Engaging the Text # 5

In the supreme court case, Turner v. Safley, it was decided that Missouri could not arbitrarily deny marriage rights to prisoners.  A group of prisoners was previously denied the right of marriage, but the supreme court took back this decision once they went over the importance of what marriage represents.  They established that it was was a public statement of love, it has many serious religious importance to people, it offers the prospect of physical "consummation", and it comes with many protections, responsibilities, and benefits that are a big importance to people.  All this said, same-sex marriage is still not legal in Missouri.  Wolfson uses this as a comparison to how ridiculous it is that prisoners are given the extremely important decision of marriage versus people who have not committed crimes and are truly in love and have been together for a long period of time and wish to express that love with an official commitment.  People who wish to have same-sex marriage have the same goals and wants as every other person in society, but yet they are denied a simple right over criminals.  This is an important case to make because it shows how unreasonable the issues of same-sex marriage actually is.  It also places it into perspective that some people would actually rather give criminals rights over citizens who have done nothing wrong, and shines a light on how hypocritical and messed up our governmental system can actually be.