Acceptance Of Homosexual Marriage Essays - LGBT History, Free Essays

Acceptance Of Homosexual Marriage Essays - LGBT History, Free Essays Acceptance Of Homosexual Marriage 29 Nov. 1999 Same Sex Marriage, Acceptance in the United States Marriage is much more than merely a commitment to love one another. Marriage entitles financial responsibility, as well as authorized financial benefits. It is the institution that provides automatic legal protection for the spouse, including medical visitation, inheritance of a deceased spouse's property, as well as pension and other rights. Society has become accustom to what they believe is normal by their traditions and religious beliefs. Many people believe that same-sex marriage is not normal. The simple fact is that banning same-sex marriage is discrimination. Marriage is the basic human right that should not be denied to anyone. Marriage among minorities has come a long way in becoming accepted as normal in the eyes of society. Interracial marriage was prohibited, and unacceptable in the United States, until the Supreme Court ruled such bans unconstitutional in 1967. There is no reason that the federal government, or anyone for that matter, should restrict marriage to a prede fined heterosexual relationship. Because it is the right of the homosexual legally, socially, and economically, matrimony between lesbian and gay couples should be accepted in the United States. Because our country has been founded on the Constitution, in which all men are created equal; we cannot deny the basic human and legal right of marriage to a class of individuals due to their sexual preference. Banning same-sex marriage has already been declared a violation of the constitution in the state of Hawaii. The case began in 1991 when three same-sex couples who had been denied marriage licenses, by the Hawaii Department of Health, brought a lawsuit to the state court against the director of the department. Hawaii law required couples wishing to marry Ramirez 2 to obtain a marriage license. New York Times reporter David Dunlap notes that while the marriage license did not explicitly prohibit same sex marriage at that time, it used terms of gender that clearly indicated that only heterosexual couples could marry.... In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that a refusal to grant marriage licenses violated the state constitution (18). Even though the court found that the state of Hawaiis constitution had discriminated against homosexuals, which should legalize marriage nationally, presently there have been no same-sex marriage license that have been issued anywhere in the United States. Conversely, an Online US News columnist acknowledges that one state court should not dictate marriage laws for the entire nation: If gay marriages become legal in Hawaii, other states may have to recognize them, as well, because the U.S. Constitution requires each state to grant full faith and credit to the acts of other states. But, he argues, many states do not want to recognize same-sex unions, and should not be forced to do so by a few judges in Hawaii. The bill [allowing other states to ban same sex-unions] introduced in congress would preserve the right of the other 49 states to determine their marriage laws.(Pros and Cons of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage) Although some may believe it would be unfair for Hawaii to begin the process of recognizing same-sex marriage licenses, Article IV, Section One of the United States Constitution avers, Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records and proceedings of every other state(Madison et al.). Therefore, regardless of whether or not certain individuals believe it is fair for one state to begin the process of same-sex marriage, the law is the law. Similarly, lawyers specializing in the constitutional and civil rights laws said the legislation could be fought in two ways: either by arguing that same-sex marriages must be allowed to full faith and credit clause requiring states to recognize the laws of other states (Roane 7). The Ramirez 3 case is very similar to the ban of interracial marriage, which was declared unconstitutional just a few decades ago by the Supreme Court. Interracial marriage was struck down as a violation of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees all persons the equal protection of the laws. Even though marriage should not be denied legally to gay and lesbian couples, matrimony between same-sex couples should be accepted socially. Andrew Sulivan, a former editor for the New Republic magazine comments; Homosexuals are in many ways

