Since Adam and Eve, according to Bible, made their appearance to begin their endless journey of race of human beings on this Earth, relationship between husband and wife has always been considered so natural, bestowed on the human beings by God. In Genesis 1: 26, it has been said that man, the creation of God is an image of God himself and he has created male and female to be for one another. God has created man in the form of male from mother earth, and Eve, the Adam’s wife representative of women.
Since then for whole human race, marriage between two opposite sexes is being considered as the most sacred institution that has been ordered by God and any defiance of this order is defiance of the God itself. But this is neither practically happening nor is practically true as there are thousands and thousands of couples who do not fit into one man/one woman definition, and still are leading a happy married life. Surrounded with social taboos, they are being defied the basic existence to live as they come under the category of Homosexuals.Flouting all old conventions of marriage, their love for the persons of same sex entices them to remain committed with him/her. The federal census revealed the fact that there are now more than 100,000 same-sex couples living in California, much more than any other state and there are more than 70,000 children in California whose parents are either lesbian or gay.
(Minter, Online edition) Still majority of the people considered the same sex marriage unethical. It is so ironical that the very soil of California has been witness to lot of controversies, debates and furor regarding issues and rights of gay couples.The California legislature of 1977 had declared marriage as a legal bond between man and woman. The most significant point is: “Marriage is a personal relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary,”(Family Code Sec. 300) (Institute of Governmental Studies Library, Online Edition). Along with this in 1999, it allowed domestic partnership in a family with all the benefits.
Later Judicial and legislative courts in Vermont, Massachusetts and the Canadian province of Ontario passed laws to give equal rights to married gay couples as being given to the married couples of opposite sex. After this, San Francisco too began to legalize the marriage of same sex couples but was admonished by State Supreme Court. And despite the State voters passed Proposition 22 in 2000, giving the legal status to only married couples of opposite sex; in 2004, six cases on the issue of rights for Gay couples were filed in trial courts, and subsequently hearings were held.The trial court said that the some portion of the California Family Code, prohibiting the same-sex couples to enter into marriage bond is a violation of the fundamental right and equal protection guarantee granted in Constitution.
This proclamation led the state to file the petition and the case was heard in the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District. In October 2005, the court denied any violation to the fundamental right and thus petition was denied.Again petition was filed in the California Supreme Court and the court granted the petition, as the California Assembly approved the decision to legalize the same sex marriage in September 2005. Simultaneously, Senate passed AB 849, giving legal status to same sex marriage in State and according to AB 849, “Marriage is a gender neutral and did not require any religious organization to perform marriage ceremonies for gay couples”. (Institute of Governmental Studies Library, Online Edition) This bill was passed in the assembly with a vote 41-35; Republicans and Democrats opposed the bill.Within all the heated controversies and debates, Governor Schwarzenegger announced that the final decision would be taken by Court.
The Court finally decided in favor of the bill and this was the beginning of the new lease of life for the gay couples. Several issues cropped up during the trial, when asked by Supreme Court, Schwarzenegger suggested that there is no necessity for the terms ‘marry’ and ‘marriage’ to be used by the California Constitution and therefore the term marriage, which had earlier defined marriage between man and woman could be changed.But this law did not pass without controversies, as former Assemblyman Larry Bowler a proponent of the VoteYesMarriage. com petition drive and a Marriage supporter woefully exclaimed, “Marriage between a man and a woman will continue to be targeted for destruction by politicians and judges unless we fully and permanently protect this sacred institution in the California State Constitution. ” Another person to strongly rebuke the act was Thomason who pinpointed that the judges of the state Supreme Court bench in San Francisco are in a quest to “destroy the definition of marriage and utterly shred the people’s vote on marriage.
(Unruh, Online Edition)Whereas one of the advocators of homosexual, Geoff Kors said, “It’s the people’s representatives in the largest state in the nation doing this. ” (Unruh, Online Edition) In 2003, opinions of the people showed mixed response, 50 per cent of the voters were against giving equal rights to gay or lesbian couples, whereas 42 per cent of the couples were in favor. In 1977, the picture was very grim, only 28 per cent of the couples were agreeing to the couples performing same sex marriage; this grew to 30 per cent in 1985, 39 per cent in 1997 and 42 per cent in 2003.Only 60 to 30 per cent of the Californians wanted to legalize homosexual relations but it was also a fact that there was on the scene wide spread support to the domestic partnership laws for unmarried couples who love each other and wanted to live together. (Field Research Corporation, pp.
