GAYS ARE GAY!!
Some people are gonna love this. . . ::cough, cough, OLIVIA, cough, cough::
fogive me for being to lazy to fix any formating errors.
Ryan M. Smeltz
Ms. O’Keeffe
English 112x
15 November 2004
The Homosexual Controversy
Throughout life, many people have considered their sexual orientation. Until defined, the preceding words are just that, words. People rely on several different things to decide what is right and what is wrong. One of these things is the actual definition of a word-any word. The dictionary clearly states that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and many people have done a fine job of confusing others by marrying the same sex. Same-sex marriage should be outlawed in the United States in order to stay true to the original definition of marriage and the basic setting of the constitution.
What happens when a person does not like something? It gets changed. Things are conformed to fit certain, new, better standards. Marriage does not fit the standards of society. The Oxford Dictionary defines marriage as “. . . the condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between married persons; spousehood, wedlock” (Marriage 396). The words “husband” and “wife” need defining because in most homosexual relationships, one assumes the role of husband and the other assumes the role of wife. Husband is clearly “. . . the male head of a household” and has been officially defined so since 1000ad (Husband 510). “Wife”, in the same context, has been clearly stated as “A woman” (Wife 325). This begs the question of why the facts are continually twisted when the definitions of words are perfectly clear.
Why do humans feel the need to change their sexual orientation? “. . . until fairly recently, it was widely assumed that nearly everyone was heterosexual, and this was the only normal and natural identity men and women could have” (Hacker 137). People had not opened their mind to such options until now because no one had felt the need. Society as a whole had decided that there would be no such thing as sexual orientation until someone decided to live theirs openly. “Many young people experiment with others of their own sex; but for most of them, these episodes do not change their conviction that they are fully heterosexual” (Hacker 140). This leads to the belief that young people are either curious, or that they are simply following an example.
The fact is that marriage has not been upheld through the generations and is, therefore, distorting society’s view. Time changes things, if not quickly, then a little at a time. Marriage is one thing that has been changed drastically in just a short time. We have seen a huge change in a single generation, a change so drastic that the larger part of parents of small children today were raised in a different family style than they live in today (Anderson 1). It is definitely interesting that parents encourage their children to marry and the wedding is looked at as an exciting time, yet it is not taken as seriously as it used to be. “. . . in the early ‘90s, marriage had changed. It had become, many would say, no longer an institution with broad public, social, and religious influence, but a private contract, and little more” (Anderson 4). Something so life changing should be taken much more seriously. “The exchange of wedding vows only takes a few minutes. . . They create a new family from two separate families, a new legal and social identity, a common history” (Anderson 3).
Considering the fact that marriage was originally intended for a man and a woman, what is it about homosexuals, or gays that make it so disturbing to some? The idea of homosexuality has not been around since the beginning of time. We find this proven when Simpson displays the words in the Oxford Dictionary where homosexual has only been around since 1892 (Homosexual 345) and gay was not used to mean homosexual until 1971 (Gay 410). Just like the idea that marriage is simply a contract and nothing more, gay marriage is just another form of distorting the original idea of a man and a woman. Marriage has been used in the form meaning a man and a woman only since 1297 A.D. (Marriage 396). The idea of marriage between a man and a woman has been around much longer than the idea of two men or two women marrying each other.
Brian McNaught is an openly gay writer who addresses the issue of gays in society today. He does not believe that there is an issue. “It is a primal scream. . . by millions of people who want to live. It is an angry denunciation of all of the lies which have been heaped upon us for as long as we can remember. It is a pleading to straight society to refrain from forcing us to live in shadows of self-hate” (McNaught 13). It is not a person’s destiny to become gay it is a choice, A choice that comes with consequences.
It would seem that if the whole world is against something, that it would be time to let go of it. “Most of us [gays] grow up in families which are afraid to know our secret, go through schools which deny our existence, head into jobs which encourage our duplicity, encounter doctors and ministers and other honored healers who seek to transform us and we nonetheless survive” (McNaught 171). Being proud of surviving a long hardship is certainly something admirable, but when everything is against you, it seems like there’s a small hint saying that it might be wrong.
The fact that there are two different genders on earth must mean something. It is not just a coincidence that we potentially only have one choice when it comes to mating. We can only recreate other humans by mating with the opposite sex so there must be a reason there are only two separate genders on earth. In Genesis, chapter two verse eighteen, the creation story talks about how God felt the need to create a companion for Adam because he seemed lonely (Holy Bible, Gen. 2.18). Whether or not one believes in the Bible for this beginning applies regardless because so many people follow its law even if they do not recognize it as the only truth.