Definition and Discussion of General American English

Definition and Discussion of General American English General American English is a somewhat vague and outdated term for a  variety of spoken American English that seems to lack the distinctive characteristics of any particular region or ethnic group. Also called network English or newscaster accent. The term General American (GA, GAE, or GenAm) was coined by English professor George Philip Krapp in his book The English Language in America (1925). In the first edition of History of the English Language (1935), Albert C. Baugh adopted the term General American, calling it the dialect of the Middle States and the West. General American   is sometimes broadly characterized as speaking with a midwestern accent, but as William Kretzschmar observes (below), there has never been any single best or default form of American English that might form the basis for General American (A Handbook of Varieties of English, 2004). Examples and Observations The fact that I conjugate my verbs and speak in a typical Midwestern newscaster voicetheres no doubt that this helps ease communication between myself and white audiences. And theres no doubt that when Im with a black audience, I slip into a slightly different dialect.(U.S. President Barack Obama, quoted by Dinesh DSouza in Obamas America: Unmaking the American Dream. Simon Schuster, 2012)The term General American is sometimes used by those who expect for there to be a perfect and exemplary state of American English . . .. However, in this essay the term Standard American English (StAmE) is preferred; it designates the level of quality (here of pronunciation) that is employed by educated speakers in formal settings. StAmE pronunciation differs from region to region, even from person to person, because speakers from different circumstances in and different parts of the United States commonly employ regional and social features to some extent even in formal situations.(William A. Kret zschmar, Jr., Standard American English Pronunciation. A Handbook of Varieties of English, ed. by Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider. Mouton de Gruyter, 2004) [T]he standard assumption for American English is that even educated speakers, from certain regions at least (most notably New England and the South), at times use regional pronunciation characteristics and thus speak with an accent; hence, despite the persistent belief in a homogenous General American accent or notions like network English there is in fact no single norm of pronunciation that corresponds to RP [received pronunciation] in England, being a non-regional class dialect.(Edgar W. Schneider, Introduction: Varieties of English in the Americas and the Caribbean. A Handbook of Varieties of English, ed. by Bernd Kortmann and Edgar W. Schneider. Mouton de Gruyter, 2004) Variants in Network English It is important to note that no single dialectregional or socialhas been singled out as an American standard. Even national media (radio, television, movies, CD-ROM, etc.), with professionally trained voices have speakers with regionally mixed features. However, Network English, in its most colourless form, can be described as a relatively homogenous dialect that reflects the ongoing development of progressive American dialects (Canadian English has several notable differences). This dialect itself contains some variant forms. The variants included within this targeted accent involve vowels before /r/, possible differences in words like cot and caught and some vowels before /l/. It is fully rhotic. These differences largely pass unnoticed by the audiences for Network English, and are also reflective of age differences.(Daniel Jones, English Pronouncing Dictionary, 17th ed. Cambridge University Press, 2006) ​​General American vs. the Eastern New England Accent A few examples of differences between some regional dialects and General American or Network English are in order here, though these are necessarily selective. In the characteristic speech of Eastern New England, for instance, rhotic /r/ is lost after vowels, as in far or hard, while it is retained in all positions in General American. A rounded vowel has been retained in Eastern New England in words like top and dot, whereas General American uses an unrounded vowel. Another Eastern New England characteristic is the use of /É‘/ in words like bath, grass, last, etc., where General American uses /a/. In these respects the New England accent shows some similarities with British RP.(Diane Davies, Varieties of Modern English: An Introduction. Routledge, 2013) Challenges to the Concept of General American The belief that American English consists of General American and the Eastern (Northern) and Southern dialect varieties was called into question by a group of American scholars in the 1930s. . . . In 1930 [Hans] Kurath was named the director of an ambitious project called The Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada. He patterned the project on a similar European undertaking that had been completed some years before the American project started: Atlas linguistique de la France, which ran between 1902 and 1910. Given the results of their work, Kurath and his co-workers challenged the belief that American English had the varieties Eastern, Southern, and General American. Instead, they suggested that American English is best viewed as having the following major dialect areas: Northern, Midland, and Southern. That is, they did away with the elusive notion of General American and replaced it with the dialect area that they called Midland.(Zoltn Kà ¶vecses, American English: An In troduction. Broadview, 2000) Many Midwesterners are under the illusion that they speak without an accent. They may even believe that they speak Standard American English. But most linguists understand that there is not a single, correct way to speak English. So, yes, even Midwesterners speak with an accent.(James W. Neuliep,  Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 6th ed. SAGE, 2015)It should be emphasized that everyone speaks with an accent; it is as impossible to speak without an accent as to speak without making sounds. When people deny they have an accent, this is a statement of social prejudice and not linguistics.(Howard Jackson and Peter Stockwell, An Introduction to the Nature and Functions of Language, 2nd ed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2011) Also see: Standard American EnglishAccent PrejudiceEthnic Dialect,  Idiolect,  Regional Dialect, and  Social DialectMarkednessPrestigePronunciationStandard English