Self-Analysis

Looking back to when I began this project in early October, I realize that my knowledge of the topic and the lens from which I view the school of thought from have immensely broadened over time.  Though I cannot claim that I am some sort of expert on the issue of legalizing same-sex marriage, I have gained much knowledge over this process of research and have discovered subconscious biases within my previous mindset.

To become more informed on gay marriage and the fight over legalization, I followed many different sources: blogs written by members of the intelligentsia, political commentary sites, etc.  I followed Commentators such as Glenn Greenwald or Andrew Sullivan regularly.  Though both of these men discuss a broad arrange of topics and are politically opposite of one another, they both are gay and will sometimes address the issue that I cover.  I find their perspectives fascinating, and reading their work enlightened me to recognize that sexuality does not rigidly follow the American political spectrum.  Before I started this blog, I tended to lump conservatives, particularly social conservatives, into a homogeneous group, since most of the social conservatives that I have met in my life have held quite similar views.  Though after conducting research, I have realized over the course of the month that not all social conservatives are against gay rights and that my thinking was mainly an unfair generalization.

Besides following blog commentators, I also frequently searched sites such as The Huffington Post and Politico.  Since I read material from these sites on a regular basis, along with articles from the New York Times and NPR, it is easy for me to locate related material for the blog.  These sites have an array of writers and commentators who post unbiased articles with intellectual content, so I find sources from these sites to be quite handy.

As I continued to research the battle over the moral difficulties of allowing same-sex marriage, I couldn’t help but notice the trends that went with the argument.  Almost all of the commentators who argued against legalization used religious testimonies for the backbone of their arguments.  This led me to conclude that, similar to my earlier postulation of conservatives, right wing Christians were all against marriage equality.  This assumption however, proved to not entirely be true—I was generalizing.  After speaking with some self-identified conservative Christians in my local field of study, I realized that though many of them did not agree with the morality of same-sex marriages due to passages such as this in the Bible, they recognize that their religious views should not affect secular same-sex marriages due to the First Amendment.  So though these individuals identify with a group that is generally seen as an opponent to legalization, they themselves do not oppose legalization due to the recognition that the law does not apply to them.  Not only did I discover a bias within my way of thinking from this experience, but I also learned to hold more respect for people whose opinion differ from my own.

            I think writing this blog has been a very positive experience for me, both intellectually and personally.  I hope that you have enjoyed following this blog and will continue to read my posts.  Thank you.