Gay marriage and religion essay

Gay marriage and religion essay

Gay Marriage: Theological and Moral Arguments,Related Documents

WebOn gay marriage, however, religion still plays a very significant role with many Americans. More than a third (35%) cite religion as the top influence on their view of gay marriage. WebGay marriage is a right that should be open to anyone in any state. The constitution does not state that same-sex marriage is unethical. Many people see gay marriage as WebSocial conservatives are not only concerned about marriage, but also the rise of a gay and lesbian culture. Statistics suggest, however, that gays and lesbians are not increasing WebReligion stands on both sides of the issue, forcing the church to reexamine their views on sexuality, marriage, and LGBT acceptance. Rivals of same-sex unions have claims that WebJan 4,  · To them, marriage is a religious and traditional commitment and ceremony that is held very sacred by people. They contend that there is need to do everything ... read more

Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate Mathew: ". Why does religion place such an importance on a union of marriage? An answer is suggestively related as to why automobile and health insurance companies provide a discount on their policies when filing married. According to State Farm Auto Insurance, two married individuals are much more likely to accept upon themselves responsibility, maturity, and a longer healthier and more satisfying life. Insurance agencies believe your life will be more structured and meaningful, to provide you with a policy. Living alone or entering and departing unstable casual. Since the beginning of time there has been homosexuality and that has always led to a debate of opinions.

This topic is important to all Americans because so many different groups have a stakeholder position in this issue. Adoption agencies, health services, insurance companies and the wedding industry just to name a few. Many believe legalizing marriage for same-sex couples would not only change the meaning of marriage, but change society all together. On the matter of religion, homosexuality is a very sensitive topic and has been throughout history. This being, if the couple is in the same community, it facilitates their understanding. Also in the Muslim society, the honor of men depends of the virginity of women. Accordingly, to escape compromising the honor, they prefer to arrange the marriage. In India, as per the ancient and historical culture, tradition, customs and practices, marriages are considered to be made in heaven and celebrated on earth.

Marriage is a sacred or contractual relationship in India. Marriages are treated as highest form of social relationship. As to its legal consequences, both the persons are entitled to cohabit and legitimacy to the children born out of that legal wedlock automatically makes them their legal heir. The wife and children are entitled to be maintained during and after the dissolution of marriage. To avoid these obligations and to enjoy the benefit of living together, the concept of. In recent years, the debate over same-sex marriage has grown into a nationwide controversy, reverberating into the halls of congress, at the white house, in dozens of state and legislature and courtrooms, and in the rhetoric of election campaigns at both the national and state levels.

As the debate rages on, the American religious community remains deeply divided over the issue, and over the morality of homosexuality. The debate has grown from an issue that occasionally arose in a few states to a national and even worldwide controversy. The controversy of gay marriages increases in debate within the United States and continues to be a debate even in the political scene. Whether we approve or disapprove of gay marriages the United States courts may force many to follow the law even despite the fact it may jeopardize their religious beliefs.

I will summarize some of the key points from the essay, Let Gays Marry, by Andrew Sullivan, and the essay, Leave Marriage Alone, by William Bennett. Some of these main points are taken from mutual beliefs of both authors and others are derived from the opposing opinions of the two. Many people believe that America means equality and rights for everyone, but that is not necessarily true. Many people are still ostracized and discriminated against for things like sexual orientation. Such as being able to wed, being able to have children, being able to express affection in public, etc. Same-sex marriage, otherwise called gay marriage, will be marriage between individuals of a similar sex, either as a common service or in a religious setting. The term marriage correspondence alludes to a political status in which same-sex marriage and inverse sex marriage are thought about lawfully equivalent.

First I would like to address the fact that marriage today has really changed in America. Gender roles at home are more flexible. Gay marriage is legal and becoming socially acceptable. I believe men and women should be able to love freely and not be shamed by it. Marriage is a great factor in the United States. To not give everyone the same opportunity to have a happy marriage and family is unlike us. This problem is bringing a lot of hate, the same hate that was used in racial discrimination so why not give gays equal rights like everyone else. Andrew Sullivan wrote a article that shares his experiences of coming out and being accepted.

