The Issue Of Same Sex Marriage - 1404 Words

The issue of same-sex marriage in America right now is convoluted since the political culture of each state varies. Marrying the person you love can be either effortless or unbelievably difficult— sometimes even illegal. Although it wasn’t openly spoken about, homosexuality was frowned upon in the United States. Some companies refused to hire people if they knew they were gay. Baker v. Nelson was one of the first court cases in which the legal system was challenged on the topic of same-sex marriage. The conflict originally took place in Minneapolis when Richard John Jack Baker and James Michael McConnell attempted to obtain a marriage license from Gerald Nelson, the Hennepin County District Court clerk. He denied their application because†¦show more content†¦They declared â€Å"only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this state† (Schulin, 2010). Those who are not given the rights to marry a person of the same-sex have important benefits wi thheld that come along with marriage. This is precisely what happened to Karen Thompson from Minnesota; her partner, Sharon Kowalski, was in a car accident in 1983 that left her brain damaged and quadriplegic. Thompson had to file appeals in local, state and federal courts in order for her to be able to legally take care of Kowalski. Kowalski’s parents, Donald and Della, opposed of their partnership and put her in a nursing home in 1985 with no visiting rights for Thompson. In 1991, she subsequently became the legal guardian for Kowalski. The director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, William Rubenstein, said it best: â€Å"...It took her seven years to do so, when guardianship rights for a heterosexual married couple would be taken for granted† (Lewin, 1991). The federal government’s delegated powers do not include the regulation of marriage in the states in accordance to the U.S. Constitution. However, President Bil l Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law in 1996. Section 3 of this federal law characterized marriage as the joining of only a woman and a man. It allowed states to deny the recognition of same-sex marriages that have been authorized in other states while only acknowledging the marriages of