What are the views on the legalization of gay marriage?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What are the views on the legalization of gay marriage?
Position1 of 4›: Gay marriage should be legalized
Argument‹3 of 4›: Marriage is a fundamental right for all

Everyone has the legal right to marry their partner of choice. The option for a person to marry whomever they want is legal in numerous countries, including the United States and Germany.

The argument

Marriage holds a massive spiritual and cultural significance for people around the world, no matter their religious background. That significance is what makes exclusion from it a serious harm rather than an administrative inconvenience. Marriage is a goal for many people before they even understand their own sexuality — it is absorbed early, as part of what an ordinary life is expected to contain — which is why, for generations, people have either had to give up or compromise on a years' long dream in order to conform to heteronormative society. What was surrendered was not a legal status but a life someone had always assumed they would have. If both parties are consenting adults, there should be no reason someone should not have the right to share a union with someone they love with legal recognition and all benefits provided by federal law. Consent between adults is the standard already applied to marriage generally, and on this argument no further condition survives scrutiny once it is met. Many national governments around the world have recognized this fundamental truth over the last few decades, overturning old laws and writing in new ones that allow people to marry the consenting party of their choosing, which suggests the recognition is not a local or partisan position but a conclusion reached repeatedly and independently. There is a further point about outcomes rather than rights. A person who marries the person of their choosing is more likely to have a happy, successful relationship, whether they are gay or not — so the restriction does not protect the institution it claims to defend; it produces worse marriages. So there is no valid reason why a government separated from religion should bar same-sex couples from marriage.

Context

Gay marriage was, and still is, illegal around the world for centuries, especially after the spread and growth of Catholicism and then Christianity.

Premises

[P1]Marriage carries deep spiritual and cultural significance and is a lifelong dream for many, yet generations of LGBTQ people have had to give up or compromise it to conform to a heteronormative society. [P2] If both parties are consenting adults, there is no valid reason a government separate from religion should deny them legal recognition and federal benefits, and people who marry whom they choose are more likely to have happy, successful relationships. [C] Therefore, because marriage is a fundamental right for all, gay marriage should be legalized.

Counter-arguments

There must be limits on marital choices. A person may not, for example, marry their relative. To protect the institution of marriage there needs to be clear restrictions on what can and cannot be permitted under the banner of marriage.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Marriage is not a fundamental right. [Rejecting P2] Marriage is not a right without restriction.