David85
Banned
The essay was writen in Feb-May of this year for my Government class. It's kind of long and needs to be updated and fixxed (Really bad at grammer and spelling.) This doesn't take into accound the Mass Gay marriages that much because it became legal the week after I passed this in.
Try to guess what I got on it? I don't think he took my terrible grammer into account that much.
It's long, like 6-7 type 12 font in Word, so if you aren't going to read the WHOLE thing, then don't bother posting because you don't know all the facts.
Try to guess what I got on it? I don't think he took my terrible grammer into account that much.
It's long, like 6-7 type 12 font in Word, so if you aren't going to read the WHOLE thing, then don't bother posting because you don't know all the facts.
Gay Marriage Legal Battle
The fight for gay rights in America has been a lengthy challenging one that mirrors the fight of African American rights movement of the 1950 and 1960s. Both have had their up and downs, but at the same time it takes on some of its own characteristics. After the events and court rulings of the black civil rights movement, and in light of some of the court rulings as of recent there is no legal reason why homosexuals should not have all the legal rights as others do, and every reason why they should. The only reasons why they don’t is fear of change, the unknown and the propaganda the powerful political people. The rulings should not have just applied to one minority, but all citizens of what is titled “a free nation”.
This nation has never fully been fully free, the White House and Capital building were built by slaves, and it will never fully be free because there’s no such thing as a perfect democracy, but that doesn’t mean we can just give up. The nation as a whole needs to let freedom ring and over time freedom will happen for more people. There have been setbacks through, a major one being Plessey vs. Ferguson. It ruled that “separate but equal” is legal, it is never equal but it took more than a half a century before the ruling would be over turned.
A school in Topeka, Kansas was the reason for the undoing of the Plessey vs. Ferguson ruling. There, like many other places at the time, had segregation in most public places, including school. One student there stood up like many others across the nation at the time. The case was heard by the different of courts and finally by the Supreme Court under the title Brown vs. The Board of Education. They unanimously ruled that “separate but equal” was not legal. Would the president of the United States then call the nine justices “radical activists”? Or would it have to be five judges or less to be considered “activists ”? It would not be the end to segregation, that would take many more years, but it was a step in the right direction for equal rights in this country then and now.
The “separate but equal” rulings had a huge effect, even now with this discussion of with civil unions. Many think that civil unions are fine and give all the rights of marriage to homosexuals. They do no give all the rights, in one state the rights can be the completely different than another. The words “civil union” can be changed and interoperated differently, just like marriage meaning “the legal union of two people in wedlock” in Webster’s Dictionary and “the legal union of a man and women as husband and wife” in American Hertitage Dictionary. Even if they meant the exact same thing it should be considered illegal because it would make homosexuals separate from heterosexuals. The difference from the African American Civil Rights Movement to the Gay Civil Right Movement is that African Americans were denied many more right; they were kept from going to the same school as whites, drinking and eating at the same places, even voting. It was much worse for African Americans and they were fighting for many more rights, but one thing unites the two movements and as much as separates the people about it, the meaning of marriage.
The question of mmarriage is as old as the ritual itself. The issue comes from the irgonant throught that marriage is a religious matter and a family building one when it is certainly not. No where does it say that a couble have to be married in order to have children except the Bible which cannot be and is not a legal United States document. The Bible is not a legal docoment for many reasons, the major one being that the Constitution gives freedom from religion and following the Bible would go against it. The other is worse in ways, if we followed the Bible we would have to follow all the evil rules in it like, “do not mate different kinds of animals. / Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. /Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material” . Maybe we should follow those rules plus others like the eating of shimp is an “abomination” , just like homosexuality, and if someoone works on a Sunday “must be put to death” . There is one rule we saddly followed for a long time, “f you want slaves, buy them from other nations” . All that did not stop a judge from basing his decistion on what “God wanted”. In 1958 a loving couple from Washington DC got married. The husband was white and the wife was black. In D.C. there was no problem with that, but they moved to Virgina a year later which, like many other States of the time, had laws banning interrational marriage. There were brought up on trail for breaking that law go loving each other. Obviously they were found giulty when the judge gave his reasoning he wrote, “Almightly God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay, and red, He placed them on separate continents. And for but the interfedence with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He seperated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix” . He, the jugde mind you, not God, then sentenced the Lovings to leave Virgina and never come back with a 25 year sespended sentence or a year in jail. The Lovings moved back to Washington D.C. and in 1963 they filed suit. The case moved through the court system until reached the Supreme Court under the title Lovings vs. Virgina, the judges ruled that the ban was unconstittusional, just like how the Massachusetts Supreme Court has done with homosexual marriage. There is no difference between wanting to keep the ban on inter-racial marriage and the ban on homosexual, but some do not want to admit that and try to stop it at all costs.
While homsexuals have fought their way by court completely legally public opion is still based on false assumions that are spread by the powerful closeminded old fasion bigots. The truth must get out sometime but it is mcu more chaleging for that to happen with gays then african americans because African Americans had much higher number. There were more blacks fighting for rights than there are gays. It also does not help that some gays are too fearful to speak out because theyare afraid of what will happen to them. Their voices must me heard and with the new focus on the gay rights movement it has
Battling against the closeminded racists whites of the south was a long enduring one that lasted more than a lifetime for some. Court cases and protest filled the Afrian American civil rights movement. They could not speak out by voting because there were laws banning blacks from voting. The laws were based on fear, humans have always and will always fear things that are new and different to what they are taught growing up. The Jim Crow Laws were just that, laws based on fear that turned into a mindset and a lifesytle. It is happening again today.
