By Katelyn Carney, Mora Downs, Erica Lizza & Anu Subramaniam
North Pointe
Grosse Pointe North HS
1st Place
Division 2, News Writing
News Analysis
Junior Sheldon Chavis is openly gay.
However, his future, along with the futures of many like him, rests in the hands of indecisive state governments.
“I want to be able to get married to the one that I love when I grow older,” Chavis said.
After a Michigan same-sex couple sued the state for shared parental rights of their adopted children, their suit expanded, causing courts to reconsider the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage.
In June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that lawfully married same-sex couples should receive the same treatment under federal law. They repealed the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
Following the decision, nine states ruled their bans on gay marriage unconstitutional. The suit in Michigan was filed by April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse for shared parental rights of their three adopted children.
“They were initially suing under to get the ability to adopt each other’s children,” Gay-Straight Alliance adviser Daniel Gilleran said. “It morphed into this whole idea of gay marriage in Michigan because if they were legally married, they wouldn’t have to jump through these extra legal hoops in order to get that done.”
In the past two months, four states have legalized gay marriage. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia recognize same-sex marriage, while 33 states still have the ban.
“You look in the last 12 months, and seven states have said that the gay marriage ban is unconstitutional. They just did it yesterday (Feb. 26) in Texas, and the judge said that it was unconstitutional. Arizona, the governor just vetoed last night (Feb. 26) the measure that would have allowed religious freedom for private companies to discriminate against anybody who was gay,” Gilleran said. “I mean, clearly, there is a huge generational difference between the people that think gay marriage is okay and ones that don’t. Sixty-five and older: mostly against it. Twenty-five and younger: people who are for it. It’s just a matter of time before it gets overturned.”
A growing number of Americans favor legalizing same-sex marriage. A recent poll conducted by the Washington Post/ABC News shows that 58% of Americans feel that gay marriage should be legalized. This result shows a 14-point increase from 2004.
“I think that the world is evolving, and we’re becoming more accepting and just realizing that because someone loves someone of the same gender doesn’t mean they are bad or an unhealthy person. It just means that they’re different,” Chavis said.
Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed in the poll thought gay marriage should be banned. Senior Jack Marone and other opponents of legalization agree. He sees it as a religious issue.
“There’s this thing, it’s like 2,000 years old. It’s called the Bible. If you want to be gay, that’s cool, but I don’t think it’s right to be married in church,” Marone said.
A part of the spectrum also includes those who are indifferent towards the legalization of gay marriage. Six percent of respondents did not choose a side in the survey.
“It wouldn’t make a difference to me because I’m not (gay). If people are happy that way, then I think that it should be legalized, but it wouldn’t make that much of a difference in my life,” junior Zach Backer said.
The original focus of this trial was same-sex couples’ adoption rights. The suit was filed for couples to gain joint custody. Currently, same-sex couples must adopt their children separately, meaning that if one parent dies, the other one could lose custody of the children.
“I feel it could help gay adoption a lot because there are problems. You can’t have a same-sex couple adopting one child. You have to have one parent adopt; I feel if you would let a same-sex couple adopt a child, it would make the parents’ and the child’s lives a lot easier,” Chavis said.
Marone disagrees. He thinks having gay parents could have a negative psychological effect on kids.
“It’s just a breeding ground for making their kid homosexual. It confuses them. You can’t have a kid growing up with two dads or two moms. I just do not agree with gay marriage,” Marone said.
The plaintiffs have called Nancy Cott, a Harvard professor specializing in gender and sexuality, to the stand, along with a sociologist, psychologist and law professor to testify about the psychological effects that having same-sex parents can cause. Cott and the other witnesses called by the plaintiffs feel the children are raised to be more accepting members of society, while the state will call their first witness this week to testify, supporting their position that having both a father and a mother is optimal for a child’s well-being. It will be up to presiding judge Bernard Friedman to rule on the constitutionality of Michigan’s ban on gay marriage.