Introduction
Same sex marriage has become a polarizing issue in both state and national politics as well as religious platforms. In the United States alone, fourteen including California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Washington among others, states have legalized same sex marriages either through court decisions, state legislations or through popular votes. However, some other states such as Alabama, Arizona, Alaska, Kentucky, and Missouri among several others have banned same sex marriages by constitutional amendments and state laws, or constitutional amendments or state laws only. The polarizing views on gay marriages can also be witnessed on religious groups with some groups supporting the marriages, and other rejecting the same. The most recent controversial religious viewpoint on same sex marriage was witnessed when the newly elected Pope Francis challenged his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI on the same sex marriages. Pope Francis maintained that he is not God to judge the people involving in same sex marriages, which are considered to go against the conservative nature of the Catholic religion. On the same note, the United Church of Christ also affirmed equal marriage rights to all its followers notwithstanding their gender. However, the church does not permit its ministers to perform these marriages. While reviewing previously established literature on the issue of attitude toward gay marriages, this paper gives the insights of same sex marriages. In this paper, I will also provide my take on same sex marriages, and the religious as well as political views on the same.
African Americans, married parents without cohabitation experiences, and highly religious families have a negative attitude toward gay marriages, but whites, nonparents with cohabitation experiences, and less religious families strongly support gay marriages. The dependent variables in this research include religion, socio-cultural factors, political factors and race, while the independent variable is the gay marriages. The relationship between these variables will be discussed in the procedure section of this research.
Literature Review
In Gary Hicks’s article, he indicates that despite the fact that the issue of gay marriages did not necessarily influence the outcome of the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, it seemingly acted as an emotional and divisive issue among the voters (qtd. Hicks, 2011). Even though President Obama mentioned less of the gay marriages in his campaigns, he advocated for same sex marriages in his recent trip to the African continent. Hicks also asserts that considering the past battles in the American states to legalize or outlaw same sex marriages, there is no doubt that the battle of same sex marriages will continue to be played in American politics and courts (Hick, 2011), and I add that the same games have continued in religious sects. In his study, which surveyed more than 5,000 Americans, he sought to determine whether psychographic, demographic and lifestyle, and media usage had association with their attitudes toward gay marriages.
Nock and Wright (2008) also conducted another survey on the attitude toward gay marriage in the states undergoing marriage law transformation. This study, which also studied established literature such as those conducted by Elizabeth Loftus, found out that majority of Americans view same sex relationships as morally wrong. However, an increasing majority are unwilling to restrict the civil liberties of gay people (qtd. Nock & Wright, 2008). This research also reveals that the attitudes towards gay marriages have increasing grown to the negative and liberalism from the 1990s. However, over the past few years, active gay rights movements have reciprocally reshaped the public’s attitude toward an increasing support of same sex relationships.
Several factors can shape an individual’s perception and attitude toward gay relationships and marriages. The religious affiliation form the basic part of an individual’s view on gay marriages. People that fellowship in religious affiliations that support gay relationships are most likely to support or participate in the same. However, for conservatives such as Catholics like me were religiously brought up to have a negative attitude toward same sex relationships. Another contributing factor to attitude toward gay relationships is child upbringing and parenting styles. Parents that leave their children to make their own decisions at tender ages might lead to these children developing a positive attitude toward same sex marriages. However, parents that practice higher degrees of parental control usually help their children and guide them to develop similar attitudes that the former have on same sex marriages. Therefore, if the parents practice parental control and they support gay relationships, their children are likely to support the same, and vice versa. The cultural, social, and political interests as well as personal interest, and stake in marriage as an institution also influence the attitudes toward gay marriage. Research has revealed that African Americans have generally negative attitude toward gay marriage, and that they are more homophobic than their white counterparts are. Additionally, the African Americans and religious people support traditional and heterosexual marriages. However, the increasing nontraditional family structures poses a potential threat to many Americans who are concerned about the declining significance of traditional heterosexual marriage as a normative institution in the governance of intimate relationships (Brumbaugh, Sanchez, Nock, & Wright, 2008). According to the traditional marriages and the religious beliefs, marriage is an institution aimed at procreation; therefore, these groups generally have an increasingly negative attitude toward same sex marriages and believe that the special interest groups such as gay rights activists are using legislators and American courts to advance their agenda. Studies have also suggested that heterosexual married men have negative attitude toward gay marriage than the heterosexual women.
