Love has no limitations
...ent from several ministers in Georgia (Thomas B1). Redefining marriage is exactly what needs to be done; otherwise we, as a country, are denying over a million of our citizens of something they ought to be entitled to simply because they are American citizens. All love should be respected equally, no matter who is experiencing it, gay or straight. “The love we feel for that ‘special someone’ is the most complex, intimacy, passion, and commitment. We traditionally think of it as heterosexual, but the exact same feelings occur in homosexual relationships,” explained Dr. C. George Boeree, who is a professor in the Psychology Department at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. In contrast to Boeree, Dr. Frank R. Wallace, a former Senior Research Chemist for E.I. du Pont de Nemours states the opposite view in his encyclopedia entitled, Neo-Tech Reference Encyclopedia. In the encyclopedia he writes, “Romantic love means the integration of the mind and body between a man and a woman. That integration includes the emotional/intellectual reflection and development of values between that man and woman.” Why can’t there be that exact same bond between two men or two women? Who says that true love can only occur between a male and a female, when people have so much love to give to others? Why must love be defined in such a way that heterosexuals must discriminate when this powerful feeling is not directed towards the norm? Love is love, regardless of the sexual orientation of the two people whom the special bond is taking place between. Providing homosexuals with the legal ability to marry, or at least for now, offering them civil unions, would have many positive effects for the society. For example, it would reinforce two parent households, and could possibly continue the tradition of family values. Lowering the poverty rate could also be achieved according to Jonathan Rauch in his work entitled, Beyond Oppression. “In Overlooked Opinions’ sample gay men had an average household income of $51,624 and lesbians $42,755, compared with the national average of $36,800” (Rauch 729). This information is from 1993; there numbers are definitely much higher now making the impact of gay marriage even greater. The founding professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas Dallas, Fredrick Turner, wrote about several of the positive outcomes which would occur upon allowing homosexual civil unions, “Two can live as cheaply as one; friendship and partnership makes people more effective; married men live longer than unmarried ones; married women are much less likely to be in poverty than unmarried ones” (Turner). There are many reasons people do not want to see homosexuals have the same rights to marriage as heterosexuals, the most common being the bible does not allow it. According to Peter J. Gomes in, Homophobic? Reread Your Bible, many people attempt to quote from Deuteronomy 23:17, I Kings 22:46, II Kings 23:7, Leviticus 18:19-23, and Leviticus 20:10-16. The first four only forbid prostitution by both sexes and the last two are what is called the holiness code which bans, “Homosexual acts, eating raw meat, planting two different kinds of seed in the same field, and wearing garments with two different kinds of yarn”, (Gomes 721). Another common excuse people use for not wanting to allow these marriages to take places is that procreation is the number one reason marriage is such an important event in every city across the nation. However, not every marriage is “useful” in this way to society as not everyone has the ability or desire to bear offspring. Turner also said, “Homosexual unions fail to serve the State on the first count, of reproductive service; but so do post-menopausal heterosexual marriages. The social benefit of recognized partnership applies just as much to homosexuals as to heterosexuals.” Every marriage is equally important to society, simply because marriage is the union of two people who are deeply in love. Also, there are many children born into this country that are not wanted or cared for properly, thus pushing the importance of procreation as the only reason for marriage is definitely not going to help lower the statistics of such unfortunate children. If two people love each other, it is the same love no matter what the sexes are of the two people involved. People who are in any kind of a relationship often feel as though their possessions are shared with their partner, and their partners’ possessions belong to them as well. For example, gay American Rob Hamm, wrote a letter to The Advocate in which shared a phone conversation he had with his Mother who had previously not been able to accept that we was gay. “I told her that I have been with my partner for twelve years now and our bank accounts and all possessions are combined, if something happened to him, his family could come in and take everything we have together, prevent me from making medical decisions on his behalf, challenge our legal wills, and a multitude of other things that are taken for granted in a hetero marriage, and even common-law marriages have more rights than we do currently. We are being made second-class citizens based on the simple fact that we are the same sex, for no other reason” (Hamm). Hamm continued the letter explaining how much he loved his partner, and the way I feel love ought to be based on feelings alone. Robert H. Knight, on the other hand, feels as though...