The debate over whether or not gay individuals should be allowed to marry or not has been in the news a lot lately  and has become a popular conversation topic around the Bucks campus.

Though the results from the Supreme Courts will not be known for the time being, students are quite vocal on their viewpoints regarding the issue. Anti gay marriage proponents in Bucks seemed to rally around the idea that God devised marriage as a means of conception.

“I think that basically it’s between a man and a woman, Rashaun Linton, 18, a criminal justice major from Warminster said. That’s how God intended it. Same sex couples can’t reproduce either.”

It was a recurring theme among students against same sex marriage that their opposition was due mostly in part because of their religious beliefs.

“Religious beliefs tell me marriage is about conception, Sebastian Toassaint, 19, an education major from Yardley said.

Catholics students feel similarly and are directly told via church leaders that that homosexual activity is “an abomination” as found in their holy book the bible.

Most Protestant sects of Christianity that are not liberal are opposed to gay marriage and homosexual lifestyles. In the Old Testament of the Bible homosexuality is punished by death. It reflects that that the convicted should be stoned like modern day Islam.

The New Testament reflects the apostle Paul’s belief that homosexuality is wrong, but he also says that the Old Testament is not to be interpreted in the way it was originally written.

Though it is true that conception is not possible for homosexuals to reproduce independently of technology, they still have every avenue that heterosexuals with one sterile partner have to reproduce.

Those in favor of gay marriage appealed to the notions of fairness and love regardless of gender.

“I think everyone is entitled to have love,”Amber Stein, 19, an undecided major from Warminster said.

This sentiment was often repeated among the supporters of the change to federal law.

“I don’t feel like any one should tell other people who they can and can’t love,” Christine Cost, 19, a secondary education from Richboro said.

The large majority of students reflected that they thought it was a values based decision based on either religious beliefs, or beliefs about love and equality.

Some however referred to the fact that there are financial benefits to marriage.

“At first I didn’t care and then I found out about the financial side and I think homosexuals should have the same financial benefits as heterosexuals,” Ellie Otto, 22, a business major from New Hope said.

Marriage does entitle couple to takes breaks and file joint income tax returns. The benefits include dividing business income among family, inheriting estate from one’s spouse, immunity from estate and gift tax on all property assigned to the spouse.

Though civil unions do give benefits, they vary from state to state in the benefits they provide and the federal government doesn’t provide them with any of the benefits extended to married couples.

Many students appeal solely to individual liberties and freedoms. “I think everyone should be able to do what they wanna do” said Storm Wortham, 19, a criminal justice major from Yardley. Cinema video major Franco Liles, 22, from Philadelphia said “I don’t see why it matters. Marriage is a symbol, it doesn’t hurt anyone.”