The Rights Of Same Sex Marriages By John Baxter And Jeff...

Abandoned in a dumpster at five months old, little Freddie started out life on the streets. After being found and rescued by a garbage truck driver, Freddie was bounced around from foster home to foster home. By 1999, when he was four years old, he had been a part of twelve different families in three states. The future looked very bleak for Freddie until a young, ambitious couple came along. Nevertheless, although they were looking to adopt Freddie, the adoption agency told the couple that they had to be married. The problem was they could not get married. John Baxter and Jeff Forshay are at the forefront of a fight staged by gay and lesbian activists to get the government to permit same-sex marriages. Activists say this is just part of their hard-fought battle for public acceptance; the movement has gone on for at least twenty years. At the same time, remarkable transformations have changed the general makeup of the typical family in the United States: â€Å"[T]he traditional fami ly model, . . . in which the father is the only breadwinner for his wife and their biological children, comprised a majority of U.S. families in the 1950s. Today, however, almost three-quarters of families are classified as ‘nontraditional’† (â€Å"Same-Sex Marriage† 1-2). Many of today’s married couples both work and receive benefits not generally available to unmarried couples. Marriage, however, is not an option for people like John and Jeff. Although not currently permitted under the United States