For homosexuals it is growing by the day because the fearful people are the political leaders of the United States. At the State of the Union Adress on January 22, 2004 President George W. Bush spoke aboout sending “the right messages to our children” , and then went on to say that “[o]ur nation must defend the sanctity of marriage” and then called for a Constitutional Amendment baring gay marriage. Does that mean “the right message” to send to our children is that it is okey to discriminate towards gays? That could not be the case through because shortly after while speacking about religion Bush said that he opened grants to faith base charities “so people of faith can know that the law will never discriminate against them” . So it’s fine to discriminate towards gays, but it is wrong to discriminate towards people of religion? In America it should be wrong to discriminate towards anyone.
The State of the Union Address of 2004 was a major one against gay rights. Not only did the president speak out saying it was okey to discriminate against homosexuals and called for an ammendment of hatred he called the Massachusetts Supreme Court jugdes “activist”, the first of what would be many times, for “redefining marriage” . Once again marriage has no real meaning, it is just a legal term, or it was until 1996.
In 1996 the “Defense of Marriage Act” was sweaping through Congress. It was aimed to stop gay rights from spreading from State to State by declaring “[n]o State… shal be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judical proceeding of any other State…respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex” , which in english means that no State has to recognize any gay marriages or civil unions in other States. Clinton said that if Congress passed the act he would sign it. President Clinton did this not because he agreed with it, but because it was an election year and he believed it would give more religious votes for his re-election. On September 21, 1996 Cliton signed the Defense of Marriage Act and appualed homosexuals, he reply to them “Who you gonna call, Bob Dole?” . There is one major flaw with the Defense of Marriage Act, it is completely unconstitutional by going against Article IV Section 1 The Full Faith and Credit Clause. It says “Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judical proceedings of every other State” . The Defense of Marriage Act just throws that out the window and it cannot to that without a Constitutional Ammendment and why Bush is trying his hardest to get one started. Also this year, like in 1996, it’s an re-election year and Bush needs to look strong on something. The economy is not the greatest, Iraq is getting worse and worse by the day, he needs to try something so he is using gay as a political tool like Cliton did in 1996.
Bush has to know that the amendment would never be voted on in Congess before this years election, and even if it was the States could not vote on it this year. The scared closemind, old thinking politictions must stop it elsewhere, at the root of the “problem”, the State of Maasachusetts.
Massachusetts polls show that the residents are split 50 / 50, polls are not the most reliable but thts all we have, and to some that is all we need as an excuse to try and block gay marriage and “let the people speak”. When the Supreme Court ruled that there is no reason why homosexuals should not be aloud to marry under the State Constitution the judges gave the Letislature six months to act. Act they did, At the Constitutional Convension the gay marriage amendment was 7th to be heard, but the first 6th were pretty much just passed by quickly so the discussion on gay marriage could be brought up. It took two months of flip flopping before an amendment that would ban gay marriage and allow civil unions based its first step before becoming law. The ruling heated up the battle on both sides and started a chain recation of gay marriages from San Francisco to Organ and New York, and an outcry from the anti gay marriage side that picked up more press. Gay marriage foes try to say that it’s another example of homosexuals by passing the laws to get the “homosexual agenda” across. All that is an example of is a peaceful way of protest, protesting is not against the law. African Americans used it 40 years ago to get their voises heard and in view, the same is going on today. Homosexuals followed all the law, the couples sued and it went to court. The court’s job is to make sure the the other branchs of government stay in check and that’s what the case is this time, Governer Romney and President Bush are the ones leading the fight that is bording on illegal.
Bush trying to pass an constitutional ammendment is not illegal, trying to pass one based on discrimination and what his god wants probably is, but no one has ever tried that before. What Governer Romney is just wrong, and in some ways and very well could be against the limits of his job. Romney tried everything to get the judges to change their discision, he asked the Attorney General Thomas Reilly to ask the court for a stay, Reilly refused to ask, even though he is against the courts disision, because he thinks the court has made up their mind. Romney then tried to ask for a stay by appionting a special committee to to do so, the commottee failed. Asking for a stay did not work so the only thing left is to fire the jugdes. What a lovely leason this teaches the kids, we have to discriminate to protect the children, and now blackmale to get your way. State Repasentitive Emile J. Goguen started proceedings to have the four judges fired, he did not say what for. Arline Isaacson, the co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus said there is “no rational basis for removing any of these judges” , yet the “pro gay side” is still considered the raditical ones. After all that did not work they did not give up they continued there closeminded ignorant fight. Romney now said that Massachusetts is now going to follow a discrimintory law from 1913 that bans people out of Massachusetts the right to marry if the marriage would be viod in the couples home State. Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstorm, came out and said, “The governor feels an obligation to carry out the law as it exists” and went on to say “The governor does not have the luxury of choosing which laws to enforce and which ones to ignore” . To the unknowing it makes it seem that the governer is the good guy, but in realility it is just the governers propaganda. The truth is that for almost three decades the State of Massachusetts told city and town clerks not to follow those giudelines. The most resent was a 1995 document that reads “A clerk cannot and most not question the citizenship or legal status of a marriage applicant” . It does look like Governor Romney can choose what laws to enforce and what ones to ignore, but “[h]e took an oath to enforce all the laws of the Commonwealth. Romney does not seem to be doing that, so maybe he can be impeached for lieing under oath.
Polititions lieing to get there way, the spreading of hate propaganda, and doing anything to get stop gay marriages from happening will not end soon, but the fight will continue, the battle has only become. In time the discrimination will end, and with gay marriages beginning on May 17 equal rights for homosexuals has taken its biggest step towards realility.
