Gay Marriage Should Continue Be Legal

I believe that gay marriage should continue to be legal, at least in the United States. First round is acceptance and opening arguments.Arguments ForOf course, the strongest argument for marriage equality is in fact equality. The United States was founded upon this very principle of equality between all people. Most laws in the Western world are designed to be inclusive and protective of all, so it makes little sense to deny a group of people the legal protection and support that a marriage provides.A simple application of the Golden Rule works wonders, do onto others as you would wish to be onto you. If a legal heterosexual marriage is what you personally wish for, why not wish for others to be allowed to marry as they so wish too. If homosexuality was made illegal, that means that if homosexuals would be forced to marry people of the other gender is they wished to be married. Imagine the opposite situation, where heterosexuality was made illegal and males were forced to marry males and females were forced to marry females. Most of us would definitely dislike being forced to marry someone you don't love.Anticipated ObjectionsTo begin, I must ask, why would someone not want it to be so? Why would someone wish for their marriage to be legal and not wish the same for others? The answer is almost always the same; religion. Since the U.S. is primarily Christian, I will argue against that position, though I must admit the problem is much worse in Islamic countries where gays get thrown off of rooftops. What reason should the United States, with a secular constitution with a separation of church and state, should respect a single religion's wishes? If we did, that, we are in violation of the first amendment to the Constitution. And one must ask which denomination of Christianity should we follow. How about Mormonism, which still has some sects who practice polygamy? And what if Christianity is no longer dominant, we are stuck with Sharia law or such. All these problems could easily be avoided by just following the Constitution. To add to this, Jesus never made any mention of homosexuality, whatsoever. To get justification for being anti-gay one must go to the Old Testament into the book of Leviticus (the one about not eating bacon or shrimp) or into the words of Paul in Romans. Why should the infidels of the country follow someone else's Holy Book?So right now, there are approximately one gazillion books on the market about God's perfect plan for marriage, which spoiler alert, is about one man and one woman. But of course, one must ask who in the Bible actually follows this plan. Not Abraham, not Jacob, not Moses, not Sampson, not David, nor Solomon(700 wives and 300 concubines), nor Jesus(0 wives). There's a joke among atheists/agnostics where someone walks into the room saying they need biblically mandated marriage, and everyone then agrees with them and then immediately asks where are their concubines. One of the few groups of people who actually follow this divine plan is Adam and Eve, and what choice did they have? How about that homosexuality is unnatural? Not only is this objection not true, due to homosexuality being abundant in the animal kingdom like how 1 in 10 sheep are homosexuals(and you can't really blame it on an animal's free will), that's also under the presumption that something being natural automatically makes it good. You wanna know what is natural? Mankind usually dying in childbirth, whether it be the mother or the child. Dying before the age of 30, usually because of their teeth. Disease. Getting slaughtered by the beasts of the wild. Just because something is natural, doesn't mean that it is good. You know what's unnatural? The computer you're reading this on. Trains, planes, and cars. Modern medicine. Video games. Air conditioningSome might say, well if we allow men to marry each other, what's next? Can I marry my daughter or my dog? This argument was proposed by many, including former Senator Rick Santorum. First off, this is a slippery slope fallacy. Second, the exact same could be said about voting during the women's civil rights movement. It didn't end up with dogs getting the right to vote, or drive cars. And just how the latter objection would make someone sexist, it is safe to say that the same could be said about the former making someone a homophobe.Some of the more fundamentalist variety have suggested that if we allow gays to marry, there be divine retribution. I must ask, what evidence is there for this? One can just cite the example of Jerry Farwell blaming abortion, homosexuality, and feminism for the 9/11 attacks while there were still people buried under the fiery wreckage as an example of this principle going to fare. This is, of course, ignoring the actual cause, hijackers (additionally if God did cause these attacks, this may violate free will) Or how some Rabbis blamed a lack of adherence to the Sabbath for the Holocaust. If there is any correlation to sin and natural disasters, we should very well know about it. Las Vegas is perfectly fine right now and hasn't had any significant natural disasters in years. There is also the events of Boobquack, where women dressed scantily for the very purpose of seeing if it would cause an earthquake (it didn't). One might also ask why can't God communicate in a more effective manner than sending disasters causing harm and putting it in charge of fallible humans to interpret his message.Sourceshttps://www.newscientist.com...http://abcnews.go.com...