In the past we have just accepted those who have gotten in our way as a society. African Americans officially gained full rights as citizens of the United States in the 1960’s and there is no longer controversy over them using the same public facilities and walking the same streets and holding the same jobs as every other American. The difference between African Americans and gays is that African Americans cannot help that they are a different color than other people. Gays on the other hand have a choice to make. They know ahead of time that their decision to be different sexually than everyone else is going to affect them in major ways. They know what they are up against and have a chance to prevent it for their own good (McNaught 171).
Gay marriages could potentially be a good thing. Gays get married and want children, but of course are unable to have children, so they adopt. So many straight couples out there have abortions because they did not want the child or they could not afford to raise it. If such couples put their child up for adoption and there was a gay couple looking to adopt, then that could possibly save one child from abortion. But who is to say that the child would not have been adopted by a straight couple anyway?
The unfortunate part of being homosexual is that once you have made that decision, it’s hard to go back, and you have less support. In Portland in the early-twentieth-century, homosexuals formed a community among themselves which provided support for each other whenever and wherever it was needed (Boag 105). Since people are afraid of homosexuals, they are often blamed when they actually had nothing to do with the incident.
When police arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia, a furniture store bookkeeper who was a 1912 suspect, they found in his luggage a number of photographs of Portland’s homosexuals. To be sure, many of the middle-class men who appeared before the law for same-sex offenses in early-twentieth-century Portland did not belong to the specific communities of individuals who came to light in 1912 or again in 1928. But strikingly few members of the working classes who were arrested on similar charges were participants (Boag 105).
So basically homosexuals are discriminated against just like all other minorities in the United States of America.
Sometimes it is thought that it was almost unheard of to have homosexual behavior in countries such as North America. “At first glance mid-nineteenth-century America might seem an unlikely setting for the emergence of so central and defining a figure in the development of a distinctive modern homosexual subculture, and in the lives and thought of men . . . “ (Edsall 71). Some say the reason that people have no control over their sexual orientation is due to the fact that they are psychologically impaired. Writer Carlton Cornett disagrees and says that this particular view was based on people’s prejudice and false research (Stalcup 139). This stand has some backbone to it because if a group feels inferior, they will go to the extent necessary to try and bring demise to their opponents.
Many people do not speak their part against homosexual marriages because they believe it is better to just follow what seems right. “. . . the premise is unimaginable to many, and the forces of political correctness have descended on the discussion, raising the cost of opposition” (Schiffren 494). Sometimes it is a necessity to get rid of what is right and what is wrong and just take a look at what makes sense. “In a traditional marriage, the tie that really binds for life is shared responsibility for the children. (A small fraction of gay couples may choose to raise children together, but such children are offspring of one partner and an outside contributor.) What will keep gay marriages together when individuals tire of each other” (Schiffren 495). If there is no motivation to hold a homosexual marriage together once the couple is disinterested in each other, does the idea of homosexuals even being allowed to marry make sense?
I believe it is my right as a human to decide whether or not I want to be homosexual or not. I do not, however, believe that homosexuality is an option. Some guy was sitting around one day and decided that he was bored and wondered what it would be like to be with another guy. He tried it, liked it, and now it is viewed as an actual sexual preference. I can accept people’s right to freedom of speech; allow me to exercise mine by simply stating that homosexuality is not right, and if homosexuals must exist-and they do exist-then they must not be given the right to marry each other.
Marriage poses problems in today’s society even when one is a man and one is a woman. Divorce rates are high, and most kids do not know what it is like to grow up with both parents. It is hard to be involved in a marriage that is unhappy because one person desires one thing and the other wants something totally different (Stalcup 68). So when it is hard to please your spouse in a marriage because they want something different, would that not make it more difficult if the spouse were of the same sexual orientation? After all, opposites attract.
Marriage is defined as a holy matrimony between a husband and a wife according to the Oxford Dictionary. This should be upheld and recognized because the more we change things, the more confusing they become in the long run. Americans recognize freedoms for the people who came over here from Europe, but if the government conforms to every single group of individuals that grows out as a subculture, then the controversy throughout America will be more of an annoyance than open mindedness.
Works Cited
Anderson, Katherine, Don Browning and Brian Boyer. Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper?
Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002.
Schiffren, Lisa. “Gay Marriage, an Oxymoron.” Current Issues and Enduring Questions:
A Guide to Critical Thinking and Argument, with Readings. Ed. Sylvan Barnet
and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.
Boag, Peter. Same-Sex Affairs. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Edsall, Nicholas C. Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern
Western World. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003.
Hacker, Andrew. Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between and Men. New York: Scribner,
2003.
Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.
McNaught, Brian. On Being Gay. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.
Stalcup, Brenda. Opposing Viewpoints: Human Sexuality. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,
Inc, 1995.