There Are Good Secular Reasons to Disallow Same-Sex Marriage

It has been a long time since I've done one of these & I'm greatly looking forward to a passionate yet amiable discourse on what has proved to be a very hot button issue of the past decade. Now let's see if Pro's arguments hold up to philosophical muster. I believe my opponent runs into a problem in the very first sentence of his argument: "The state regulates marriage for a reason. " What this first (and many of the following) sentence contains is a huge (false) assumption, this being that there is only one reason the state regulates marriage. By stating there is a single reason for regulating marriage, this sets up Pro to then define what that reason is & show how that reason does not apply to homosexual couples. This is fallacious reasoning, for Pro in order to argue that the State should not implement gay marriage, Pro would have to demonstrate that all benefits that marriage brings to society do not occur within gay marriage. Of course, the burden to show these benefits rests on me, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go over a few other problems in Pro's argument. The single reason my opponent *asserts* the State regulates marriage is for the purpose of procreation. The way he does this is interesting, which is to define marriage as "a comprehensive union with a special link to *children*. " (asterisk emphasis mine) Now I don't necessarily agree with this definition, but for the moment I am willing to work with it, as it does not lead to my opponent's intended conclusion. Once he establishes this as the definition, he goes on to list several reasons why this procreative link to marriage does not apply to homosexuals, listing the obvious fact that currently a homosexual couple cannot procreate between the two of them, & insisting that even if they could through the use of technology, that still wouldn't change anything as there isn't an implicit link between procreation & their coupling. What is possibly my opponent's biggest problem is that he randomly jumped from marriage being a link to children, to marriage being a link to creating children. We must also consider part of the State's interest in children extends to how they are raised, unless my opponent is willing to argue that the State's interest in marriage is only to encourage people to have babies, but once they have been born said interest ends. We know that is not the case, however, for even my opponent admits this: "The state incentivizes marriage both because it recognizes child-rearing to be a difficult task & because it wants to encourage men & women to form family units. " My opponent admits that the rearing of children is important for the state to incentivize, & yet he gives no reason why the state should not incentivize homosexual couples from raising children. Certainly he gives reasons why they cannot create children, but just because may be unable to build a car does not mean I lack the skills to operate or take care of one. Procreation & child-rearing are in fact two separate issues that my opponent has attempted to merge into one. Now I'm sure my opponent, if he so chose, could come up with a plethora of studies that advocate that children raised by homosexual couples are not raised as well as those raised by two straight parents. I'm also sure we could have a grand time going over all the reasons why those studies are inaccurate or poorly designed, & rehash all of the other studies that show no difference whatsoever between the two. Thankfully, mercifully, we needn't be burdened with that, for whether or not homosexual couples are as good a parenting unit as straight couples is irrelevant, since the argument is not whether we should take kids away from straight couples & give them to gay couples. The only relative factor is whether or not children are better off with homosexual couples compared to orphanages & foster care. I sincerely hope we won't be hearing any arguments that children are better off in foster care than with a loving homosexual couple, but I will be prepared to argue against that position if need be. Otherwise, the sentence I quoted above easily applies to homosexual couples forming family units as well. We've already seen that there are at least two benefits to the State regulating marriage, procreation & child-rearing. I have argued that the one benefit does indeed apply to homosexuals, however there is nothing to say that the benefits to marriage must only fall under those two categories. Hammers are intended for driving nails into other objects, as well as pulling them out, but nothing compels us to relegate hammers to only those two uses. Should we discover a new use for a hammer, the fact we have previously not conceived of this use should not dissuade us for utilizing it in the new fashion. Thus, should I list additional societal benefits to marriage that Pro has not previous considered, ones that are worth the cost of regulating marriage, then Pro's argument fails in an additional manner. I shall now list these additional benefits. Understand that we are discussing societal health here. The State's interest is towards the collective of citizens under its care, & the individual health (mental, physical, emotional) of the citizens affects the whole of the society. Does marriage have a role to play in this? Certainly. Here are some of the direct benefits: Married adults are more likely to live longer, healthier lives, & to suffer from less psychological distress [1] Married adults have more flexible lifestyles that apply benefits to both work & social life. [1] Married adults are less likely to smoke, drink heavily, or be physically inactive [1] Married adults are less likely to have health problems compared to cohabitating couples. [1] Married people are less likely to be depressed, more likely to be happy. [2] Married individuals are less likely to be the victims of violent crime [3][4] Married individuals are more likely to monitor each others' health compared to cohabitating couples. Those are merely some of the direct benefits of marriage, & it took me mere seconds to find them on google, without directly looking through scientific literature. If my opponent is still unimpressed, I'd be happy to do into further detail as to why it is a good thing to be married even if the marriage will have nothing to do with children. Thus, the State has a vested interest in incentivizing marriage between homosexual couples even if they have no intentions of adopting. To recap, the benefits to marriage are not as narrow as my opponent claims, & those additional benefits which my opponent had not considered are strong enough for the state to have a vested interest in incentivizing them. Even without those additional benefits, Pro's very own definition still involves a great societal benefit to incentivizing gay marriage, that being promoting adoption & the creation of family units centered around homosexual couples. Unless Pro can both show that children are better off in foster care than with a gay couple & show that the well understood social benefits to marriage don't actually exist, then Pro's argument fails. One last comment. Pro mentioned that if we developed artificial reproductive technology where two men could combine their DNA to make a baby, it would be irrelevant because their relationship lacks an intrinsic link to childen. Yet, my opponent gives no reason why the link must be intrinsic. If homosexual couples are able to have children, artificial or otherwise, why should the state not incentivize that? Are artificial children less valuable? I argue that Pro's argument does not stand on any of its necessary points. [1] . http://www.cdc.gov... [2] Miller-Tutzauer et al, 1991 [3] Kellerman, 1994 [4] Bachman, 1994 [5] Clarkberg, 1995