Legalizing Gay Marriage

Her family wasn't there for her when she needed them most. Imagine yourself in that situation: You have lived with your family all of your life, and then one day you are exiled from your home and abandoned by your loved ones, simply because of your sexual orientation. Why would anyone choose to endure this? Clearly no one would choose to be forsaken by his or her family.
             Another piece of evidence that denies homosexuality as being a choice is the occurrence of homosexuality in wild animals. Some species of insects, birds, and mammals, along with hundreds of other species of animals frequently exhibit exclusively homosexual behavior in the wild. Surely these animals are not making a conscious decision to be homosexual. Homosexuality is not a chosen trait; it is genetic, and no one has control over his or her sexual preference, and because of this, a homosexual individual should have just as much of a right to marry someone of the gender that they are genetically encoded to be attracted to as anyone else.
             In the US, only five of our fifty states allow gay marriage. The other forty-five have laws that ban same sex couples from being married. This completely goes against the ideas and human rights that our nation stands for. In the years between 1848 and 1920, women all across our nation fought for equal rights seeking the same representation and suffrage as men. Then between 1955 and 1968, African Americans fought for racial equality during the Civil Rights Movement. Both groups eventually succeeded in gaining the rights and equality that they fought for and so desperately wanted. Today, the idea of telling someone that they can't vote simply because of their gender, or that they can't attend a certain school because of their race seems outlandishly antiquated and is considered one of the dark corners of our nations past that we eventually overcame as a people. The progression our nation has made towards universal equality over the last 150 years has been great, and has brought us closer and closer to nationwide unity and peace.