Gay Marriage

I am a gay male residing in the Chicago land area.  It's great living in the windy city, there's a neighborhood that is marked off as a safe haven for people like me.  Everyone is accepted, everyone is equal, but once you walk outside those boundaries reality hits.  We live in a country that is named the land of the free, but why don't I feel I am truly free after I walk just one block outside of this neighborhood?

The United States may be a free country, but our law tells me who I'm allowed to love.  And love is an emotion that cannot be controlled.  It is a feeling so strong, that no matter what someone says or does, it won't be taken away from me.

How do I feel about gay marriage?  Let me start with marriage in general, I think it's a government regulated institution that has lost any, if not all, respect for itself.  Do I want a piece of paper that tells me I am bound to someone for the rest of my life?  NO I don't need it, my feelings alone are enough, but the government gives other rights to the spouse... so of course I want it.  Unfortunately, for me being gay, I am not allowed to have it in the state of Illinois.

I think that gay marriage should be legalized worldwide.  Seriously, let's not focus on the little state... Let's look at the big picture.  It's 2008 and we still don't allow people to be treated equally.  I am a legal US citizen, I pay my taxes, I do my part to help both the environment and the economy, but I'm not allowed to marry who I want.  That's ridiculous.  People in this country marry foreigners all the time just for the sake of keeping them from being deported.  That's bullshit.  Why isn't that looked at with a closer eye?

My whole life, I've always wanted to grow up, have a good job, a spouse that I love, children to take care of and a house in the suburbs to go home to.  Is that too much to ask for?

I'm sure now you're thinking about my thoughts on gay couples having children.  Well, I see nothing wrong with it.  Anti-equal rights people always say that a child growing up in a family with two fathers or two mothers is not healthy; they don't get a balanced life.  Um... what about children of divorced parents?  Some of them end up with two fathers AND two mothers. Many children grow up in a family with a single parent, they don't have the opposite gender parent to "balance their life" and they grow up to be just fine.  And orphans that don't get adopted,  they have NO parents, most of them end up alright. 

So why is making gay marriage legal so important to me?  It's not because I'm gay and I want the same thing the straight people want.  I just want to be looked at as an equal, not an outsider.