Same-sex marriage has become a hot topic in the last year.

No matter what one’s opinion of this issue is, it is important to look past personal bias and toward what is truly just. It is just to extend the rights and responsibilities of marriage to the millions of gay and lesbian couples who desire it.

Marriage is an important right of passage in our society. It represents a maturity as one leaves his or her family of origin and forges a new family.

Gay and lesbian couples live together and commit their lives to each other with each partner permanently connected to his or her own family of origin.

They lack the legal right to be each other’s sole support, to make medical decisions for each other, to be legally connected parents for their children and to be each others’ beneficiaries without facing legal challenges from their families of origin. But, this is an issue that goes far beyond legal rights and responsibilities.

Same-sex marriage is an issue of giving the gay and lesbian community a structure through which they can define their relationships.

It is also about building a bridge of understanding between gay and lesbian people and the rest of society, for who among us does not understand when two people say they are married?

I urge all married couples to consider what life would be like if your spouse were a legal stranger to you, your relationship deemed unworthy of legal recognition.

Is it not time to support your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters by extending the definition of legal marriage to include same-sex couples?

Megan Kresch and Sacha Davis

Seattle, Wash.