Should Same-Sex Couples Receive Constitutional Protection?
The question of Same-Sex marriage involves legal and constitutional issues and social problems. Obtaining recognition for gay couples is only one of a series of powerfully contested questions that have arisen since the U.S. gay rights movement rose to importance in the heated political debate of the 1980s. Some critics suppose that gay marriages are unconstitutional as they violate social and moral norms and distort the idea of a family. On the other hand, some supporters explain that gay unions should be legalized as homosexual relations are a natural phenomenon of modern society and neither state nor public can change human nature and sexual inclinations. Thesis Same-sex couples should not receive Constitutional Protection as such union violates social and moral values of society.
Following Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Margaret Marshall, the state should allow legalizing same-sex marriages to protect these people from rights violation and discrimination. Critics admit that the illegal status of their relations causes hardship to a segment of the population for no rational reason. As researchers have shown, activism is focused more on trying to pull some degree of tolerance from society than on dreaming of achieving legality for gay relationships. Researchers involved in the debate also have outlined that legal status does not support limiting marriage to having reproduction as its purpose; those unions who are unable to bear children are allowed to marry and childlessness cannot be used as grounds for divorce. Also, those married people who cannot have sexual relations at all are granted the constitutional right to marry, which courts have seen as having both spiritual and cultural meaning beyond the level of sexuality or procreation (Katsh, 2005).
On the other hand, critics admit that gay couples should not receive constitutional protection. Robert Cordy holds that a statute banning same-sex marriage is a valid exercise of the states police. Even though domestic partnership offers poor constitutional protections to gay unions without seeking outright to legalize their relations; registration as domestic partners is not in most cases limited to gay unions but is not offered in states to straight couples who do not wish to marry but want some sort of legal recognition of their situations. Since it is unlikely that the government will be able to maintain a persuasive explanation for marriage to opposite-sex unions, most legal analysts suppose that the legalization of same-sex marriage does not come into force (Katsh, 2005).
In sum, the arguments against same-sex marriages suggest that same-sex union is not a natural and socially acceptable institution. It violates moral and ethical principles followed by society and the institution of a family itself. These views help people to understand that the images conveyed by rituals and cultural performances may not always be right. They may not only symbolize immoral behavior and false sexual images but change the expectations of one’s family and community. All these trends draw on a concept of psychological mechanics that leads to frustration and prejudice which gives rise to it almost as physical forces that will destroy the balance of a social order unless they are frequently vented. The constitutional rights and principles establish social order and relations inside the society, so legal same-sex marriage will hurt the social morals and ethical values of the majority of people. A ritual of revolt might expand to become an actual uprising is not explicitly addressed in modern legal issues, though some critics and political leaders suggest that the relative fragility of the modern social system might stipulate whether or not it can survive historical and social traditions.
References
Katsh, E. (2005). Takng Sides” Clashing Views on Legal Issues. McGraw-Hill/Dushkin; 12 edition.