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Essay / Portrayal of Same-Sex Marriage Issues in the News Media
The great country of the United States of America was built on the idea of complete religious freedom. With this idea of religious freedom, America was also determined to be a nation without an official religion determining any laws in the land. This was called a separation of church and state. The idea behind this is that no religious belief will interfere with the law of the land. Although this is the legal status of the United States, in reality there is very little real separation between church and state, with Christianity and Catholicism having dominated politics for centuries. The topic I am going to talk about – same-sex marriage – is said in the Bible to not be a real marriage. In the eyes of the Bible, a marriage is between a man and a woman, period. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The fight for same-sex marriage began in 1993 when the Hawaii Supreme Court voted 3-1 that the State could not ban same-sex marriages. sexual marriage without a “compelling reason” to do so, before sending it back to the lower courts. Before the courts could decide the issue, voters passed a law called the Defense of Marriage Acts (DOMA), which banned same-sex marriages. Although a same-sex marriage has never yet been performed, this issue nevertheless prompted more than 40 states to adopt the same DOMAs in the following years. Ultimately, President Bill Clinton signed the law, which took effect at the federal level. In the following, this article will detail 3 distinct viewpoints regarding the controversy surrounding Kim Davis. Starting in 1999, states began to recognize that same-sex couples deserved the same rights as opposite-sex couples and began establishing "civil unions" which effectively gave them the same rights, without being called of “marriage”. As of September 2010, 30 US states have achieved statewide bans on same-sex marriage. Between 2003 and 2011, several states began supporting and legalizing same-sex marriage. Beginning in 2011, the United States Supreme Court took up the issue, announcing that a debate would take place on a bill to repeal DOMA. On May 9, 2012, President Barrack Obama publicly announced his support for same-sex marriage, becoming the first sitting president to do so. In 2013 and 2014, several hearings struck down the law on a case-by-case basis. Finally, in 2015, the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage by a vote of 5-4 in all 50 states. As of June 26, 2015, 19 of the 194 countries in the world currently allow same-sex marriage. This vote led to a political explosion between supporters of same-sex marriage and those who do not. This seemed to succeed in further dividing the nation into two distinct groups, which is the starting point for my topic of interest. Despite the nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage, about 40 percent of the country still strongly opposes same-sex marriage and same-sex marriages. sexual couples in general. One of the high-profile cases of officials refusing to issue marriage licenses belongs to a woman named Kim Davis. Davis, a Democrat, was from Rowan County, Kentucky, and was elected county clerk in January 2015, succeeding her mother. After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, Davis stopped issuing a marriage license to anyone in Rowan County, Kentucky. Kim Davis was forced to attend a court hearingregarding her refusal to issue marriage licenses, where she was told that she must comply with state law and continue to issue marriage licenses or, at least, allow other deputies in her office to sign the marriage records without his name. Due to her refusal to accept these conditions, she was held in contempt for 5 days before being released and yielding to her deputies' authorization to grant licenses to all couples and claiming that she will not intervene, but she will not have her name on the certificates. She did not expect to become such a well-known figure, she was simply following her religious beliefs, stating that her Christian beliefs came before her work; “My voters elected me. But the main authority that governs my life is the Lord. Marriage licenses issued by Rowan County no longer bear Davis' name. The documents say they were issued "pursuant to a federal court order." ABC News is a highly regarded news source, known for its generally very moderate viewpoint. ABC News' Paula Faris sat down with Kim Davis and interviewed her about her decision to suspend the issuance of marriage licenses in her county. Davis explained to Faris his thought pattern; “I cannot put my name on a license that does not represent what God ordained marriage to be.” She further explained that she has strong religious beliefs and continues to believe that God intended marriage to be between a man and a woman. ABC explains that although the main publicity Davis received was negative, she also received hundreds of gifts and messages of support such as notes, crosses and prayer shawls for her personal beliefs in her Christianity . This article informs the reader on both sides of the story while maintaining an essentially unbiased point of view. In turn, the reader is now able to form their own opinion about Kim Davis, her actions, and what they think about the same-sex marriage debate as a whole. Contradictively, Fox News, a historically conservative source, presents a clearly more biased depiction of the events that took place around Kim Davis. While Fox News describes the basic facts of everything that happened, the source then relies on bias in its description of the problem. Fox News explains that Davis' reasoning for his actions was justified because of his faith in Christianity. However, the source then agrees with Davis' defense by explaining that his actions were "protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment." The source attempts to use this amendment as a way to persuade the reader to believe that this is a justifiable action because of rights protected by law. Another example of their political bias is the opinion of the author, Andrew Napolitano, who stated that "the court correctly interpreted his duties under the Constitution, but erred in incarcerating him." A normal, impartial party would have simply said that the court was interpreting its duty within the framework of the Constitution and would not have offered an opinion on whether it was right or wrong to incarcerate him. When analyzing this Fox News article, it is evident that the author is trying to persuade the reader to believe that Kim Davis was justified in her actions. On the other hand, CNN, a historically liberal-leaning source, displays a more left-skewed depiction of the controversy surrounding Kim Davis' arrest. At the beginning of the article, author Michael Martinez begins with a statement that says: "Same-sex marriage was supposed to be a settled issue in America, it's a constitutional right, but.