He knew that his marriage is not going to be the same as his. The United States is a country built on a number of ideals and institutions. The moral structure of many Americans today was developed by our ancestors and the founders of this nation through the institutions that were a part of their lives. Family, religion, marriage, equality, and justice are just a few examples of the important components that provide a moral basis for our country. If any of these elements were to become too mutated, the effects on society could be devastating. Right now in the United States, one of these building blocks of society is being threatened by the possibility of a negative transformation. The building block of marriage as the sacred. Essay Topics Writing.

Home Page Research Gay Marriage and Religion Essay. Gay Marriage and Religion Essay Decent Essays. Open Document. Although the gay marriage topic has been pretty hot this year and during the Presidential debate, it has been around for a while, but people tended to ignore it. In contrast, today the topic has gained national attention. While some privately-owned companies do indeed have the right to turn away people due to their sexual preference, it may not be the morally correct thing to do, no matter what your religious beliefs. An example of a gay discrimination case started in July , with the case of a Colorado wedding cake baker Jack Phillips, of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, who refused to bake cake for Charlie Craig and David Mullins, a gay couple who married in Massachusetts and wanted to have their reception party in Colorado with their friends and family.

Phillips refused to make them a cake on the grounds of his Christian religious beliefs forbidding gay marriage but told them they were welcome to purchase anything that was already made. Another case occurred in Kentucky. County Clerk Kim Davis declined to issue a marriage license to David Ermold and David Moore, a gay couple from Morehead, Kentucky, in August due to her religious beliefs. This resulted in her arrest and she spent a week in jail for contempt. As a result, the names of County Clerks were removed from Kentucky Marriage Licenses indefinitely. In conclusion, gay marriage is still a highly sensitive subject. Freedom of Religion and Gay Marriage.

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Fred Parrella, associate professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University, and Gerald Coleman, S. Patrick's Seminary, offered these remarks as part of a panel on Gay Marriage held Jan. It is a pleasure to be here with members of the University community today. It is a special pleasure to be with Father Jerry Coleman and my colleague, June Carbone. I was first going to call my comments as "A Straight Eye for Some Queer Guys," but I see that the name has been taken. While George Bush calls for 1.

One need only look at the recent one-day marriage of pop idol, Brittany Spears, and the shenanigans of "Benifer" about their on-and-off nuptials to realize that tradi-tional marriage between heterosexuals is in deep trouble. Social conservatives are not only concerned about marriage, but also the rise of a gay and lesbian culture. What has grown is a much greater acceptance of gays and lesbians in our culture, as well as the social and economic freedom for gays and lesbians to emerge from the closet that has confined them for so many generations. The recent addition of same sex commitment ceremonies in the Sunday New York Times wedding and engagement announcements and the popularity of shows as "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye…" indicate a shift in our culture's attitude toward gays and lesbians.

Let me share a brief personal note: I have been teaching Theology of Marriage at Santa Clara since In every class, for the past 20 odd years, I have invited a gay former student, Lee FitzGerald, to speak on gay relationships. My intent was two-fold: first to invite students into dialogue with people different from themselves; second, to work to eliminate, in whatever small way I could, homophobic attitudes on our campus and in our community. Lee's classes over the years have been uniformly successful and very worthwhile. The attitudes of Santa Clara students have evolved significantly in the last two decades vis à vis gay and lesbian relationships.

My purpose today is not to support or defend gay and lesbian marriages—indeed, many gays and lesbians do not want to marry—but simply suggest a theological approach that might open up the possibility for greater Christian acceptance of, and ecclesiastical approval for, same sex unions. Let me begin by suggesting a tentative definition of marriage, even if such a definition is, as my dear friend Ted Mackin said, "an elusive enterprise. Even the married find it so. In this definition, the unconditional element is most striking. Marriage is unconditional in two senses: first, the commitment is not conditioned by other commitments, no matter what they may be.

Such commitments include parents, friends, one's psychological needs, career goals, spiritual interests, sexual drives, addictions of any sort, and the like. Second, in the marriage relationship, both partners confront the unconditional dimension of life and find it deeply and profoundly personal. Marriage is exclusive in so far as everyone else is excluded from the innermost circle of intimacy, both sexual and personal, shared between the two partners—no one else has access to the inner heart and mind, as well as the body, of the partner in exactly the same way. For this same reason, marriage is also inclusive because all of one's life—one's finances, career, leisure time, friendships, relationship to family friends, even one's other so-called soul-mates—must be understood from the stand-point of, and in light of, the marriage commitment.

