My neighbor eats chocolate ice cream every night. It drives me crazy because I hate chocolate ice cream; it is unhealthy. Strawberry ice cream is better. Disgusted by this outrage, I made a law that people can only eat strawberry ice cream.

How stupid does that sound? Even if someone was obsessed with their neighbor’s dessert, you know they could never outlaw it. So why is it OK to make other laws that restrict people from behavior that has no negative impact on others? Why is it OK to say, “If you love someone of the opposite sex, you can marry them, but if you love someone of the same sex, you can’t”?

It’s not OK. It’s so unfair and ridiculous that marches took place in Washington, D.C. recently to celebrate National Coming Out Day and to remind President Obama of his promises to help end injustices like the ban on gay marriage and the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Some of you reading this are fuming about me comparing homosexuality to ice cream flavors. You think it’s not comparable and you probably have at least one of three common arguments ready to back you up.

First argument: marriage is defined as being between one man and one woman.

Um… so? A quick look on the etymology of the word “marriage” says nothing about men and women, only that the origin of the word came from the Latin martiatus, meaning “to wed, marry, give in marriage.” A little pocket dictionary with the phrase “man and woman” in its definition means nothing; dictionaries are always being updated and new meanings derived from words. This is the weakest argument I’ve ever heard for not changing a law.

Second argument: it’s against God.

Where to start? The very first amendment to our constitution led to the principle of separation of church and state. You cannot make laws based on religion, because not everyone adheres to your religion. Trying to force adherence legally would be a violation of America’s freedom of religion.

Even if that was constitutional and ethical, picking-and-choosing which elements of the Old Testament to follow is hypocritical. If we’re going to outlaw homosexuality, then we should outlaw premarital sex, pornography, masturbation and checking out an attractive person walking down the street. We should also outlaw wearing shirts made of two types of cloth, fortune tellers and cursing one’s parents.

Women should revert back to being property of their husbands. Additionally, menstruating women are unclean and should not be touched, and if a woman ever touches a man’s genitals, her hand should be chopped off.

Third argument: there seems to be this vague idea that if we let everyone get married who wants, there would be too much of society’s money spent in benefits to them. In other words, we have to make sure some people can’t get married so that there’s more money for those of us who can. Again, even if that was just and ethical, why focus on something unimportant like gender? You have no problem with a prostitute marrying an abusive, alcoholic pimp, but two Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates can’t marry if they are both women?

The plain, ugly truth is this: none of these are good reasons to outlaw gay marriage. They are simply excuses that controlling, self-righteous people hide behind so they don’t have to feel bad about their judgmental and unethical legislative ideals.

It was once illegal to marry someone of a different race. Some people still feel inter-racial marriages are sinful or socially wrong, but they no longer have the power to force others to conform to those principles. Gay marriage is exactly the same situation. The sooner people grow up and realize that, the better it will be for all of us.