Marovich, Pete . Pro same-sex marriage activist Ryan Toney, 18, of Washington, D.C. stands in front of the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. 2013. Photograph.
This is 18-year-old activist Ryan Toney of Washington D.C. Ryan is standing in front of the Supreme Court showing his support for legalizing marriage between people of the same sex.
Marriage matters to gay people in the same ways that it matters to everyone. Same sex couples want to get married to make a lifetime commitment to the person they love and to protect their families.
Marriage says, “We are family” in a way that no other words can. Marriage is one of the few instances where people make a public promise of devotion and responsibility to each other and ask their friends and family to join in the celebration of their love. A main source of the conflict in this issue is the fact that religious America is not taking individualism as a key factor in this equation. Rather, those who are stuck on religious ideologies of the past only account for humanness, but in today's growing society it is so crucial to the human condition that individualism is not compromised. Who you are able to marry constitutes largely who you are as a person, and the freedom of choice in issues such as this defines American nationality.
