Over the past 2 decades, Western society has become fascinated with serial murder. Although the media have presented this as a new phenomenon, in reality, it is not. The phenomenon of serial murder can be found throughout history and around the world, the most famous case being Jack the Ripper in England of the 1800s. Why study serial crime? Understanding motivation and behaviors of offenders, particularly serial offenders, is critical to apprehending and convicting an offender. Practitioners in law enforcement continually seek patterns in their investigation and often look to researchers who present typologies from their studies of convicted offenders. These typologies appear to simplify the process, which is reinforced when the media portray these techniques in solving a crime within 45 minutes.
Human beings are a complex species and with that comes complex issues. One of the issues that has greatly developed in the past few decades, is marriage equality and whether it is ethical or not. Marriage equality is both same sex couples and opposite sex couples having an equal situation to marry. The argument that everyone deserves equal rights and be open about their identity opposes the argument that same sex marriage is unnatural, harmful and offensive.
The argument that is for marriage equality uses human rights and dignity as their main focus to get their point across. They claim that it goes against human rights to deny two people the right to marry because of their sex and that a civilized society does not discriminate on grounds of race, religion, sex or sexuality and denial of marriage rights is clear discrimination (Debating Europe, 2019). The discrimination they are experiencing is being likened to sexism and racism, both which are also major issues that have had world wide debates regarding equality.
The argument that is against marriage equality uses religious views, limits to rights and the natural law. They claim it is offensive and damaging to religions and their roles in society. It puts churches in a dangerous position as if gay marriage is legalised, the church could be held accountable for discrimination for refusing to marry a homosexual couple (LawTeacher, 2013). They also say that there are limits to our rights, such as incestuous marriages, and that homosexual marriages fall under the same category as incestuous marriage. Finally, they argue that homosexuality is unnatural and immoral, going as far as likening homosexuality to a genetic disorder or disease (Boss, 2002).
Everyone is supposedly entitled to their own opinions and actions, therefore there is no universally accepted law to decide whether an opinion or action is ethical. However there are frameworks to put borders in place of what is ethical (Nuffieldfoundation.org, 2019). Utilitarianism is one of these frameworks or principles, which is to maximise happiness and that an action is deemed good if it leads to a good consequence (The Conversation, 2019). This is related to the issue of same sex marriage as both the happiness of same sex couples and those opposing their marriage must be taken into account. Same sex `couples would gain direct benefit as they could live their lives like any other couple whereas those opposing it would only experience indirect harm (The Conversation, 2019). Another principle is virtue, an ethic than is not concerned with an action or consequence, but whether or not a person is a good person. A virtuous person embodies love, generosity and respect so in the ethical issue, a virtuous person should support same sex marriage a
