Finding common ground Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Finding common ground - Essay Example Both its proponents and opponents are very vocal about their respective points of view. Some headway has been made as regards this issue within specific states in America. However, the jury is still out on certain contentious issues regarding this matter. These include matters such as; who has the right to define what a marriage is, should a judge decide on such matters, or should this decision be left to the public through a popular vote. In the Newsweek article by Anna Quindlen, the author starts by recognizing the significance of the ruling in Loving v. Virginia which stated that interracial marriages were not illegal as had earlier been ruled. Before this, it was considered a crime to be party to interracial marriage and Mr. Richard Loving and his wife Mildred Jeter were accused of miscegenation (Quindlen, 1). The Supreme Court ruled that marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man and cannot be denied on the basis of race. In this article the author who is a proponent of same sex marriage argues that in most cases the decision against same sex marriage are influenced by the financial factor and in most cases religion is only used as a scapegoat for the rejection of same sex rights(Quindlen, 2). The author argues that by continuing to refuse to legally recognize unions between individuals of the same sex, there are benefits that are being forgone such as the ability of these couples to adopt children and give them a better chance of advancing in life. The author also scoffs the notion that allowing homosexuals to adopt children will distort the image of marriage in the eyes of these children, arguing that heterosexuals have already done this on their own without much help from the gay community (Quindlen, 4). In the second article titled Interracial Marriage: Slippery Slope? By La Shawn Barber, the author argues that the decision in Loving v Virginia was totally justified and cannot be compared to gays demanding for the right to marriage (La