Marriage is a commitment that two people make when they love each other so much that they do not want to go a day without waking up to their partner’s voice. This is something that almost everyone wants, and even those people who want nothing to do with marriage, have the option to get married. That is, as long as they are not gay. As of May 2008, only five states have legalized same-sex marriage. This means that only five out of the fifty states in the United States see gay and lesbian couples as an equal part of society. Hopefully, alienating gay and lesbian couples from the rest of society was not the intent of the twenty nine states that have banned gay and lesbian marriages. However, purposefully or not, banning gay marriage just makes gay marriage look abnormal, and makes those people in same-sex relationships underappreciated. The first state to legalize this revolutionary idea of matrimony was Massachusetts on May 17th, 2004, and since Iowa, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Vermont have jumped on the same-sex bandwagon. Same-Sex Marriage should be legalized everywhere to prevent people from feeling underappreciated, discriminated against, and denied their basic constitutional rights.
Everyone wants to be an equal part of society; no one wants to feel lower than any other person, or underappreciated. When people are denied the right to get married based on their partner they feel like their dignity and acceptance is gone, this is exactly what is happening to same-sex couples. It is true that “the dignity of persons in same-sex relationships is violated by the exclusion of same-sex couples from the institution of marriage.” (Brown 83). Getting denied the right to get married embarrasses same-sex couples, and causes them to feel underappreciated. To try and escape the laws preventing it, some same-sex couples go to Canada to be wed. In Canada, you do not need residency to get married, because of this, many American same-sex couples go to Canada to wangle marriage. Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada, “dozens of Americans have crossed the border to register and exchange vows, hoping that one day their Canadian licenses will be recognized back home” (Brown 83). Same-sex cannot get married in the majority of the United States, as to feel like they “fit in” better, they escape to Canada to be wed, like any other couple has the opportunity to do in their own town. Throughout the history of the world, groups of people have been discriminated against; however the conditions for these groups have been improved. This is not the case for same-sex couples wanting to get married.
Discrimination is the mistreatment of a group of people because of their differences. This is exactly how people are treating same-sex couples when they say that they cannot get married due to their sexual orientation. There are even laws that try to prevent same sex couples from becoming wed, “the U.S. Congress passed and Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996” (Newton Same-Sex Marriage). The act should have been called the Discrimination of Marriage Act, because that is exactly what it did, it discriminated against the gay and lesbian couples looking to get hitched. The act also limited marriage to one woman and one woman; it also said “no state would be required to accept the validity of a same-sex marriage, civil union, domestic partnership, or other entity accepted by another state” (Newton Same-Sex Marriage). The act was basically an open invitation to discriminate against same-sex couples, and deny their choices.
Only in a few states are same-sex couples able to capture the distant light that is marriage. In The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States of America, it says; “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (Newton Same-Sex Marriage is Already Legal). In a nut shell, the Amendment states that no citizen shall be denied their equal rights, so denying same-sex couples the right to attain marriage is not only discriminating against them, but also saying that they are not citizens of the United States. There have been many legal documents that are trying to prevent same-sex marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is one of those documents. Newton paraphrases one of the sections of this act as; “no state would be required to accept the validity of a same-sex marriage, civil union, domestic partnership, or other entity accepted by another state” (Newton Same-Sex Marriage). This act discriminates same-sex couples, saying that even if they were to get married, any state would not have to acknowledge their matrimony. Outlawing, or even refusal to acknowledge, same-sex marriage is clearly denying those couples their constitutional rights.
If same-sex marriages are not legalized then same-sex couples will feel underappreciated, discriminated against, and denied their basic constitutional rights. Marriage is about love, not about sexual orientation. When two people love each other so much they only want to be with that person for the rest of their lives, and want it to be acknowledged legally and socially, they get married. So preventing same-sex couples from getting married is like saying that they do not have the capability to love each other like a heterosexual couple does. This is clearly not true. Some disapprove of same-sex couples because of their religion; however, religious figure is required to wed any two people. There are so many people that do not want to get married, and many people who should not get married, but they are still legally allowed to get married, unless they are gay. Same-sex marriage may be a new and scary idea to some people, but at one point wasn’t freeing slaves, and giving women the right to vote a new and scary idea?















Works Cited
Brown, DeNeen. “Canada Leads North America in Gay Marriage Rights.” Gay and
Lesbian Families. Ed. Kate Burns. Tompson and Gale, 2005. 82-85. Print.
Newton, David. “Same-Sex Marriage.” Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society.

ABC-CLIO. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. <http://www.issues.abc-clio.com>.
Newton, David. “Same-Sex Marriage is Already Legal-Why is it Against the Law?”
Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society .ABC-CLIO. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. <http://www.issues.abc-clio.com>.