Today, Thursday August 30, 2007, marks a huge day for gay rights activists and the gay community as a whole. Earlier today, an Iowa district court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry goes against the state consitution's stance on equal treatment. The court also ruled against the state law that stated marriage was between a man and a woman. The Polk County attorney's plan to take this ruling to the Iowa Supreme Court.
Personally, I do not believe that it is my place or the government's place to tell people who they can and cannot love or marry. I think it is someone's personal choice and whatever decision they make is their business. They know themselves. I cannot make a decision for someone I do not know and I do not think that someone can make a blanket statement about a group of people.
5 comments:
I completely agree with you. I consider myself a strong supporter of gay rights and in my opinion the situation with gays is similar to the way we persecuted the Blacks during the civil rights movement. Hopefully we will be able to one day look back at all of this mess of who can or cannot marry with embarrasment at how foolish we once were...
I agree with both of you. I believe that people should be able to marry and lead a happy life with someone they love whether or not that person is of the same sex or of a different one. I don't think that a person should be able to deny someone the right to marry whom they want. I thought we lived in the "land of the free." If it actually was the "land of the free" then people should be free to marry who they want to marry. At the moment, gays' rights are being restricted because they are not free to marry whom they want to unless that person is of the opposite sex. This issue is a very controversial issue, but I stand by my beliefs that same sex marraiges should be legal,and I hope that some day we will actually live in the "land of the free."
Silverlight's comment is right on: Just as people in the past used religion to deny the equal rights of African Americans in this and other countries, so today are people using religion to deny the rights of gays. These people use the term "family values" to make their anti-gay views sound "good," but the truth is that homophobia hurts families. Consider the family of Senator Kelly Craig of Idaho (R.), who pled guilty to public lewdness in an airport men's room. He's trying to overturn the guilty plea now, but more to the point, he is trying to deny that he is gay. To most conservative Americans, Christians cannot be gay, so those who want to go into politics and many other occupations (such as the ministry)have to marry and hide behind wives and children who are devastated when the truth emerges in some sordid way, since public parks and restrooms provide some of the few opportunities for them to engage in sex with other men. Recognizing the rights of gays who want to marry is a step in the right direction of ending all this hypocrisy and paranoia.
Whoops! I had the Senator's name wrong in my comment. It's Larry Craig, and he resigned this morning.
I agree with everyone who has supported this desicion. I don't feel as if it is my place or anyones place who is not directly involved in the matter to have a say in the personal live's of others. Everyone is entitled to live a free life as they choose. Why should the government get to make desicions in a person's personal life?
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