a non religious contract in america
TRANSCRIPT
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A Non-Religious Contract in America
The religious standards of Americans today have plummeted to a
new low.
Fewer people are going to church than earlier in the century. Many
people are
marrying without even going to a priest by getting a judge to marry
them.
Divorce is steadily on the rise. Today's society accepts homosexuals!
Now the
issue arises over whether we should allow homosexuals to marry. And
you know
what? It is really none of the government's business.
America can no longer deny its homosexual citizens the right to
have a
legal marriage. Looking at today's society, we can see that there is
no good
reason to deny gay couples the rights that straight couples have in
getting
married. The United States has always had the idea of separation ofchurch and
state, and marriage is one issue that must maintain that idealogy in
the eyes of
the government. The key to separating church and state in the debate
over
marriage is taking the definition of marriage that best applies to
society today.
To do that we must look at marriage's state in the 1990's.
Religion is losing its dominance in the issue of marriage. We
cannot
argue the fact that there are more divorces in the country today that
there were
20 years ago. This points to America's increasing acceptance of
divorce.
Therefore, we can conclude that religion has become less of an issue
for many
Americans when marrying because most religions strongly discourage
divorce, some
to the point of not allowing it at all. This leads to the question,
"What is
today's basis for marriage?"
Some propose that the sole purpose of marriage be to bring life
into the
world. If this were true, then it would be unacceptable for many in
this
country to ever be married. There are many women and men who simply do
not wantto have children. Should we condemn them and not allow them to marry
just
because of this view? Should we not allow those who are physically
unable to
have children to experience the joy and happiness that marriage brings?
Those
who cannot bear children of their own can adopt children; would we
rather they
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raised that child without one or the other parental figure? Obviously
society
does not operate with this as the basis for marriage. So the argument
that
homosexuals should not marry because they cannot have children is
entirely
ridiculous.
Adoption is considered a noble act, and it brings joy into the
lives of
many heterosexual parents and their adopted children. There is no
reason why
the same cannot happen for homosexual couples. I am sure that many
homosexual
couples in the U.S. are better parents than some heterosexual couples.
The fact
that there are people that cannot physically have children together
does not
mean that they have no parental instincts or would be incapable as
parents.
Thus, this argument against homosexual marriages cannot hold in America.
The government of America recognizes marriage as a secularentity, and
with homosexual unions we must make sure that we look at marriage in
this way.
Marriage in the eyes of the government consists of a legal license that
states
that it can look at two people as one unit. A court of law can perform
a
marriage, thereby eliminating all religious aspects of it. So, the
government
looks at a marriage simply as something that is put in the records.
This decade is the time of the paper marriage. More people sign
pre-
nuptial agreements, make sure their spouse has a space on their
insurance
policies, and have their own line on tax forms. While this seems
impersonal
(can you imagine someone proposing with "Will you be the answer to line
#3a on
my 1040 and W-2?"), the government must look at the entity marriage
this way.
Numbers and legal agreements are gender neutral, so government checks
to make
sure that all is well in those areas are feasible. But the spiritual
part of
marriage is for the couple involved, not the rest of society.
What I've said until now makes it seem that marriage as a whole
has lostall meaning to the country. This is not what I believe. Taking the
religious
implications of marriage away allows us to show how much the government
should
or should not be involved in marriage. However, two people get married
because
they love each other very much. They have decided that they want to
spend the
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rest of their lives together. These reasons have nothing to do with
religion;
however, the Judeo-Christian religions use these two ideals in their
services as
the cornerstones of marriage. "To have and to hold, in sickness and in
health,
till death do you part." This statement is not religious, and most
couples who
marry think of this as the "contract" that they are agreeing to. I use
contract
in quotation marks because the contract I am referring to above relates
to the
religious ceremonies that take place in many marriages. There are no
reasons
for the government to be involved in making the decision of whether two
people
will be uphold that "contract."
The marriage of two heterosexual people, no matter how public
they may
be, has no impact on the lives of everyday citizens. This will be
true forhomosexual couples as well. The government only needs to be involved
in what
affects the rest of the public. Thus, the only thing that it is
acceptable for
the government to regulate is how one's marriage should relate to the
objective
parts of society (such as taxes).
The government does not have the right to decide who should and
should
not be allowed to get married. The United States prides itself on
separating
issues of the church from state related issues, and it must do the same
with
this one. Though some religious groups may have problems with allowing
homosexuals to marry, America as a whole must not be so restrictive.
The
American government must look at marriage as strictly a financial
issue, because
the only parts of marriage that the government actually gets involved
in are the
financial issues. Let line #3a be filled by anyone, gay or straight.