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Legal Marriage

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Legalize Same-Sex Marriage in United States

Marriage, according to the Webster dictionary, is the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law. The Webster dictionary also defines same sex marriage in the same way. However, there are people do not agree and state that homosexual marriage should not be recognized by law. In Lisa Schiffren's essay, "Gay Marriage, an Oxymoron," she states that gay marriage presents a lot of problems to the society and that the ultimate purpose of marriage is to create and nurture offspring (554). However, Thomas Stoddard holds different opinions about this issue. In his essay, "Gay Marriages: Make Them Legal", he argues that marriage does not only have a symbolic meaning, but also physical purposes such as sharing spouse's estate, tax advantages and insurance benefit (551). All of these rights and privileges cannot be obtained if the marriage is not recognized by law. Unlike what Schiffren suggests, in Stoddard's definition, marriage only involves two people in love. They are not getting married because they want to have children. It is the couple's decision whether or not to get married and the government is preventing them to do so. Homosexual marriage should be legalized in United States because marriage is a decision between two people, religion should not be a factor in the decision of marriage, and there should not be any discrimination on homosexuality.

It does not matter in real life or in a fictional world; the ultimate step for a dating couple is marriage. Why cannot a gay couple get married like the heterosexual does? Stoddard presents that "marriage, the Supreme Court declared in 1967, is 'one of the basic civil rights of man'" (551). Therefore, all human, does not matter if they are homosexual or

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