Gay Marriage Debate

Despite the fact that gays are clearly becoming more accepted on a daily basis in this country, gay rights is still a relatively new concept. That is not to say that being gay is a new concept or fad, but the ‘coming out of America’ and the demands of equality that come with it have really just begun to develop on such a national level. People are opening their minds and accepting the gay lifestyle more and more. According to Bidstrup (2009), nearly seventy per cent of Americans support gay rights which essentially promotes equal opportunities and equal access to the things that all other Americans are privy to. However, almost the same amount of people opposes legalizing gay marriages. How is that possible? How can a majority of people agree that homosexuals deserve equal protection from their country and in the same breath wish to restrict a very basic right? How can this one word, marriage, create so much polar opposite thinking within one person’s head?

The short answer is people are scared. Just as when the world was flat. Whether they think something is right or not, sometimes it is easier to just continue on living on a flat world. Change represents fear. People know gays should have the right to marry, but what if it changes everything? What if there is an unforeseen circumstance? Maybe we should just put it off a little longer. If only we had some proof that everything will be OK.

Well there is proof because, surprisingly, other countries in the world have to deal with the same issues as us and some of them actually take action in a timely manner. According to Bidstrup (2009), gay marriage has been legal in Denmark since 1989 and in most of Scandinavia for just about as long. They’re still on the map aren’t they? In fact some of gay marriage’s harshest critics, the clergy, have fully accepted that it has been good for the country. Seventy-two per cent of the Danish clergy were opposed to allowing gay marriage at the time it became legal. A poll taken six years later revealed that eighty-nine per cent of the Danish clergy admitted the law is good and had positive effects on their society including reduced suicides, less spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and less promiscuity and infidelity within the gay community (Bidstrup, 2009). Instead of the straw that breaks the world’s back, it almost seems like the allowance of gay marriage may actually be a step closer to a utopia on Earth.

References
Bidstrup, S. (2009, June 3). Gay marriage, the arguments and the motives. Retrieved June 7, 2009, from http://www.bidstrup.com/marriage.htm