The social issue of gay marriage gained national importance over this last year. We heard the reasons behind positions held on both sides of the aisle. On the one hand, some opponents to gay marriage said that they were interested in keeping marriage “sacred between a man and a woman”. On the other hand, we had proponents and advocates saying that gay couples should have the same rights as straight couples. I’d like to address this issue using simple algebra, to show that ultimately allowing gay marriage rights is merely another dissolution of inequality between men and women. That is, allowing gay marriage to be legalized further illustrates that men and women are equal. We can say “It’s about gay rights” or “It’s about straight rights”, or even “It’s about religious rights” — but I prefer to say “It’s about equality between men and women”. Let’s look at the math here:
If a couple is mathematically nothing more than a sum of two variables (we’ll call them A and B, where A represents a female and B represents a male), then marriage can be described by the following:
A + A, B + B, or A + B, where the latter is a traditional marriage.
According to gay marriage opponents, neither A + A nor B + B can equal A + B, therefore A is not equal to B.
This implies that men and women are not equal. You will hear a lot less about this issue from a “sexual” discrimination perspective as opposed to a “sexual orientation” discrimination perspective, but clearly opposing gay marriage is also a sexist position. Just look at the math folks. The numbers just don’t add up for those opposed to gay marriage, especially if those individuals also claim to promote equality between the sexes (many don’t I’m sure, but I’m also sure that at least some people out there do in fact believe that they are not sexist, yet oppose gay marriage). I find it surprising that gay marriage rights are still being fought over after we as a society have come as far as we have. We examine issues like slavery, voting rights, civil rights, etc., and see that the idea of inequality leads to dangerous outcomes. Haven’t we triumphed over these issues? Why are we still fighting over rights that seem so obviously inalienable and universal? Rights that maximize happiness by allowing every unit (be it a single person or a couple) to be treated equally. Perhaps some people in this country simply need to re-examine their math skills.
The Open Mind 