Homosexuality and the Right to Form a Family

Throughout history people who manifested an attraction for others of the same sex usually have gone through a lot of maltreatments, discrimination, and have often been regarded as “sexual deviants.” Relationships between people of the same sex have been present since the beginning of history. Their lives have not always been easy, because they have been persecuted and sometimes even forced to go through a psychiatric evaluation. At the same time, in order to gain their rights and dignity, they had to take their fight to the legal system because as George Chauncey, a professor of history at Yale University mentioned, “although most people recognize that gay life was difficult before growth of the gay movement in the 1970s, they often have only the vaguest sense of why: that gay people were scorned and ridiculed, made to feel ashamed, afraid, and alone” (290). However, discrimination and maltreatment were not the only reasons homosexuals had to take their struggle to the courts. An American professor of history at Yale University, who has testified in a number of gay rights cases, has exposed the ins and outs of the legal system in the second half of the twentieth century. During this time, a great number of states had created laws, which authorized the indefinite detention of homosexuals in mental institutions, and conditioned their release upon proving that they were cured from homosexuality (Chauncey 294). This past history, together with studies conducted by some prestigious institutions have lead society to understand that the right to homosexual marriage is economically, ethically, and morally correct, because it would benefit the economy and society by increasing the federal budget and creating a legal status for homosexual c...

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... of gay marriage has come a long way from where it started, but still needs to gain more support among the population in order to become a countrywide reality.

Works Cited

Badgett, M.V. Lee. "The Economic Benefits of Gay Marriage." PBS. Mac Neil/Lehrer Productions, 29 Mar. 2013. Web. 03 Dec. 2013.

Chauncey, George. “The Legacy of Antigay Discrimination.” Kennedy, Kennedy, and Aaron 290-294.

Hajela, Deepti. "New York Gay Marriage Benefits Lawyers, Counselors." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 July 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2013

Johnson, Ramon. "What They Aren't Telling You About Gay Adoption." About.com Gay Life. About.com, n. d. Web. 03 Dec. 2013.

Kennedy, X. J., Dorothy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron, eds. The Bedford Reader. 11th ed. Boston: Bedford, 2012.Print.

Pollitt, Katha. “What’s wrong with Gay Marriage?” Kennedy, Kennedy, and Aaron 570-572.