Thirty years ago, a black man and a white woman could not get married in many states. This was discrimination, plain and simple, and such a ban would not be allowed today. So why is it, then, that homosexual couples cannot get married in many states today? The most common argument goes as follows: "Marriage is between a man and a woman." That seems to make sense to a lot of people. However, rewind 30 years. The argument against biracial marriage then went as follows: "Marriage is between a white man and woman, or between a black man and woman." Today, gay couples cannot get married because of the quality of being gay. In the past, a couple could not get married because one of the members of that couple had the damning quality of being black.
Now, current scientific findings show that homosexuality is a natural trait, not an acquired one. So, now, as in the past, people are being discriminated against based on the crime of their birth. And we call this America. One day, perhaps, this country will wake up and realize that the crimes of its past, for which it shows so much remorse, are simply being repeated in another form time and time again.
The issue of gay marriage is not a religious one, as many people think. It is a civil issue. Gay couples are being banned from enjoying the civil benefits of marriage which are provided by the state to other couples, but denied to homosexuals based on a characteristic that makes them no less human than anyone else. Opponents of gay marriage say that gay couples cannot properly raise children and cannot form a proper family. I point only to the thousands and thousands of orphans of straight unions, and the thousands of bruised and battered children of straight unions, to show the exemplary conduct of straight parents. There are no reasonable grounds by which to argue against gay marriage. And this is nothing if not a country founded on the notion of reason.
Too often, the issue of gay marriage is argued from a religious perspective, as if religion had any bearing on the issue. It does not. Not this issue. Not the issue of civil benefits for gay couples. Our nation has had, since its conception, a strong sense of the importance of separation of church and state. To argue against gay marriage in the civil sector as being against church values is to debase one of the major foundations of our nation. What a church chooses to define as marriage is that church's business. It is still discriminatory to ban gay marriages within the church, but the state has nothing to do with that. But, for the state to ban gay marriage on civil grounds is discriminatory, as long as a white couple, a black couple, a biracial couple or a couple separated in age by 40 years can gain the civil benefits of marriage.
Legislators have a responsibility to this nation to refrain from legislating on religious grounds. That is not their domain. Their purview is to make laws that do not discriminate against American citizens, citizens who pay taxes, support this nation, and yet are stigmatized by ignorance and degraded by the very country they help support. It is a travesty to reason, a travesty to human dignity, and a travesty to freedom that gay marriages are being banned across the nation today. We need to wake up to the defense of human rights. Otherwise, this nation will continue to be the bastion of hypocrisy and discrimination that it is today, and has been since its conception. Our legacy can be better than that. It must be better than that.
Jeff Morrison is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.
