Resolved: Gay marriage ought be legalized.

In this round I will first show how my opponents arguments are not valid in this debate. Pro's first contention is as follows "The legalization of gay marriage aids society." Now, Pro provided no definition of what society is so I will provide one. Society is as follows: a group of people related to each other through persistent relations all sharing the same geographical territory. Society is made up of both homosexual, heterosexual, bi-sexual, and the smallest minority a-sexual people. His first sub-point shows how gay marriage helps the homosexual people but, does not address how it would help society as a whole because it does not address how it helps the heterosexual, bi-sexual, and asexual people. Even with that aside. His CDC quotation uses "may" many times which suggests it could be correct or it could no be correct. Since the CDC has provided no definitive proof that their assertions are valid your conclusions based upon this are invalid. Also, you provided no citation, in the form of a link or published document, back to the CDC so nobody knows where it came from. Your only definitive numbers are from the Emroy University study and even those are not definitive as their correlation comes from numbers and they have not proven that there is without a doubt a direct relationship between AIDs rates and intolerance. For example, the same year that piracy decreases, pencil sales in the US increase does that mean there is a correlation between pencil sales and piracy? of course not. Now your second sub-point provides that same-sex marriage is beneficial to commerce. There is no increase for demand of products as a couple living together, who is not married, is still going to have the same basic needs and wants as a couple who is married. They still are going to buy the same goods whether or not they are married or not married (food, water, basic utilities, television, etc.) (Just saying you need to check your sources links, not everyone has the time to go article hunting. If you don't fix the links I'm going to declare your facts invalid.) Pros second contention is as follows: the Legalization of gay marriage establishes equality. Since pro never defined in what sense this equality is present I will provide this definition. In this sense, pro must prove that homosexual marriages will both be seen as equal in society and legally or there is no true equality. In theory, your first sub-point sounds great, in practice, not so much. As I previously stated, major religious organizations frown upon homosexual relationships. As such, members of these organizations and the organizations themselves will see these marriages as sinful marriages and invalid according to their doctrines. Since religion is a major part of societal interactions many people will place marriage into a "hierarchy" system putting homosexual marriage in a lower societal class then heterosexual marriage. Is this equal? I think not. Homosexual marriages are in a lower class then heterosexual marriages but, legally, they still would receive the same rights. There is still no equality so marriage would not be socially equal, Civil Unions are not legally equal. Therefore,t he better choice which is neither marriage, nor Civil Union. Furthermore, no where has my opponent explained why a homosexual couple must be married because there are other alternatives such as revising the definition of a civil union giving them the same rights as in a marriage. This solves every problem. Pros two contentions collapse because homosexual marriage does not aid society nor does it establish equality. Now that I have refuted pro's arguments I will back up my own, space permitting. C1. My opponent has obscured the what I truly mean. My argument is that since neither religious organizations, which the majority of the population are part of, nor a clear majority of the people support legalizing homosexual marriage. It would be offensive to legalize it. Furthermore, Pros criticism of my source is unwarranted as it is a credible source and it does show that only 45% of the population supports homosexual marriage and that the rest are divided between civil unions and no support. Pro has no sources to back up the "53%." In the past a majority of the population did not support slavery. The Democratic South supported slavery while the Republican North, as a whole, did not approve of slavery. The North had more people therefore, a larger percentage of people were against slavery. As for the large support of Japanese internment if it was so popular why did J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, the first lady. Furthermore, the Supreme Court declared in Yasui v. United States (1943), Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), ex parte Endo (1944), and Korematsu v. United States (1944) that is was legal to detain minority groups if that is the warring country. The US was at war with Japan, the Japanese were interned. So legally was the detention correct, yes. The majority should be the arbiter for what should be done because it is the majority that is most affected by a law passed not the minority. C2. My contention states that homosexual marriage weakens the definition of marriage. Not society. If the only reason that the couple is getting married in the first place is out of love. Why do they need to be married? You can love someone and not marry them. So there must be another reason. Money. Marriage for practicality is nothing more than marriage for money. Marriage was instituted in the world for a man and a women who loved each other are bound together forever. The entire premise of this contention is based upon me arguing that marriage for money weakens society. I am not arguing that in my second contention I argue that it weakens the institution of marriage. C3. A traditional family is one with a mother, a father, and children. It is difficult to teach societal gender roles to children when there are two fathers. Furthermore, there not really two fathers as there has to be a woman somewhere to bear the child. This confusion can lead to the break down of society. As to why it happened in other countries well the public supported it that is why. Family values are the nuclear family is essential ethnic and moral unit of society. It's importance is obvious. Since the end of WW2, the world has seen a decline in this regard. C4. Two things, first, if someone married their dog it is a mockery of marriage and it also kind of sets a bad example for children saying it is alright to have inter-species marriage or species to non-species marriage. The probability of this happening is irrelevant. I am claiming that it could happen in the future. C5. First of all, this negative statistic which shows that a homosexual lifestyle lowers life expectancy whether or not there was negativity towards homosexual people. My opponent has not shown that a homosexual couples life expectancy will increase if gay marriage is instituted, I have shown it will decrease. Should the government support something which is bad for people?