Put differently, the whole of one's life, history, successes, failures, hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows, are included in the relationship between two people. In defining marriage this way, I am also defining what Catholicism calls a sacramental marriage. For the Catholic tradition, marriage is a commitment between a man and a woman that is modeled on the commitment of Christ and his Church, on a commitment of unconditional love. Ted Mackin defines sacramental marriage this way:. This then is what it means for a Christian man and woman to live their marriage as a sacrament: that they find in one another's habitual attitude and conduct evidence of the presence of the Creator; more particularly that both believe, and rule their conduct by the belief, that they are held in existence by divine creation and that they are drawn to God by their love for one another and the intimate sharing that acts out this love; in short that they are instruments, willing instruments, of the Creator.

More particularly still, a man and woman live their marriage sacramentally if they believe that in loving one another they are responding to the Creator's call to intimacy with Godself, into a communion consisting of knowledge and love that begins in their lives this side of death but can continue through and past their deaths into unending communion with the divine life; [if they believe that this invitation to intimacy is at the same time the Creator's effort to rescue them from their sinfulness, their powerful tendency to protect themselves, to distrust the other's invasion of their privacy and freedom, and to stay closed off from intimacy, using one another merely for pleasure and security. This is just as true if the person is gay, lesbian, or straight.

Marriage offers us the ideal human setting for us to surrender our own self-importance and discover, through intimacy with another, the real heart and center of the universe in God—whether one uses the word God or not. This unconditional giving of one's self is at the core of a sacramental marriage in the Catholic tradition. My question is this: In the ideal order, what would prevent this sacramental understanding of marriage from being applied to two persons of the same sex in the same way these words can be spoken about a man and woman? One need not use the word "marriage," but the reality is the same. A gay or lesbian orientation is not a matter of choice but simply the way an individual is.

A person is born gay and lesbian and grows up this way; it is not a matter of decision, one possibility among others for the mature individual. The Pastoral letters of the Catholic bishops realize this fact. While it is not likely that official Roman Catholic theology will sanction same sex relationships in the near future, two significant changes have taken place in the last half century in our understanding of marriage. First , the concept of marriage has moved from a legal contract to a personal covenant between two people in the pres-ence of God. Marriage is rooted, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, in "the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. In marriage, the partners, as the Council says, also "render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and their actions.

Likewise, our understanding of family has broadened. In a statement, the Catholic bishops of Western Washington suggest that "whenever a relationship is formed based on mutual caring and interdependency, family is not merely a metaphor but the proper term to describe such a relationship. In this context, then, the possibility exists for a broader and more inclusive understanding of marriage and family. Such an understanding may ultimately include same sex relationships. The norm ought not to be gender but the quality or unconditional love and commitment that exists between two people.

If Jesus as God's face among us could reach out to the Samaritan woman at the well and promise her living water, I cannot imagine a God who would not be pleased by deep and intense love and commitment in any of its forms. For Jesus reveals a God who wants more than obedience to the law but a God who wants nothing less than our whole hearts and minds and souls. All that matters to God is what is in the hearts and souls that God has given to us and that we seek to give to one another. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Gina Kolata. Sex in America. A Definitive Survey. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, ; and Edward O. Laumann, Robert T. Michael, John H Gagnon, and Stuart Michaels. The Social Organization of Sexuality. Sexual Practices in the United States.

Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, Gay Marriage: Theological and Moral Arguments Home Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Focus Areas Religious and Catholic Ethics Resources Gay Marriage: Theological and Moral Arguments Theological and Moral Arguments. Ted Mackin defines sacramental marriage this way: This then is what it means for a Christian man and woman to live their marriage as a sacrament: that they find in one another's habitual attitude and conduct evidence of the presence of the Creator; more particularly that both believe, and rule their conduct by the belief, that they are held in existence by divine creation and that they are drawn to God by their love for one another and the intimate sharing that acts out this love; in short that they are instruments, willing instruments, of the Creator.

Same-Sex Unions, Marriage and Catholic Teaching A Context: Astonishing in today's "postmarital" scene with so many problems facing marriage: e. Central question: intimacy; loneliness; recognition by society? State of the Union Address, 20 January , President Bush: defend the sanctity of marriage, even if it calls for a constitutional amendment. Catholic insistence: one can uphold the dignity of homosexual people while not upholding their right-to-marry; no unjust discrimination towards homosexuals is acceptable; they must be treated with respect, and their rights defended. Marriage Proposed federal marriage amendment a basic repeat of the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA] : marriage is an exclusive union of a man and a woman joined together for: permanent, public, sexual, emotional, financial, and parenting "goods.

