Example For High School about Same Sex Marriage

Human sexuality is God’s gift to us. From the very beginning He created us male or female.

It is this sexuality that enables us to relate with one another in family, in community and in society. Our sexuality is part of our very person and enables us to create life and love. Sexuality must be understood as an expression of love and commitment as in marriage wherein there is mutuality of the love relationship. Marriage is a vital social institution.

The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to society.For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage also provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations. What is marriage? This word has different meanings for different people.

To some marriage means a commitment between two people in holy matrimony, or religious marriage. To others it is just a legal contract between two people, or civil marriage. In actuality there is only one definition for a marriage.According to Webster’s Dictionary, a marriage is a state of living together as husband and wife joined in wedlock.

Webster also identifies a husband as a man and a wife as a woman. Same sex marriages are morally and ethically wrong, and they are also impossible to occur (according to our modern language). Same sex marriages, even though inappropriate, can be solved without upsetting both sides of the scale.Many same sex marriage supporters argue, "Why does every legal and political issue always have to be complicated by making it a moral and ethical question? If there were no morals or ethics in government, society as we know it could not exist. It is unthinkable how someone can make this point. If these people had some logic and thoughtfulness in their minds as well as in their hearts, they would not be making these ridiculous comments.

Arguments of this type are the cause of crime and poverty in our country. People don't know the difference between right and wrong. Children need a mother and a father to teach family values and the difference between right and wrong.The world would be a much better place if everyone had a parent or a teacher to show them the proper path. Unfortunately, this is not the case. If more of society would put a priority on their children and their future, there could be fewer problems faced by the community as a whole.

If no one takes into account morals and ethics into their decision making, these deplorable situations could lead to a catastrophe. If no one has any morals or ethics, our country would come to its decline.The minute a human being is conceived, it is already endowed with the rights that are accorded to it by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These fundamental civil rights include the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They include the right to speak their minds, to express their opinions, to take part in their government. These rights also include the right to marry.

Historically, the concepts of rights, whether they are civil or political, have been in existence since the Founding Fathers of the American nation drafted the first Constitution.However, for many years, people have been denied the right to enjoy these rights. For example, for almost 400 years, African-Americans were denied basic civil rights. It was only in the 1960s, when they were recognized by American law as human beings equal to whites and are therefore entitled to the same rights, even things as simple as where to sit on a bus, or a park. What about women? For the longest time, women were denied many political rights, like voting or running for a government position.The above mentioned are just examples of how, over the years, governments and societies have deprived civil and political rights to people with no justifiable cause or reason.

It is common knowledge that these groups were deprived of their rights because of reasons that had nothing to do with their value as human beings, but because of the value that society placed on them as human beings. This paper discusses the same concern, which is the deprivation of the basic civil right to marry for homosexuals.This paper also discusses the various reasons that society uses to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriages, as well as the reasons why the said marriages should be legalized. This paper tries to take into account the views of various groups, especially religious groups, but focuses more on the universality of granting civil rights, in an effort to understand the concerns of what we call as the third sex community.

The word "marriage" comes from Old French mariage, from marier ("to marry"), from Latin maritare ("to marry", literally "give in marriage"), from maritus ("lover", "nuptial"), from mas ("male", "masculine", "of the male sex"). Anthropologists have struggled to come up with a definition of marriage that absorbs commonalities of the social construct across cultures.Edvard Westermarck defined marriage in the 1922 edition of The History of Human Marriage as "a relation of one or more men to one or more women which is recognized as custom or law and involves certain rights and duties" to the individuals who enter into it, and any children born from it. Such definitions failed to recognize same-sex marriages that have been documented around the world, including in more than 30 African cultures, such as the Kikuyu and Nuer.

In lexicography, words have changed and expanded in accordance to the status quo.In the last 10 years, in the English-speaking world, all major dictionaries have either dropped gender specifications, or supplemented them with secondary definitions to include gender-neutral language or same-sex unions. The Oxford English Dictionary has recognized same-sex marriage since 2000. Proponents of same-sex marriage such as Freedom to Marry and Garden State Equality use the term marriage equality to stress that they seek equality as opposed to special rights.