According to various researches that has been conducted in America on the attitudes towards gay marriages Hicks reports that the majority of these researches focus their study on the determinants of Americans’ attitudes toward gay marriages. These researches have concluded that the those who are younger, white, women, less religious, liberal, and Democrats are more likely to hold favorable attitude toward gay same sex marriages (2011). Hicks also established in his study that Americans’ opinion on gay marriages is associated with their moral attitudes, religious attitudes, attitudes toward gender roles, support for liberal-conservative ideologies, and support for gay marriages (qtd, Hicks, 2011). Hicks extended his study to develop on the effects of media on attitudes toward same sex marriages. He says that although there have been debates on the effect of mass media on gay marriages, most scholars generally have the same opinion that eh mass media, and especially news media such as televisions, can influence individuals’ learning of certain issues, and change their formation of attitude toward the specific issues. Hicks additionally quotes the agenda-setting theory in his study by asserting that despite the fact that the news media cannot tell their audiences what to think, they definitely shape the public opinion on specific issues, especially those that they see on the news media. According to the cultivation analysis, it is argued that media news such as television can either directly, subtly, or cumulatively influence the perception of their viewers of reality (Hicks, 2011).
Cohabitation has also been found to have an effect on the attitudes of Americans toward gay marriages. Generally, nonparents with cohabitation experience are most approving as their counterparts, who are parents without cohabitation experiences strongly oppose the gay marriages. Additionally, these studies have also revealed that the unmarried have more favorable attitudes toward same sex marriages compared to the married. Even so, of the married couples, people who report high attendance and affiliation to religion have stronger negative attitudes toward gay marriages than the married couples who report less of these characteristics. According to Jeffrey Dew (2009), he established that the effect of religion is best understood as an interaction between the dimensions of practice, faith, and belief. He further clarified that the variations of individuals’ attitudes towards cohabitation, early marriages and gay marriages also depend on their practice or attendance, and the importance with which they attach religion to their lives.
As a student, an African American, and a conservative Catholic, I strongly oppose gay marriages. During my childhood and upbringing, my parents ensured that they taught me the values and traditions relating to marriage as an institution. The church has also been instrumental in affecting my attitude toward the gay marriages. In my religion, we believe that the main purpose for marriage is procreation, which is definitely impossible in the gay marriages. Additionally, the founding laws of the state and nation only provided for heterosexual relationships. However, in the present times, legislators have used their influence in the reforms and courts to develop their agenda on same sex marriages.
Method
Participants
This study limited its research to the already established literature, which sample different populations as discussed in the procedure section. However, 500 college students were also questioned in this research study to test the aforementioned hypothesis. Of these students, 210 were males and the rest females, and with equal compositions of black and white races.
Material
The main materials used in this research paper include library sources, previous literature on the subject of the study as well as the findings of these researches. Additionally, this study reviewed some survey questionnaires that were already established by these previous researches. The students interviewed in this research were supplied with questionnaires to fill at their free time addressing their attitude toward gay marriages.
