Same Sex Marriage Term Paper - 3484 Words

Briana Philippi Dr. Don Mirjanian Honors 112 25 November 2014 Same-Sex Marriage Term Paper Throughout history, the United States and state legislatures have addressed a variety of controversial issues from civil rights to rules regarding the overall government. The most public debate that has been addressed nationally, and world wide, regards the legal aspects of same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage has been one of the most controversial topics of debate within the United States for the past several decades. Even though dictionaries define marriage as â€Å"the state or relationship being husband and wife† (â€Å"Marriage (traditional)†), consideration of the union between same sex couples has erupted over time. With its presence, both state†¦show more content†¦Although the same-sex marriage debate became public and nationally argued within the United States in 1993, it had existed prior to its eruption (â€Å"Same-Sex Marriage Laws†). Advocacy for same-sex marriage began in the late 1960s and the early 1970s in r esponse to the women’s rights movement, which wanted equal rights based on gender to be granted. Although the results were not polarized to one side, the court â€Å"began to take claims of gender-based discrimination seriously† but â€Å"balked at viewing race and gender in the same light† (Pierceson 41). With the failure to obscure the view of gender-based discrimination in accordance with race, the â€Å"advocacy for LGBT rights and same-sex marriage† generated and their â€Å"new way of thinking about gender† brought forth same-sex marriage activism (Pierceson 41). Same-sex marriage advocacy temporarily survived throughout the equal rights movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1970s, the Minnesota Supreme Court â€Å"rejected a claim to marriage rights by a same-sex couple† with the court case, Baker v. Nelson (Hull xiii). The court case became one of the first known cases in the United States regarding same-sex marriage. No t only did the appeal to the US Supreme Court for Baker v. Nelson get dismissed the following year in 1972, but state courts followed and ruled same-sex unfavorable within the Kentucky Court of Appeals in Jones v.