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Should Same Sex Marriage Be Legalized in the United States Essay

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Debate Paper
Should same sex marriage be legalized in the United States? In some of our states laws have already been passed to allow same sex couples the freedom to get married, while other states are still resisting for one reason or another. As with everything else there is more than one side, more than one argument supporting and more than one argument resisting the changes being proposed. There are religious reasons, moral reasons, constitutional reasons and financial reasons being used by both sides and the debate seems to get nowhere. For every argument for the issue there is always an argument against it. I have my own opinion about the issue, however I will look at the arguments themselves on each side to identify which side has …show more content…

As for the pro side of the issue, they have plenty of their own arguments. One of them is that gay marriage will not harm traditional marriage or family values in any way. According to studies done by the American Anthropological Society there is no support to show that marriage has to be a heterosexual institution. Another argument is that if marriage was strictly for purposes of reproduction, then couples in which one or both partners were infertile, or too old to conceive would not be able to marry. A favorite among homosexual couples is that they should have the same benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy, including family health plans, social security benefits and tax exemptions. The final argument that I found for gay marriage is that it is not a religious issue so it religious beliefs should have no effect on whether or not they are allowed to get married.
I believe that the stronger arguments on this issue are the pro -gay marriage arguments. The institution of marriage is already weak with almost half of the traditional marriages ending in divorce, and the studies done by the Anthropological Society show that allowing gay marriage will not make a difference in the current trends. One of the purposes of traditional marriage is to reproduce, however not all straight couples are able to do that naturally and they have to use alternate methods

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