Same Sex Marriage - Does It Threaten The Traditional Definition Of A Amily?
...Today, marriage is the most essential of all human relations, and stands as the most validating aspect of commitment that two individuals can undergo. The fusing together of two lives, marriage is seen as a sacred bond who's history is as old as mankind itself. In the past twenty centuries, the church and religion evolved from small cults to the most powerful empire in existence. Throughout the Middle Ages and surviving through the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the church experienced century after century of absolute ideological domination. This undeniable yet continuous presence of unmatched power brought about hundreds and hundreds of years of social structure which now many consider to be natural law'. According to Christian beliefs, marriage is the holy union between a man and woman with the goal to reproduce offspring.
The institution of marriage crosses realms from religion to the justice system, as the vow itself brings with it 38 laws between the two adhering individuals. (EGALE 2001). This, along with its social interpretation as the unity needed for a successful family upbringing, marriage can quite easily be considered the center of society and a right that all humans should one day hope to attain.
Throughout modern evolution of democratic society, the ability for minorities to attain political recognition as individuals with rights similar to any other citizen has been an ongoing battle. Keep in mind that as recent as forty years ago the African American minority battled strenuously for the reformation of civil rights and its need to reach every American citizen. In the United States of America, up until 1967 interracial marriage was considered morally heinous as well as illegal, yet after four decades of political acceptance, a couple differing in race is hardly considered abnormal.
Similarly, in the past generation the gay and lesbian...
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