1) All these surveys revealed the fact that in California there was a mixed response. Some going in favor of making Gay marriages legalized and some opposed it.Even among the political parties like Democrats and Republicans who opposed the bill, there was a certain amount of consensus too. Despite of the facts mentioned above, there are lot of misunderstandings regarding homosexuality and the stereotype image that they carry. It is a misconstrued conception that gay people cannot lead a long lasting relationship but this is not true.
They do carry with them long lasting relations and the values that they exhibit are the same as that can be expected of any civilized person of American society or thereof.They are very devoted to their partners and are loyal to their mates and are very much committed to the family life. Many of them are also being seen making valuable contributions towards society. Still this idea as written in The New Testament Rom. 1: 26-28 says: “For this reason, God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another.
Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. ” (Corvino, 85) President George Bush in 2006 sought amendment in the United States Constitution to prohibit gay marriage. In his radio address, Bush sternly spoke to revive the United States Constitution and to make the gay marriages illegal and the main purpose of his move to change the law was to protect the institution of marriage. He opined that children born from husband and wife lead better life than the children adopted by gay couples.
On the other hand, Gay rights activists saw this movement as mere game of politics being played by Bush and his action of this would make the status of Lesbians and gay legally inferior. (Guardian Unlimited, Online Edition) But Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his decision on Colorado's Amendment 2 referendum said that, “We cannot accept the view that Amendment 2's prohibition on specific legal protections does no more than deprive homosexuals of special rights. To the contrary, the amendment imposes a special disability on those persons alone.Homosexuals are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint.
” (Bidstrup, Online edition) Marriage is both exclusive as well as inclusive so much that the intimacy shared between couples is purely their own and it is all about union between body and soul whereby both share not just sexual intimacy but also friendship, finances, career, leisure time as well as bad times. They are soul mates and if two persons of same sex want to enjoy and lead life in each other company then there is no harm in that.Therefore from this perspective as said by Fred Parrella, associate professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University, and Gerald Coleman, “A gay or lesbian orientation is not a matter of choice but simply the way an individual is. A person is born gay and lesbian and grows up this way; it is not a matter of decision, one possibility among others for the mature individual”(Parrella, Online edition) and in fact the Pastoral letters of the Catholic bishops also revealed this truth.
Looking at this perspective there on the scene is witnessed two basic changes in the way we look at the marriage.The marriage is now not just a legal contract between two persons but is a personal contract between the two. The Second Vatican Council has expressed marriage in the following words; “Marriage is the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. ” (Parrella, Online edition) Secondly, the purpose of marriage is now not only just for fulfilling the act of procreation but also as according to the Council, “it renders mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and their actions. (Parrella, Online edition) Actually what makes the married institution the most useful and sacred is a bond of love and care between the partners. It is also not necessary that all marriages do culminate in off-springs which can be due to number of health problems and for this reason too marriage is not seen as just for enjoyment of sex or for procreation but for caring and understanding.
Now, when we see increasing number of divorce rates among the couples of opposite sex and marriages culminating in brick batting and quarrels between husband and wife, the whole basic purpose of traditional way of marriage is dashed to the ground. In-fact The Catholic bishops of Western Washington too said family is not just a metaphor but the proper term to describe such a relationship.And even The Catholic theologian Rosemary Haughton too said that the main aspect of marriage is not a blood relationship, but “it is world itself, it’s a community whereby people share their lives with each other”. (Parrella, Online edition) After the law was passed, there was new ray of hope for many homosexuals.
Now they can also enjoy all the rights and privileges as others are enjoying. They can visit hospital to take care of their near and dear ones, now they can get life insurance coverage and can enjoy inheritance right.Referencehttp://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/gay_marriage.htmlhttp://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57538