Opponents of same-sex marriage such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Southern Baptist Convention use the term traditional marriage to mean marriages between one man and one woman. Maggie Gallagher argues that equating same-sex and opposite-sex marriages changes the meaning of marriage and its traditions. Marriage is defined as the union between a man and a woman.Same-sex marriage (also called gay marriage) is a legally or socially recognized marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender.

Since 2001, ten countries (Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden) and various other jurisdictions have begun legally formalizing same-sex marriages, and the recognition of such marriages is a civil rights, political, social, moral, and religious issue in many nations.The conflicts arise over whether same-sex couples should be allowed to enter into marriage, be required to use a different status (such as a civil union, which either grant equal rights as marriage or limited rights in comparison to marriage), or not have any such rights. A related issue is whether the term marriage should be applied.While it is a relatively new practice that same-sex couples are being granted the same form of legal marital recognition as commonly used by mixed-sexed couples, there is a long history of recorded same-sex unions around the world. Various types of same-sex unions have existed, ranging from informal, unsanctioned relationships to highly ritualized unions. It is believed that same-sex union was a socially recognized institution at times in Ancient Greece and Rome, some regions of China, such as Fujian, and at certain times in ancient European history.

These gay unions continued until Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. A law in the Theodosian Code (C. Th. 9. 7. 3) was issued in 342 AD by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans.

This law prohibited same-sex marriage in ancient Rome and ordered that those who were so married were to be executed. Some early Western societies integrated same-sex relationships. The practice of same-sex love in ancient Greece often took the form of pederasty, which was limited in duration and in many cases co-existed with marriage.Documented cases in this region claimed these unions were temporary pederastic relationships. These unions created a moral dilemma for the Greeks and were not universally accepted. There may have been, at least among the Romans, marriage between men as evidenced by emperors Nero and Elagabalus[ who married men, and by its outlaw in 342 AD in the Theodosian Code, but the exact intent of the law and its relation to social practice is unclear, as only a few examples of same-sex marriage in that culture exist.

In Hellenic Greece, the pederastic relationships between Greek men (erastes) and youths (eromenos) were similar to marriage in that the age of the youth was similar to the age at which women married (the mid-teens, though in some city states, as young as age seven), and the relationship could only be undertaken with the consent of the father. This consent, just as in the case of a daughter's marriage, was contingent on the suitor's social standing. The relationship consisted of very specific social and religious responsibilities and also had a sexual component.Unlike marriage, however, a pederastic relation was temporary and ended when the boy turned seventeen. There were also same sex unions among peers among the Ancient Greeks which were not age-structured.

Numerous examples of these are found in Ancient Greek writings. Aristotle praised a same sex couple (Philolaus and Dioclese) who lived their whole lives together and maintained a household together until their deaths when they were buried side by side.Lucian describes a debate in which a proponent of same-sex relationships describes them as being more stable than heterosexual relationships and goes on to express the hope that he will be buried with his lover after they have passed their lives together. Famous Greek couples in same sex relationships include Harmodius and Aristogiton, Pelopidas and Epaminondas and Alexander and Bogoas.

However in none of these same sex unions is the Greek word for "marriage" ever mentioned. The Romans appear to have been the first to perform same sex marriages.The first recorded mention of the performance of gay marriages occurred during the early Roman Empire. At least two of the Roman Emperors were in gay unions. The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero, who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions. Nero "married a man named Sporus in a very public ceremony.

.. with all the solemnities of matrimony, and lived with him as his spouse" A friend gave the "bride" away "as required by law. " The marriage was celebrated separately in both Greece and Rome in extravagant public ceremonies.

The emperor Elagabalus married an athlete named Hierocles in a lavish public ceremony in Rome amidst the rejoicings of the citizens. Same-sex marriage was outlawed on December 16, 342 AD by the Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans. This law specifically outlaws marriages between men and reads as follows: When a man marries and is about to offer himself to men in womanly fashion [quum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam], what does he wish, when sex has lost all its significance; when the crime is one which it is not profitable to know; when Venus is changed to another form; when love is sought and not found?We order the statutes to arise, the laws to be armed with an avenging sword, that those infamous persons who are now, or who hereafter may be, guilty may be subjected to exquisite punishment. (Theodosian Code 9.

7. 3) In the 20th and 21st centuries various types of same-sex unions have come to be legalized. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Portugal. Countries such as Greece, Romania and Poland restrict marriage to opposite-sex union, while countries such as Ireland and Italy are in the process of legislating on the issue.