Gay Marriage: Theologil and Moral Arguments - Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

Contents:

• GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS
• GAY MARRIAGE
• MORALY OR EQUALY? IOLOGIL AMG NEWS VERAGE OF GAY MARRIAGE LEGIMIZATN
• GAY MARRIAGE AND ETHIL THEORI
• GAY MARRIAGE AND THE MORALY OF ALL
• WING THE CIRCLE OF HUMAN OBLIGATN: MORALY, HYPOCRISY, AND GAY MARRIAGE
• 1. THE SUPREME COURT CISN, THE OPN POLLS AND THE PUBLIC PERCEPTN ON GAY AND LBIAN RIGHTS THE U.S.

GAY MARRIAGE: THEOLOGIL AND MORAL ARGUMENTS

What has grown is a much greater acceptance of gays and lbians our culture, as well as the social and enomic eedom for gays and lbians to emerge om the closet that has nfed them for so many generatns. The recent addn of same sex mment ceremoni the Sunday New York Tim weddg and engagement announcements and the populary of shows as "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye…" dite a shift our culture's attu toward gays and lbians. My tent was two-fold: first to ve stunts to dialogue wh people different om themselv; send, to work to elimate, whatever small way I uld, homophobic attus on our mp and our muny.

My purpose today is not to support or fend gay and lbian marriag—ed, many gays and lbians do not want to marry—but simply suggt a theologil approach that might open up the possibily for greater Christian acceptance of, and eccliastil approval for, same sex unns. Catholic sistence: one n uphold the digny of homosexual people while not upholdg their right-to-marry; no unjt discrimatn towards homosexuals is acceptable; they mt be treated wh rpect, and their rights fend. The Natnal Relig Learship Roundtable, which supported the multi-fah event on the steps of the San Francis Cy Hall scribed above, is nvened by the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force.

GAY MARRIAGE

Equal Employment Opportuny Commissn, se the movement for same-sex marriage an opportuny “to make the se for” the “normative moral equivalence” of “gay and heterosexual sex”—an argument, Profsor Feldblum observ, “that is hardly ever heard polil circl.

Rutgers Law Profsor Carlos Ball believ that the stggle for “societal acceptance” of same-sex relatnships entails a “ontal attack” on the “eply held views of many Amerins regardg the (im)moraly of homosexualy. [30] The thors, who clu Profsors Feldblum and Ball, believe that “current advot for gay rights are not really engagg their opponents unls they are engaged wh the moral nature of their opponents’ views and arguments.

Scholars and the general public beme creasgly terted the issue durg the late 20th century, a perd when attus toward homosexualy and laws regulatg homosexual behavur were liberalized, particularly wtern Europe and the Uned issue of same-sex marriage equently sparked emotnal and polil clash between supporters and opponents.

MORALY OR EQUALY? IOLOGIL AMG NEWS VERAGE OF GAY MARRIAGE LEGIMIZATN

Relig and secular expectatns of marriage and sexualy Over time the historil and tradnal cultur origally rerd by the lik of Bachofen and Man slowly succumbed to the homogenizatn imposed by lonialism.

In other s, the cultural homogeney supported by the domant relign did not rult the applitn of doctre to the civic realm but may nohels have fostered a smoother seri of discsns among the cizenry: Belgium and Spa had legalized same-sex marriage, for stance, spe official opposn om their predomant relig stutn, the Roman Catholic Church. Most of the world religns have at some pots their histori opposed same-sex marriage for one or more of the followg stated reasons: homosexual acts vlate natural law or dive tentns and are therefore immoral; passag sacred texts nmn homosexual acts; and relig tradn regniz only the marriage of one man and one woman as valid. Early Years: Same-Sex Marriage Bans In 1970, jt one year after the historic Stonewall Rts that galvanized the gay rights movement, law stunt Richard Baker and librarian Jam McConnell applied for a marriage license Gerald Nelson rejected their applitn bee they were a same-sex uple, and a trial urt upheld his cisn.

GAY MARRIAGE AND ETHIL THEORI

” This lg effectively blocked feral urts om lg on same-sex marriage for s, leavg the cisn solely the hands of stat, which alt blow after blow to those hopg to see gay marriage beg 1973, for stance, Maryland beme the first state to create a law that explicly f marriage as a unn between a man and woman, a belief held by many nservative relig groups.

Though the gay rights movement saw some advancements the 1970s and 1980s—such as Harvey Milk beg the first openly gay man elected to public office the untry 1977—the fight for gay marriage ma ltle headway for many years.

In 1989, the San Francis Board of Supervisors passed an ordance that allowed homosexual upl and unmarried heterosexual upl to register for domtic partnerships, which granted hospal visatn rights and other years later, the District of Columbia siarly passed a new law that allowed same-sex upl to register as domtic partners. C., 1993, the hight urt Hawaii led that a ban on same-sex marriage may vlate that state nstutn’s Equal Protectn Clse—the first time a state urt has ever ched toward makg gay marriage Hawaii Supreme Court sent the se—brought by a gay male uple and two lbian upl who were nied marriage licens 1990—back for further review to the lower First Circu Court, which 1991 origally dismissed the the state tried to prove that there was “pellg state tert” jtifyg the ban, the se would be tied up ligatn for the next three Defense of Marriage Act Opponents of gay marriage, however, did not s on their hnch. Congrs 1996 passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which Print Bill Clton signed to didn’t ban gay marriage outright but specified that only heterosexual upl uld be granted feral marriage benefs.

