Numerous Americans believe that gay marriages are prohibited by the word of the bible. One who also agrees with this notion is Pope John Paul II. In the past year, the Pope and the Vatican have released a set of guidelines to stop supporting gay marriage.

``This is a time in which there is no lack of attempts to reduce marriage to a mere individual contract, with characteristics very different from those that belong to marriage and the family, and that end up degrading it as if it were a form of accessory association within the social body,'' the Pope stated (The Associated Press 1).

The Pope advised Catholic authorities to stop consenting to these laws being made. Homosexuality has been a subject in the bible. It states that homosexual acts and passions are not permitted by God. A passage written in the New Testament, Romans 1:26-27:

m up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due” (Edmiston 1).

There is an alternative to marriage, which is known as a civil union. Currently, Vermont is the only state in the America offering a legal civil union. In a civil union, it guarantees “all the same benefits, protections and responsibilities under Vermont law that are granted to spouses in a traditional marriage” (Comparing…Unions 1). Attached is a map of the United States and the status of same-sex marriages.

Along with gay marriages comes gay adoption. Half of the states in America allow second-parent adoptions. This is where one partner can adopt the biological child of the other through a second-parent, stepparent, or domestic partner adoption. These procedures ensure that both partners are considered legal parents of their child (“Same-Sex Parenting” 1). Most people feel that gays and lesbians should not raise children because they would grow to be gay themselves and have other problems.

It is a “scientific fact is that children's health is endangered if they are adopted into households in which the adults - as a direct consequence of thei

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