Is not: a voluntary union for life of two persons who love one another; the mere right to intimate relationships recognized on "parity" with marriage; a private choice. Advocates of same-sex marriage generally do not wish to undermine heterosexual marriage; but rather to be "included" and share in its benefits e. Marriage encourages stability over transient relationships; and ensures for the proper care for children. Marriage is the best place for nourishing children; an untested assertion that same-sex couples equal this "best place. Civil benefits are not given to individuals who are married, but rather to help establish a nourishing environment for children. It is parenthood in marriage that makes sex fully accountable.

A Theological Perspective John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio On the Family , from "the beginning" and "in the garden" God called a man and a woman to form a community of persons to serve life and society, and share in the mission of the Church. Sexuality is not merely biological but rather a means of creating a total human bond the una vita of Genesis. The crowning gift of this totality is the family, wherein couples become cooperatores Dei in the begetting and care for children: it is not good "for the man" to be alone: thus, "the other," and children. Marriage is thus more than a personal commitment; it is a community promise to beget a new community; marriage is never a private affair this is individualism which leads to the belief that the loss of sentiment toward the spouse equals the loss of the marriage.

A Catholic Perspective The belief in "men and women created in the image and likeness of God" intimacy and procreation is a bedrock Catholic teaching. Marriage is a "form of life" created and missioned by God, enabling one to leave home; cling to the other; and be fruitful. Conclusions: The relationship between male and female is an essential part of being created in God's image and likeness; it is not an accidental factor. Complementarity is at the heart of the sexual image: physical, moral and spiritual: oriented toward the good of the spouses and the family why Jesus raised the marriage of the baptized to a sacrament. The bonding of the male and female, whole in themselves, adds up to more than "one:" they enrich each other through their complementarity.

Heterosexual marriage is the most basic unit of society in its singular dimensions of consummation, difference, complementarity, and covenant. Focus Areas Sections Focus Areas Focus Areas Bioethics Business Ethics Campus Ethics Government Ethics Immigration Ethics Internet Ethics Journalism and Media Ethics Leadership Ethics Religious and Catholic Ethics Faith Formation Programmas En Espanol Social Sector Ethics Technology Ethics More Focus Areas.

Discussion on The Theme of Homosexuality and Religion,Gay Marriage In The United States

WebJan 4,  · To them, marriage is a religious and traditional commitment and ceremony that is held very sacred by people. They contend that there is need to do everything WebDec 3,  · One arguably controversial topic is “Gay Marriage”; it is debated so often because of the different views behind it. Gay marriage is defined as marriage between WebJan 2,  · Writers have coined the term “marriage” to be restricted to a religious context and that state and federal government should not be involved in the religious practice. WebGay marriage is a right that should be open to anyone in any state. The constitution does not state that same-sex marriage is unethical. Many people see gay marriage as WebSocial conservatives are not only concerned about marriage, but also the rise of a gay and lesbian culture. Statistics suggest, however, that gays and lesbians are not increasing WebOn gay marriage, however, religion still plays a very significant role with many Americans. More than a third (35%) cite religion as the top influence on their view of gay marriage. ... read more

A Catholic Perspective The belief in "men and women created in the image and likeness of God" intimacy and procreation is a bedrock Catholic teaching. Not Finding What You Need? Moreover, the definition of marriage does not suggest that it should only be an exclusive union between two people of opposite sexes. Catholic insistence: one can uphold the dignity of homosexual people while not upholding their right-to-marry; no unjust discrimination towards homosexuals is acceptable; they must be treated with respect, and their rights defended. Sign Up.

The term marriage correspondence alludes to a political status in which same-sex marriage and inverse sex marriage are thought about lawfully equivalent. A Catholic Perspective The belief in "men and women created in the image and likeness of God" intimacy and procreation is a bedrock Catholic teaching. Explore a persuasive essay about strengthening community handled by our tutors following the prompt provided. Marriage is a "form of life" created and missioned by God, enabling one to gay marriage and religion essay home; cling to the other; and be fruitful. Where do you want us to send this sample? Order unique paper.