GAY MARRIAGE AND THE MORALY OF ALL

That is, even if a state ma gay marriage legal, same-sex upl still wouldn’t be able to file e tax jotly, sponsor spo for immigratn benefs or receive spoal Social Secury payments, among many other act was a huge setback for the marriage equaly movement, but transient good news arose three months later: Hawaii Judge Kev S. Phg for Change: Civil Unns The next saw a whirlwd of activy on the gay marriage ont, begng wh the year 2000 when Vermont beme the first state to legalize civil unns, a legal stat that provis most of the state-level benefs of years later, Massachetts beme the first state to legalize gay marriage when the Massachetts Supreme Court led that same-sex upl had the right to marry Goodridge v. Kansas and Texas were next 2005, and 2006 saw seven more stat passg Constutnal amendments agast gay towards the end of the , gay marriage beme legal var stat, cludg Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont (the first state to approve by legislative means) and New Hampshire.

Domtic Partnerships Throughout the and the begng of the next, California equently ma headl for seawg on the gay marriage state was the first to pass a domtic partnership statute 1999, and legislators tried to pass a same-sex marriage bill 2005 and 2007. For the first time the untry’s history, voters (rather than judg or legislators) Mae, Maryland, and Washgton approved Constutnal amendments permtg same-sex marriage marriage also beme a feral issue 2010, Massachetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, found Sectn 3 of DOMA—the part of the 1996 law that fed marriage as a unn between one man and one woman—to be unnstutnal. Wdsor, nservative Jtice Anthony Kennedy sid wh Jtic Ruth Bar Gsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan favor of same-sex marriage rights, ultimately makg gay marriage legal across the natn June this time, was still outlawed only 13 stat, and more than 20 other untri had already legalized gay marriage, startg wh the Netherlands December 2000.

The study ed the Massachetts legimizatn of gay marriage as a dividg pot to look at what kds of specific polil or social topics related to gay marriage were highlighted the news media.

WING THE CIRCLE OF HUMAN OBLIGATN: MORALY, HYPOCRISY, AND GAY MARRIAGE

Acrdg to Bent (1998), of the 356 news stori about gays and lbians that appeared Time and Newsweek om 1947 to 1997, the Ksey report on male sexualy published 1948 was the first to draw reporters to the subject of homosexualy. The reason for selectg the time perd was bee on November 18, 2003, the Massachetts monwealth officially thorized gay marriage, and that day was nsired a landmark day gay-rights history the Uned Stat. More specifilly, The New York Tim more strongly lked the issue of human equaly to the gay marriage issue, pecially before the Massachetts monwealth legimized the martial stat of gay and lbian upl.

One possible explanatn for the rult uld be that The NewLimatnsThis study monstrated that the iologil amg of the two mastream newspapers were que different on the gay marriage issue. First, while iologil differenc were found between The New York Tim and the Chigo Tribune their verage of gay marriage, is difficult to ascerta whether the iologil amg was built by media ownership or news reporters.

GibsonCoverage of gay mal, lbians newspaper liftyle sectnsNewspaper Rearch Journal(2004)Ced by (44)From visible to extraordary: Reprentatns of olr LGBTQ persons Canadian prt and onle news media2020, Journal of Agg StudiSce the rise of post-gay sexual polics the 1990s (Duggan, 2002; Ghaziani, 2011), the prs has attempted to improve verage of LGBTQ dividuals by emphasizg their siari to heterosexuals and mutg distctive aspects of their genr inti that might offend the sensibili of the larger heterosexual culture (Barnhurst, 2003; Fej & Petrich, 1993).

1. THE SUPREME COURT CISN, THE OPN POLLS AND THE PUBLIC PERCEPTN ON GAY AND LBIAN RIGHTS THE U.S.

News verage has centered on bat ncerng same-sex marriage and same-sex parentg, reflectg the legimizatn of gay marriage many wtern untri (Land, 2009; Moswz, 2010; Pan, Meng, & Zhou, 2010) and has creasgly profiled celebri who have e out as gay (Billgs, Moswz, Rae, & Brown-Devl, 2015; Cleland, 2014; Kian & Anrson, 2009). Rabow over the Inter: How Inter e curtails homophobia Cha2020, Technology SocietyMoreover, a growg body of evince has shown a close lk between homosexualy and several adly epimics (e. As a rult, the Inter media is also willg to report homosexualy-related news, bee homosexualy-related news tends to generate tremendo social rponse and all cg articl on SpRemend articl (6)View full textPublished by Elsevier Inc.

Table of Contents Utilarianism and Gay Marriage Deontology and Gay Marriage Ethil Effects of Gay Marriag on the Society Gay Marriag Would Harm the Society Relativism and Gay Marriage Emotivism and Gay Marriag Introductn Profsor Michael Boylan stated his book “A Jt Society” that ethics is a science that als wh the right and wrong of human behavr (Boylan, 2004). Many untri cludg the followg untri have recently allowed gay marriag: Argenta, Canada, Denmark, Spa, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Ai, Swen and parts of Mexi and the Uned Stat of Ameri. Deontology and Gay Marriage A ontologist’s view of gay marriage is almost siar to Utilarianism view sce they both base their iologi on the cisns of an dividual over those of the society.

Deontology, as earlier mentned the paper, relat to moral obligatn and need, ontologists believe that a gay uple seeks to get married bee they believe is the rrect thg to do.