With the publicity surrounding the Supreme Court’s impending decision, it seems that I can say for certain that a significant portion of the American people have finally been able to recognize that unjust laws, such as the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, affect not only the gay community but also American society as a whole.

My best friend in the entire world — who has known me since I was born, has helped to feed and take care of me, has seen me grow as a young man and has himself grown as a man in coming out as a gay American — will be speaking at his college graduation in a month, will be my best man at my wedding and will be the uncle to my children. This best friend is my brother, Jeff, and he deserves the ability to marry whomever he loves.

Jeff’s fundamental right to marry whomever he wants should not be prevented or questioned but instead recognized as such by the government.

Over Easter break, I looked through some old family photos. I saw Jeff and myself as kids, saw the pure joy in my mom’s face as she held her two baby sons, as she played with us at the beach, as she dressed us up for Halloween. My mother had always said that her dream growing up was to be a mother, and the passion, patience and love she has put into our upbringing demonstrates this.

Jeff should be able to experience this very same love and joy in raising children of his own with the spouse of his choosing. He should be able to get married and experience the same type of sheer joy and awe inherent in raising children, of seeing them grow up and, one day, walking them down the aisle.

It is interesting to compare this struggle for marriage equality to other civil rights issues in our past. Not too long ago, segregation was legal; not too long ago, women were blocked from the voting booth; not too long ago, interracial couples were forbidden. And the same arguments made against those rights are being made today.

I believe that the opponents to same-sex marriage will find themselves relegated to the same place in history as those who lined up on the steps of the Supreme Court to protest desegregation and interracial marriage.

As a heterosexual male, I feel that Jeff’s ability to choose whom he marries does not — in any way — infringe upon my own right to marry and have children of my own, should I be blessed with the opportunity to do so one day. When same-sex marriage is recognized, the country will not descend into a lustful, sex-crazed homosexual hotbed.

It will not become a modern-day Gomorrah nor will it be home to public displays of hedonism in attempts to turn straight people gay. When same-sex marriage is recognized, gay individuals will be able to get married. That’s it. They will raise children of their own, marry in their own ceremonies and reap the same state benefits that heterosexual couples do.

Should I be blessed with the gift of children one day, I do not wish to raise them in a society that is intolerant of differences. I do not want them to grow up in a country where people are denied the fundamental human right of being able to marry whomever they love. I do not want them to grow up in a country where their uncle Jeff is unable to marry whomever he wants.

Denying Jeff and any other homosexual person the right to marry does not feel legally questionable. It feels fundamentally wrong.

David Weis is a junior in the College. FROM THE OUTSIDE appears every other Friday.