Good morning, everyone.
Today, I’m going to talk about a hot button issue in American politics the last several years, and that is the topic of Marriage Equality. I am talking, of course, about same-sex marriage. Only 8 states and Washington D.C. have legalized same-sex marriage. Another 30 states have state constitutional amendments that ban same-sex marriage by defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. I will hopefully show you that these bans are unconstitutional and should be repealed. So, let’s go through the Constitution and identify areas that support this argument.
First, coincidentally, we’ll look at the First Amendment; which I’m sure you are all familiar with. Perhaps the largest force opposing same-sex marriage is the religious beliefs of lawmakers and even the ordinary citizen. Religion, however, has no place in lawmaking thanks to the First Amendment which guarantees citizens have freedom of religion. This means that you are free to practice whatever religion you want to practice. Or, depending on how you look at it, we also have freedom FROM religion. That means you can practice whatever you want to practice, but you do not the right to impose your religious beliefs on anyone else. Therefore, religious views cannot factor into lawmaking. Lawmaking must be founded in logic and reason. So, the First Amendment guarantees that religious convictions cannot be used to ban same-sex marriage.
Second, well look at the Ninth Amendment which states that, “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Ok, what the hell does that mean? Simply it means that there may be other rights not specifically laid out in the Constitution.
What about marriage? Marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution once. So is it just a thing people do, or is it a right that is protected by the Constitution. According to the Supreme Court, marriage is a fundamental right. In the case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967, the Supreme Court unanimously established that marriage is a basic right of the People. This court case was about an interracial couple who married in Washington D.C. but resided in Virginia where miscegenation was illegal. The court’s opinion went on to state that:
“To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”
They cite the 14th Amendment in their reasoning that the anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. So now we will also turn to the 14th Amendment, specifically the second half of Section 1 which is called the Equal Protection Clause. It states that:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
This part of Section 1 establishes that rights cannot be given to one group of people while another group is denied those same exact rights. Denying same-sex marriages is a clear deprivation of a person’s liberty since marriage is, according to the Supreme Court, a basic right of man that is fundamental to society.
Not only is the right to get married being denied here, the estimated 1,100 federal benefits of marriage are also being denied as well. Some of these denied benefits include tax benefits, employment benefits, medical benefits such visitation rights if your spouse is in the Intensive Care Unit as well as making treatment decisions for your spouse if they are somehow incapacitated. I could go on and on. The point is, denying the right to marry and denying the individuals of a certain group the benefits that come with marriage is a clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
In conclusion, I just want to state that same-sex couples are not looking for a new right. Same-sex couples simply want to be given the same exact right opposite-sex couples now have. These same-sex marriage bans have some clear parallels to the anti-miscegenation laws that once existed in this country as well as racial discrimination as a whole. This kind of discrimination is rooted not in the color of someone’s skin, but by what kind of emotions they feel; something that cannot be controlled any more than the ethnic group you are born into. It is wrong, it is unfair, and I have argued that it is unconstitutional. Same-sex couples have existed throughout history, and they will continue to exist; trying to live the best life possible.
Equal rights are not special rights unless you’re the one who doesn’t have them.
Thank you.
The professor, who I knew beforehand would agree with me on the issue, said I did a good job delivering the speech without pressing emotional buttons, which is easy to do with a controversial topic. Also, a guy in the class who is going to a Christian college next year said I was very convincing.
You have to remember that this is a very conservative area, so I was very nervous giving a speech on this topic. Towards the end of my speech I accidentally let a "we" slip out when I should have said "same-sex", but I don't think anyone picked up on it lol.
We got our grades back the other day and I got an A on it! :D
