Same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriage should have never been illegal.

Examining same sex-marriage in a more precise manner, one major question can be answered: Who gives the general public the right to decide who can and cannot share the love for one another? The answer is quite simple: No one has the legal authority to decide that. This is America, the place where you can live free and enjoy all the rights you have as a human being.

Instead of putting our minds together to brainstorm solutions to combat unemployment, bring our troops back from war, lower our poverty rate, and strengthen our economy, we’ve dedicated a substantial amount of time arguing about who has the right to love another person.

Rather than fight for gay rights, we must stop segregating one cause over the other and fight for equal rights for all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnic background, sexual orientation, etc.

America is supposed to be the place where you have many rights and the freedom to express yourself for who you are, not what you are. We need to continue to embrace our citizens while remaining quick to offer a helping hand, even if it is to just listen to a person.

For those who object to the legalization of same same-sex marriage due to religious reasons, you are within your right. However, one must not forget that religions were curated by people. Those texts were written by people, based on their view of certain issues.

In terms of religious freedom, religious organizations and churches can object to marrying same-sex couples. An infringement upon these entities would be a violation of their religious freedom. However, any local, state or federal employee tasked with marrying citizens, does not have the right to object to signing a marriage certificate.

If the person issuing the marriage license objects to marrying a same-sex couple, there would clearly be no separation of church and state. Most recently, Kim Davis, County Clerk of Rowan County, Ky., objected to issuing same-sex marriage licenses. While she is a public employee, she doesn’t have the right to pick and choose who she would like to marry.

If she were a pastor of a church or religious organization, she most certainly could have objected marrying a same-sex couple.

Rather than create a firestorm of criticism and attention to this specific matter, all Davis had to do was ask another public employee, one with the same qualifications, to issue marriage licenses to same- sex couples seeking marriage. Same-sex marriage shouldn’t be looked at any differently than traditional marriage. The only difference is that this form of marriage involves two people that are the same gender.

The quicker we as a nation end discriminating and judging our fellow citizens, the sooner we can dedicate more time and effort on making our world a better place.

In the words of President John F. Kennedy, “In giving rights to others which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves and to our country.”

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