March of this actual year, there were oral arguments in the United States Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. The United States Supreme Court is examining two cases dealing with same-sex marriage: Hollingsworth v. Perry, a review of California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state, and United States v. Windsor, which challenges the Defense of Marriage Act (Cristopher), a law preventing the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages performed by the states. The United States Supreme Court will dictate a final verdict on June of this year.
The real question here is if gay marriage should be legalized? Some people support it some don’t.
One advantage heterosexual couples have is the ability to have children by themselves. Some people believe that, due to their inability to procreate, same-sex couples should not be allowed to get married. However, people seem to be looking at this from an angle that does not appear to be very logical. Allowing same-sex marriage would not stop procreation and, as far as I can tell, it would not slow down its rate in any way. Even if that were true, it would not necessarily be a bad thing if there was less procreation. The population of the world has grown by more than two-thirds since 1963, which means there are much more people using up the Earth’s resources (Larry West, 2010). If the growth rate of the population continues as it is, we may eventually have many more problems providing for them all. That being said, there is not much gay people can do to stop procreation and do not seem to be causing the problems associated with it. Therefore, it is difficult to say why people that have the strange idea that same-sex marriage would affect procreation would have a problem with that.
An argument used against same-sex marriage is that traditional marriage is between a man and a woman and they believe that traditions involved with marriage should be kept. It seems like it should make sense, but the more I think about it the more I wonder why people would try to force people to abide by traditional marriage. I have seen many women working and providing for their family instead of cooking, cleaning around the house, and staying home to take care of their children. Is it safe to assume that people that try to keep traditional marriages also are against women being able to work and men deciding not to work and take care of housework?
There are 1,138 benefits, rights and protections available to married couples in federal law alone, according to a General Accounting Office assessment made in 2004. [Budget office] Benefits only available to married couples include hospital visitation during an illness, the option of filing a joint tax return to reduce a tax burden, access to family health coverage, US residency and family unification for partners from another country, and bereavement leave and inheritance rights if a partner dies. [Marriage 101] [Wolfson] Married couples also have access to protections if the relationship ends, such as child custody, spousal or child support, and an equitable division of property.[Nolo] Married couples in the US armed forces are offered health insurance and other benefits unavailable to domestic partners. [Chuck] The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the US Department of Labor also recognize married couples, but not domestic partners, for the purpose of granting tax, retirement and health insurance benefits. [miller] An Oct. 2, 2009 analysis by the New York Times estimated that same-sex couples denied marriage benefits will incur an additional $41,196 to $467,562 in expenses over their lifetimes compared with married heterosexual couples. [tara] A Jan. 2014 analysis published by the Atlantic concluded that unmarried women pay up to one million dollars more over their lifetimes than married women for healthcare, taxes, and other expenses. [tara]
Through all my research, I have only been able to prove one thing to myself. That would be that opposing same-sex marriage does not make sense. Gay couples do not seem to be harming the country in any way, yet homophobes and the like ref use to acknowledge that. The concept that marriage should only be between a man and a woman does not seem to have any logical defense. There are some people that think same-sex marriage should not be allowed because they and others voted against it, although many other states and countries allow it.Others think that gay couples inability to procreate is cause enough to prevent their marriage, although even if they did affect the rate of population growth they may very well prevent many problems involved with resources and the environment. A third argument is that it would complicate laws involving marriage, even though marriage has been altered over the years and changing the definition would only involve changing a few words in laws. I know I may seem insane to some people for thinking this but I believe that this world would be a much better place if we stopped thinking of people by a few traits and allowed them to live their lives happily, not stopping them from enjoying some of the most important parts of life; and of course, love is one of those.

Reference
American Psychological Association (APA). ‘’Psychology’s Case for the Same-Sex Marriage by Christopher Munsey’’. October, 2010. April 4th, 2013. Web.< www.apa.org>.
West, Larry. 2010. About.com, Web. 1 Mar 2010.<http://environment.about.com/od/biodiversityconservation/a/population_grow.htm>.
Congressional Budget Office, "The Potential Budgetary Impact of Recognizing Same-Sex Marriages," cbo.gov, June 21, 2004
Freedom to Marry, "Marriage 101," www.freedomtomarry.org (accessed Sep. 15, 2010)
Evan Wolfson, "Protections Denied to Same-Sex Couples and Their Kids," freedomtomarry.org (accessed Dec. 4, 2014)
Nolo, "Marriage Rights and Benefits," nolo.com (accessed Dec. 4, 2014)
Chuck Hagel, et al., "Memorandum for secretaries of the Military Departments under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness," defense.gov, Aug. 13, 2013
Joanne Sammer and Stephen Miller, "The Future of Domestic Partner Benefits," Society for Human Resource Management website, Oct. 21, 2013
Tara Siegel Bernard and Ron Lieber, "The High Price of Being a Gay Couple," www.nytimes.com, Oct. 2, 2009