Equality for Everyone

“Years ago we said it was wrong to have interracial marriage, look at us now. So how are we going to feel about our opinions on gay marriage down the road?” freshman Lauren Strohs said.

The world is evolving more and more every day; what used to be a country of racial discrimination and segregation is now being led by an African American president, technology is expanding to new possibilities and creating ideas for society, even our children are growing into a new era of things we would not have even thought about twenty years ago. All this change is occurring, and the world is becoming increasingly diverse, yet we still can not come to an agreement about legalizing gay marriage.

Homosexuality has been a touchy topic for decades upon decades, and for what reason? It is not like there are not openly gay people all over the world, and all those people are being accepted more than not. Half of all Americans support gay marriage, and in the U.S. Constitution it guarantees equal protection. Denying someone’s rights because of their sexual orientation is the exact same as racial discrimination, so who gave anyone the right to judge homosexuality?

A common argument as to why gay marriage is unconstitutional is that it “offends God.” People say the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin, and by all the protests and picket signs religious churchgoers believe it. That leaves people to wonder how many of those people that are protesting, actually are religious themselves? Are we really this old fashioned, America? Wake up, it’s 2014. Uniformity is a thing of the past, and embracing our differences is advertised all over the country. People should just bite their tongues and let others live their lives how they want to live it.

Gay marriage is also beneficial to the economy. If we have more weddings then we have more money, and it can also boost tax revenues. Political and world leaders are becoming pro-gay marriage, such as Obama and Pope Francis, which shows just how much our world is evolving and accepting what was originally discriminated against.

“If a person is gay and seeks the lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Pope Francis said.