Procedure
This paper mainly used previously established research from previous researchers. Through reviewing previous literature, this research utilized five sources as discussed below. The first literature that was reviewed in this research is a research that was conducted by Gary R. Hicks, a professor in the Department of Mass communication in the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. In his research, Hicks used more than 5,000 American consumers of the media to study the connections between media consumption and the attitudes toward gay marriages. He predicted a positive by being less religious and liberal, supporting racial and gender equality, considering the television as the basic form of entertainment for the participants, willing to try anything once, reading blogs as well as watching political talk shows (Hicks & Lee, 2011). In a second study conducted by Steven Nock and James Wright (2008), they examined the attitudes toward gay marriages within the context of concern over the weakening of heterosexual marriage. These two researchers used information from a three-state survey conducted between 1998 and 2000, which was designed to explore the attitudes toward divorce and marriages. In their findings, Nock and Wright found that whites, women, and younger persons have greater positive attitude toward gay marriage than men, older persons, and African Americans. This study also revealed the differences in attitudes between nonparents with cohabitation experiences and parents without these experience, where they found the former to posses greater positive attitudes toward gay marriages than the latter. In their interpretation of the findings, these researchers concluded that vested interests in perpetuation of marriage as an institution, coupled with the Mixed feelings that result from the conflicts in the core values of the holiness of marriage against the valorization of individualism could be responsible for the formation of attitude toward same sex marriages.
The other literature that was reviewed in this paper is Jeffrey Dew’s research on the role of religion in adolescence for family formation in young adulthood. In his research, Dew examined the role of religion in shaping the subsequent families of adolescents. Family formation includes the type of people they would subsequently marry as well as their attractions and attitudes toward same sex marriages. While drawing data from the National Study of Adolescent Health, he explored the role of three scopes of religious life such as attendance, affiliation, and religious favor, and their translation to either cohabitation or marriage. The other articles reviewed in this study include Sexual experience and couple formation attitudes among emerging adults by Brian J. Willoughby & Jason S. Carroll, and the influence of union transitions on white adults’ attitudes toward cohabitation by Mick Cunningham & Arland Thornton. The latter two articles have discussed the issue of cohabitation, religion and marriage formations on young adults. The students interviewed in this research study also gave the same results with a higher number of religious and black students presenting negative attitude toward gay marriages as compared to their white and non-religious counterparts. Girls also supported gay marriages than the boys did.
Conclusion
Same sex marriages have become a polarizing issue in different platforms to include state and national politics, religion, and learning institutions. While some people support the idea of men marrying men, others believe that marriage is an institution that is meant for procreation purposes. Several legislators have also been noted to use their influence alongside the American courts to advance their agenda alongside. Around the 1990s, researchers established that the support for heterosexuality was increasingly higher than the same sex marriages. However, in the past few years, gay rights activists have greatly influenced the Americans’ attitudes toward supporting gay marriages.
Several factors have been associated with the attitude toward gay marriages. Among these factors, include religious beliefs, political ideologies, and socio-cultural factors. On the social and cultural dimensions, researches have established that whites, women, and younger persons have greater positive attitude toward gay marriage than men, older persons, and African Americans. While examining the three scopes of life such as attendance, affiliation, and religious favor, research has also revealed that religion has an impact on an individual’s perception of gay marriage. In my opinion, and considering my religious affiliation and cultural aspect of marriage, I strongly oppose gay marriages.
Appendix 1
The above table represents the results of the study conducted by Wright and Nock. The percentages in this research study provide generally universal results for most of the studies conducted on attitudes toward gay marriages.
References
Brumbaugh, S. M., Sanchez, L. A., Nock, S. L., & Wright, J. D. (2008). Attitudes Toward Gay Marriage in States Undergoing Marriage Law Transformation. Journal Of Marriage & Family, 70(2), 345-359. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00486.x
Willoughby, B., & Carroll, J. (2010). Sexual Experience and Couple Formation Attitudes Among Emerging Adults. Journal Of Adult Development, 17(1), 1-11. doi:10.1007/s10804-009-9073-z
Cunningham, M., & Thornton, A. (2005). The Influence of Union Transitions on White Adults' Attitudes toward Cohabitation. Journal Of Marriage And Family, 67(3), 710-720.
Eggebeen, D., & Dew, J. (2009). The Role of Religion in Adolescence for Family Formation in Young Adulthood. Journal Of Marriage & Family, 71(1), 108-121. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00583.x
Hicks R. G., & Lee T., (2011). An Analysis of Factors Affecting Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage: Do the Media Matter? Journal of Homosexuality. 58:10, 1391-1408, doi: 10.1080/00918369.2011.614906
