Annotated Bibliography

Article 1:

Kristina Nwazota argues that the reason gay marriage is not legal is people’s religious beliefs and theory of marriage being between a man and woman. She claims, “To many Americans, marriage represents a cultural and religious institution and not just a legal debate.” Nwazota develops this claim by quoting Bush, former president, and Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader. Nwazota’s purpose was to explain about the legal debate on gay marriage to show how religion is a huge part in the debate.  

This work is significant because it shows how religion has a huge impact on people’s perspective towards same sex marriage. It has quotes directly from a former president admitting that the reason why he did not agree with it was because he believed marriage was between a male and a female. It also mentions of a case where a lesbian couple, who had been together for 16 years and were raising a daughter, sued the state for refusing them to get married.  

Article 2:

Gary Langer states that over the years gay marriage has gained more support and has reached a milestone. He claims that more than half of the Americans believe gay marriages should be legal according to polls by ABC News and The Washington Post. Langer develops his claim by showing statistics to show that more people support it yet it is only legal in 5 states and the District of Columbia.

This work is significant to my research because it shows that more than half of the American population, 53% to be exact, believes gay marriage should be legalized. So if people believe it should be legalized then why is there only a small amount of states that make it legal for gay people to get legally married.

Article 3:

John Eligon states that Senator Roy J. McDonald, a Republican from Saratoga, stood up for gay marriage and is now a hero in the LGBT community. That caused him to lose support of many people including Elaine Gerber. Mr. McDonald is currently the second of the four republicans supporting gay marriage and loose supporters because of it.

This work is significant because it shows that there are political figures out there that do care about letting gay marriage be legal.  Republicans who do openly support gay marriage suffer consequences for speaking out but they do it anyway.

Work Cited

· Nwazota, Kristina. "The Legal Debate Over Same-Sex Marriage." NewsHour Extra. Aug. 21 2003: n.p. SIRS Discoverer. Web. 22 Mar 2012. <http://discoverer.prod.sirs.com.wf2dnvr9.webfeat.org/discoweb/disco/do/article?urn=urn%3Asirs%3AUS%3BARTICLE%3BART%3B0000174808>
· Langer, Gary. “Support for Gay Marriage Reaches a Milestone.” Abcnews.com March 18 2012 < http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/support-gay-marriage-reaches-milestone-half-americans-support/story?id=13159608>
· Eligon, John. "Republican Who Bluntly Backed Gay Marriage Loses Some Support Back Home." New York Times 1 Mar. 2012: A24(L). Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 29 Mar. 2012 <http://ic.galegroup.com.wf2dnvr15.webfeat.org/ic/ovic/NewsDetailsPage/NewsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=News&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CA281645443&mode=view>

Graph !(:

Standardized Total, Direct, and Indirect Structural Equation Coefficients on Support for Same Sex Marriage Stacked by White and African American. Social Science Quarterly. EBSCO. Thurs. 29 March 2012.

This image shows that the top two reasons why people are opposed to same sex marriage is because they are liberal-conservatives or because of their religion. This relates to my topic because it answers my essential question, “How much of an impact does religion have on the perspective on people towards gay marriage?” It shows that the major reason why people do not want it to become legal is because they do not want anything to change or that they attend church, which means they have a strong religion whether it be Christianity or something else.

Sherkat, Darren E.de Vries, Kylan MattiasCreek, Stacia. "Race, Religion, And Opposition To Same-Sex Marriage." Social Science Quarterly (Blackwell Publishing Limited) 91.1 (2010): 80. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 11 May 2012.

Music Video !(:

"Today we get to present to you Shades of Purple, a video with a story of having the freedom to love whom ever one chooses despite gender, religion or sexual orientation." - Bye June

Memo #1

A significant amount of people have been with their partner for several years; however, as gaylawreport.com states, same sex marriages are only allowed in 6 states. The six states are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. Therefore, I ask, "Why isn't same sex marriage allowed in all 50 states?" Marriage should consist of love and how much a person cares about the other person; it shouldn’t just consist of the gender of the two people getting married. My hypothesis is that most people will agree with allowing same sex marriage regardless of their sexual preference and those who do not will say that religion is the cause of that.

I conducted my research on everyone that was willing to answer my survey. I chose everyone because same sex marriage laws do not involve just one age, gender, or race group. I think that not having a demographic harmed my data a little because I should’ve used an older audience for the reason that they can vote and decide whether the states should allow same sex marriage or not. Even though I do believe that the majority of people that will say yes, because they are more open minded, are under the age of 18, they cannot vote on controversial topics and future laws. However, they are the next generation and will soon be able to vote on topics like this.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtzjYMahvyB7dHdMZUp3N3pxZU1Td3ZRaHdYWFl6V0E#gid=0

I found that the majority of people do believe that the states need to allow same sex marriage. I also found that the people who are more open minded with same sex marriage and did not necessarily say "no" or "not sure" had a more in depth definition of what love is. For example, the people who said yes defined marriage as a commitment between two people who love each other more than anything else in the world and want to be together forever regardless of their flaws. However, the people who said “no” or “not sure” defined marriage as a commitment you make when you love someone and want to form a family with them.

I also noticed that the one person who said no was also the only person who said that religion was the reason they had said no.

I was correct with my hypothesis because out of 28 people, 24 said gay marriage should be legalized.  I was in fact surprised with the results because I thought more people would have said no but to my surprise only one person did and the other three put "not sure."  I conclude that if the majority of people responded that gay marriage should be allowed then it definitely should be.

I would like to explore an older audience and ask them what they think of the subject since they can vote and most of the people that answered my survey cannot. The question I would like to research next is how much religion affects people's perspective on gay marriage.

Work Cited

Alper, Gideon. “Gay Marriage Rights.” Thegaylawreport.com. 2012. 15 March 2012 <http://www.gaylawreport.com/gay-marriage-rights/>.

My Survey