Gay marriage ought to be legal.

Well, my preferred opponent declined to defend his position. I wrote everything specifically against contentions he made, so it probably isn't applicable to most people. Still, if you want to debate it anyway, please feel free! If you want to just drop some of his points and bring up your own, I'm fine with that. Here is what I wrote in response to the person I had attempted to challenge: 1. A very substantial portion of your argument relates to your attempt at having the Bible accepted as a common base in order to prove your general contention that gay marriage ought to not be allowed. You point to the fact that the majority of people in the US are Christian. However, there are several issues that I have with this argument: A) "Christianity" is not one monolithic bloc with the same beliefs and interpretations. There are a great many Christians in the US who do support civil unions or same-sex marriage, which would not be reflected if you assume that all Christians believe the exact same way. B) You have not demonstrated why the separation of church and state ought to be ignored in this case and the contents of a theology made law across the US. I'm specifically looking for you to pass a rational-basis test, since that seems to be the most reasonable way of gauging whether a thing ought to be allowed or not allowed by law. C) The Bible has often been used to attempt to deny people their rights. Women were denied the vote or the ability to own property on the basis of the Bible (as the man is the head of the household, is he not?), blacks were obviously quite oppressed using justifications from the Bible...a debate even took place on interracial marriage, and the argument was often used that if God had intended for the races to mix, why did he place them on separate continents? You have not given a reason why liberty ought to be supplanted in favour of conservative Christian theology, whereas there seem to be many historical examples of how this has harmed our country. D) The Bible makes a great many proclamations on how people ought to behave, including some fairly absurd and immoral ones (such as stoning to death anyone who tries to convert you to another religion). Do you likewise support making this US law? 2. You seem to tread toward claiming that marriage is an institution that exists outside of humanity, one that is "ordained by God". This may or may not be the case, but it is irrelevant regardless: the debate taking place is not one as to whether religious institutions ought to recognise gay marriage, but rather whether US *legal* institutions (that is, secular institutions) ought to do so. Whether the conservative Christian view of marriage is "defiled" or not is irrelevant in light of this fact. 3. Your advocacy of civil unions turns ANY harms based arguments that you may try to make: by allowing for civil unions, you are saying that whatever the negative consequences of gays getting married might be, they aren't enough to override the *liberty* that gay individuals ought to possess. Therefore, you CANNOT pass a rational basis test anymore. There are several problems, though: A) Civil unions are not "basically marriage": they tend to have reduced (sometimes greatly) reduced rights as compared to marriage. B) History has shown time and time again that the creation of a "separate but equal" class of individuals is never in the best interests of liberty or of society. Branding gay people in this fashion encourages discrimination and regressive thinking. You fail to establish a rational basis for why the separation of church and state ought to be ignored and liberty disaffirmed, you fail to demonstrate that gay marriage has any intrinsic harms in and of itself, and you fail to provide a compelling reason why America ought to create a "separate but equal" institution for gays. Thus, your argument appears to be lacking. This, of course, does not even at all address whether homosexuality or gay marriage is, in fact, immoral (from a Christian or secular perspective) - something, once again, that you do not address. You claim that America is a religious nation, and (under your assumption that all American Christians agree on this issue - a highly unwarranted assumption) thus religion ought to be used as a guiding ideal. Indeed, you even ask the question of how we would choose our political ideals if not for religion. There is one value that you seem to have lost sight of in your attempt at debating this issue; America was not founded on Christianity (indeed, the Founding Fathers were deist), religion in general (Hence why there was no established religion), or even on democracy. America was founded on the ideal of LIBERTY: That people should be free to behave as they wish so long as they do not infringe upon the rights of others. Thus, to infringe upon liberty, you must provide a rational basis. We allow taxation because we recognise that society cannot exist and better itself without taxation, and thus this minor infringement on our liberty is outweighed by the greater liberty that we gain. It is not that liberty ought to be put up to vote, as it has many times in the past (with such things as the Fugitive Slave Act or other abominations of law); liberty exists outside of democracy. Democracy is EXTRINSIC to liberty: We value it only so far as it protects our liberty. It is obvious how democracy can do this; the rule of a despot is far more likely to bring about tyranny than the rule of the people. However, we have seen many instances where democracy fails to protect liberty. This is why the US is structured as a republic with three branches of government, including a judicial branch that is able to OVERRIDE democracy and declare, by fiat, certain acts that the people's representatives have passed to be without legal force. If America were truly founded on the principle of democratic supremacy, then ALL acts of the Congress would be automatically constitutional. America was not founded on that: It was founded on liberty, and the court is here to protect that liberty even in the face of a majority that would seek to take it away. By your logic, then, we ought to AFFIRM liberty as our highest value. In doing so, we then affirm gay marriage as maximising the liberty of gay individuals. Given your support of civil unions, you seemingly cannot make an argument against this (as civil unions apparently do not infringe upon people's liberty enough to be banned, under your logic), and thus given all this it seems as though your position is without merit and gay marriage ought to be upheld. I look forward to your response! :)