INFORMATION TO USE IN ESSPOITORY ESSAY
In Vermont a court recently legalized not marriage for gays, but a “civil union” which affords same-sex couples all the rights and privileges of married couples, but without calling it “marriage.” While I applaud Vermont’s court system for this step in the right direction, a new institution for gay couples is not the answer. It simply affirms their second-class status in American society. In the Supreme Court case Brown vs. The Board of Education, the policy of “separate but equal” with regard to race was struck down as being unconstitutional, because separate can never be equal. Creating a separate institution for gay couples is just as unequal and unconstitutional as creating separate institutions for blacks and whites.
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In response to this argument I refer you again to the words of Andrew Sullivan (2): “Would any heterosexual in America believe he had a right to pursue happiness if he could not marry the person he loved? What would be more objectionable to most people — to be denied a vote in the next presidential election or to no longer have legal custody over their child or legal attachment to their wife or husband?" In America we are granted, as an unalienable right, the right to pursue our happiness. If we tell gay people that the only people they can marry are those they aren't attracted to or can't love romantically, then we are violating this right.