mahsa

Critical Review

Name : Harry(Hyung Ro) Youn
Course : Diploma of English Proficiency
Lecturer : John Rice
Due Date :27th Jun. 2012

Topic
Write a critical review of The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, Gay Marriage “Unnatural”. Sample Review Sheldon L.P. 1996, ‘Gay marriage “Unnatural”’, USA Today, December 9th

Gay marriage has become one of today’s leading social issues in the United States. The Rev.
Louis P. Sheldon defined gay marriage as “Unnatural” and claimed that nearly 80% of
Americans oppose of “homosexual marriage”. Of course, gay marriage is a physiologically unnatural combination in a racial preserve aspect. But, it is not a problem at all from the view of human rights. The author claims that homosexual marriage is neither culturally nor physiologically possible and it is a dead-end street without the cooperation of a third party due to extinction of generation. He satirizes that gay marriage is not programmed properly and there are hardware problems as well in cyber language. He explores the question of whether homosexuality is an immutable characteristic because there is no evidence for the claim that homosexuality is genetic, hormonal or biological from any school of medicine, medical journal or professional organization. He comments that homosexuals are the richest, most educated and most travelled demographic group although they are few in number. He believes that homosexuality is a behaviour-based life-style and presents the 1986 Supreme
Court decision of Bowers vs. Hardwick case for claim that gay marriage is not a constitutionally protected right. He does think that it should be reflected in state’s public school curriculum and homosexual marriage should be taught to their children as “abnormalcy”. To reinforce his views, he insists that churches may resist homosexual weddings and it may be used as a basis for denying them access to all kinds of government programs. And, Catholic churches were singled out by the city and denied aid for providing emergency shelter to the city’s homeless for resistance against homosexual “rights” ordinances. Sheldon asserts that “homosexual marriage” is an oxymoron, unnatural and against our country’s most basic standards. Finally, he reports that every reputable public opinion poll demonstrates that nearly 8 of every 10 Americans don’t accept the pretence of “homosexual marriage.” Although homosexual marriage is not generational, his claim is narrow view about marriage. The meaning of marriage is not limited on only preserving our species. Everyone has a right to pursue one’s happiness through living with a person whom one loved. Also, all mankind has the right to pursue one’s civil liberties. The only action that should be banned from doing is the action that causes harm on someone else, but homosexual marriage does not cause harm in many cases. We need to consider that we could not predicate homosexual to be behaviour-based life-style just because there is no recognition from any school of medicine, medical journal or professional organization that homosexuality is genetic, hormonal or biological. A questionable aspect of this article is that homosexuals are the richest, most educated and most travelled demographic group. The author should provide evidence to support his views.
Another questionable aspect of this article is that homosexuality is not a constitutionally protected right. Homosexuals are the citizens of the United States who obeythebasicdutiesof a citizen. Theypay taxes, obey laws, vote and educate themselves, etc. So, their right should be guaranteednot discriminated. According to the article 2 of Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration. This indicates that being homosexual should not effect on possessing the right of marriage and having family. His claim has no bases why homosexuality should be taught to children as the
“abnormalcy” and why churches stopped supporting for providing emergency shelter to city’s homeless. He looks like worrying that admitting same sex marriage will make homosexuality as kind of a trend and will be spread over people. And, it is questionable why churches used homeless people as sacrifices to against homosexuality. I could not find any relationship between homosexuals and homeless people. In a final shortcoming in the article, the author claims that ‘homosexual marriage’ is against our country’s most basic standard. He should explain in detail what standards are and how
‘homosexual marriage’ is against those. Despite these criticism, the author’s claim should not be criticized as a witch hunting. People against homosexuality and people supportive homosexuality just have different opinions. In my view, more systematic and comprehensive research of this issue is needed including the countries which legalized same-sex marriage before any firm conclusion can be drawn.