Same Love

The controversial topic I would like to elaborate on is same sex marriage. Some people are for a change and the equality of people and other people believe it is wrong to marry a couple of the same sex, this is not a new issue in our society but rather an ongoing issue that needs to be talked about and discussed with an open mind. “While societies that prohibit same-sex marriage equally permit individual heterosexuals and homosexuals to marry one adult of the opposite sex, same-sex couples in such societies are denied an important right that opposite-sex couples enjoy” (Williams). Only thirteen states have legal same-sex marriage. Those states include California, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Delaware, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, Maryland and Washington. That may sound like quite a few as I list them out but in reality it is not compared to the thirty five states that have ban same-sex marriage whether it was through a constitutional amendment or a state law. The only state part of the United States of America that has no law banning or legalizing same-sex marriage is New Mexico. Same-sex marriage discussion arouse first around 1993 when Hawaii ruled laws against same-sex marriage violated people’s rights and was very discriminatory. On September 21^st, 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which ban “federal recognition of same-sex marriage and defining marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife” (CNN). Because of that most states now only recognize marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Outside of the United States of America only sixteen other countries have specific laws allowing same-sex marriage.  Almost a decade after Bill Clinton’s statement on February 24, 2004, President George W. Bush publicly spoke about his support towards banning same-sex marriage. As you all can tell same-sex marriage is something that is currently an ongoing issue, on the rise to a equal solution. How can one person tell another person what the norm is and what is acceptable for society and for an individual. The public is involved in this issue many ways. Many people either support or oppose this topic and everyone’s opinion has an impact, the opposing side makes up for the majority of people in society but for what reason. Some people may have religious beliefs against same-sex marriage, some people are just ignorant towards the topic and there are the people that have no negative or positive input on the topic. As stated the people with the issues have spoken up and loudly, there are laws in place to control ‘love’, what sense does that make. Some fight banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional but yet there are laws being put in place and nothing is being done to grow as a society. People seem to be stuck in their old ways, when will people be open to equality and peace for everyone. We, in the USA, are Americans and deserve the freedom stated in the constitution. Who are you to put a label on love?

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=ade829d8-27b5-4037-b160-1f393681f386%40sessionmgr14&vid=1&hid=19&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=67449654 

http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/human-services/same-sex-marriage-laws.aspx 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/28/us/same-sex-marriage-fast-facts/ 

http://gaymarriage.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004857

Piracy v. Paid music

Something that is brought up quite often is whether or not music should be paid for or available for anyone to download. Freely people are becoming more familiar with ways around policies and laws just to get their hands on the mainstream music they want to obtain, and not many people are getting caught and penalized for it.

Now as many of us know we have Copyright laws, so first and foremost speaking from an ethically view point, we should abide by the law. People downloading off the internet illegally are a real concern to entertainers and the industry as a whole. So many people are doing it the industry is losing money. To put this in perspective, there is "12.5 billion dollars in economic losses each year due to piracy in the music industry (go-gulf.com)." But it is said that about 95% of music that people obtain is downloaded online illegally. The statistics show that the industry is suffering from piracy. Now there’s obviously more than one way to obtain music, maybe your friend downloaded it online and wants to share it with you. That’s called peer-to-peer (p2p) filing sharing. When the first P2P software emerged in 1999, “music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion (riaa.com).”

To really make you think a little more let me share this with you, along with the 12.5 billion dollars in losses “71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers' earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes (ipi.org).” So downloading music might seem harmless but in the big picture there really is a huge impact on our society, who would have thought?

Now there’s always an opposing side to a public argument, there are people that believe downloading music should be legal. We the people should have freedom to obtain music whenever we want, some might say. “This is the internet age. Once content goes up, it's free for everyone...Just the way it goes. It's not an argument of ethics, but of availability (debate.org).” This point of view talks about availability and how accessible music is. There’s hundreds if not thousands of sites that file share and allow people to obtain this “illegal” music. So if there’s laws about music piracy, why are there so many ways around it? If it was really that big of an issue wouldn’t you think someone would step in and try to fix the problem?

Works Cited

"Online Piracy in Numbers - Facts and Statistics [Infographic]." Web Design Dubai Dubai Web Design and Web Application Development Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

 

"Should Downloading Music Be Legal?" The Premier Online Debate Website. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

 

"The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy IPI Issues Institute for Policy Innovation." The True Cost of Sound Recording Piracy to the U.S. Economy IPI Issues Institute for Policy Innovation. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.

 

"Writing Report Default." Http://www.riaa.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.