If two people of the same gender love each other, they should be allowed to marry, and that marriage should be respected just like any other. All the time we see loveless marriages between men and women; I think those devalue marriage more than anything.
According to What is Prop 8?, there are other consequences to losing Proposition 8. I think the government is sticking its foot in this too far and needs to back off.
Schools should not be teaching children about marriage. Marriage, outside of the government stuff like taxes and health-care coverage, is something for parents to teach their children. And parents should always be allowed to excuse their children from sex education.
Religions shouldn't be forced to accept gay marriage if they don't want to. I don't agree with the Pope's bigoted anti-gay speeches, but that's Roman Catholicism. People can choose what religion they belong to, so anyone who disagrees with a religion's beliefs can go elsewhere for their spiritual needs.
The US is all about separating Church and State. That's a big deal here. So stepping in and telling religions they have to accept gay marriage is all kinds of wrong. If a Church doesn't want to host a wedding ceremony for a gay couple, then the couple can find somewhere else to get married.
In time, hopefully, religions will come to see that gay people aren't the end of the world. But forcing that to happen sooner rather than later is not the government's job.
Allowing couples, regardless of gender, to get married is the government's job. Allowing gays and heterosexuals access to tax credits, health care, and other Benefits of Marriage is important. Making sure banks and hospitals and insurance companies and employers don't discriminate against same-sex couples is the government's job. But the morality of marriage is the territory of religion, and it's something for parents, not schools, to teach their children.
As for a same-sex couple adopting children... I have one qualm about this issue. If, for example, two men adopt a girl, I think for the most part they could do a fine job of raising her. But when she starts having girl problems, when she hits puberty and has issues with her menstrual cycle, neither of the two people raising her have actual life experience to share with her. When two women adopt a boy, and he has problems with spontaneous erections or nocturnal emissions, those two women don't have life experience to share with him.
But I'm not in a homosexual relationship, I've never raised children, and so I don't know how a same-sex couple would or should handle such situations. That's just the one problem I see with having a child.
So, I think the government should legalize same-sex marriage, but I don't think it should step in where religion is concerned. I don't think schools should be including the morality of marriage, same-sex or otherwise, in their curriculums.
Wasn't the whole point of the United States of America to protect its people without taking away their freedom? Isn't freedom of religion one of America's valued rights? And isn't the issue of the morality of sex and marriage religious domain?
The government seems determined to either go too far or do nothing at all.
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