Bsh1, in his debate with Zarroette, Failed to Refute her Parenting Argument

Before I launch into rebutting his arguments, I think it is important to give the readers some more context into the parenting argument Zarroette made. I will then give my rebuttals. CONTEXTZarroettes arguments were broken down into two sections, one relating to biological parents, one relating to gay parents specifically. In her first argument, she wrote: "Part of the problem with homosexuals raising children is that they are not the biological parents. This relates to a serious problem commonly known as the "Cinderella effect". This is a by-product of evolution, wherein a lot of resources are spent on raising children, so the parents that took best care of their own children were the ones that continued their lineage. " [1] In support of this claim, Zarroette offered some evidence by Daly and Wilson (as well as other, less important studies) that related to how stepparents were more likely to abuse there children; this is called the "Cinderella effect. "In her second argument, she argued that gay parents specifically were worse parents, citing a study by Regnerus in support of the claim, and noting that he concluded that, "Homosexual parents were more likely to raise criminals, and children raised by lesbian parents were the second highest involving risk of crime. .. [H]omosexual parents were found to more likely abuse their children. Children raised by gay men were 3 times more likely to incur an STI in their lifetimes, twice as likely for children of lesbian"s. People raised by homosexual men had an increased likelihood of having suicidal thoughts. " [2] She also cited some other authors who claimed that all or almost all evidence in favor of gay parenting was biased. Pro never disagrees that I rebutted this portion of what Zarroette said. I can now proceed to address Guidestone's (Pro) points. PRO's CASE1. Refuting the Biological Parents ArgumentPro writes that, "his argument implies that biological parents raise children better than non-biological ones. .. Bsh1 does not try to refute the argument, and in fact is the only time mentioned the general argument. So, concluding the argument still stands and was not contested. "Firstly, Pro lifts the argument from its necessary context. Zarroette's claim was not simply that biological parents are better, her claim was that because biological parents are better, gay parents (who are by necessity nonbiological) are not as good as heterosexual parents. It was this claim that I refuted. Zarroette's argument relied on her evidence that stepparents are more apt to abuse or maltreat children. I responded to this claim by arguing that what is true of heterosexual stepparents is not true of homosexual parents because the two groups differ in a significant way. Here is what I wrote:"First, let me point out that all of [Zarroette's] evidence had to deal with stepparents, not gay people. So, Pro has no evidence that proves that gay people's subconscious tendencies towards neglecting no biological children will outweigh their conscious tendencies to care for them. Remember, 'gay parents tend to be more motivated, more committed, and more thoughtful parents than heterosexual couples. That's because they usually have to work very hard, and plan very far in advance, to become parents, and so rarely do so by accident. '" [1]In other words, I explained that while stepparents may be more likely to abuse their children, because gay people have to go through so many hoops (IVF, adoption, etc. ) to get kids, they are actually more motivated and thus are unlikely to abuse their children. So, firstly, it is not true that all types of nonbiological parents are likely to abuse their children, and, secondly, I showed that there was a significant disjunction between Pro's evidence, and the impacts she was trying to make with it (i. e. , I showed that her evidence about stepparents couldn't be applied to gay people, and so it couldn't be used to argue against gay parenting or gay marriage. )I also rebutted this argument by critiquing the Daly and Wilson study as having a key methodological flaw in that it could have misinterpreted absentmindedness as abuse. Furthermore, I argued against Zarroette's point by offering an alternative hypothesis to what caused the CIinderella Effect, called resource theory. This theory argues that it is actually resource-based issues that causes the violence, and not the lack of a biological connection. This argument undermined Zarroette's claim that biological parents where inherently (due to evolutionary psychology), more likely to abuse children. Finally--and very importantly--I rebutted Zarroette's entire argument with my overview. I wrote: "Gay parenting will happen in either world, so this point is non-unique, meaning that these harms will occur whether or not gay marriage is permitted. "For Zarroette to successfully show that gay parenting was relevant in a debate on gay marriage, she needed to show that gay people would only parent or parent noticeably more frequently if given marriage rights. She failed to offer any argumentation or analysis along those lines. Given that, judges must assume that gay parents will parent roughly equally whether or not marriage equality occurs. Therefore, supposing the gay parenting is a bad thing, no matter whether gay marriage is allowed or not, the same amount of gay parents will exist. So, if Zarroette cannot eliminate or reduce the bad thing, she is garnering absolutely ZERO impacts in the round.2. Marriage is about ChildrenNext, Pro claims that I failed to rebut that marriage was about children. That's not really topical to this particular debate, since that was Zarroette's A1, not her A2, but I will still address this claim. I did, as a matter of fact, rebut that marriage is about intrinsic procreation in four main ways. Firstly, I argued that, historically speaking, marriage was not about procreation, but rather that it was about promoting societal cohesion. I also offered quite a bit of evidence (in round 4) that Zarroette later totally dropped that talked about the benefits of marriage in regards to promoting societal cohesion and the personal wellness of the married couple. I also observed that the current benefits governments give married couples often don't have any connection to procreation or child-rearing. I impacted this in two ways: (1) that the purpose of marriage always has been, and appears to stll involve, something other than procreation, and (2) that the government has a reason to incentivize marriage and to permit marriage that is not procreation. Secondly, I pointed out contradictions in her advocacy. I wrote, for instance: "Firstly, how does an infertile, heterosexual relationship have an 'intrinsic link' to procreation. The intrinsic link argument asserts that heterosexual marriage is moral because it is ordered towards procreation; but surely, if procreation is so special, would we not exclude infertile couples to even further order the institution toward that goal? Pro never sufficiently explains why infertile couples should be allowed to marry while gay couples should not, and that is the fatal flaw in her argument here. Secondly, why must the link be intrinsic vice extrinsic? If procreation is our goal, as Pro clearly believes, it is not sufficient that a union can procreate, but that they actually procreate. That means that extrinsic procreation, i. e. 'giving birth in reality,' is also key. " [1]Thirdly, I argued that even if marriage were mainly about children, it couldn't just be about procreation, as Zarroette claimed. Her arguments only said that marriage was special because of its intrinsic procreative ability, not because of its capacity to rear the children produced. I wrote: "Pro focuses so much on procreation she seems to forget what follows. As I stated last round: 'procreation alone is not sufficient if a couple refuses or is unable to raise a child. ' Why should the purpose of marriage just be procreation, and not child-rearing? Surely, parents should do more than just produce bodies; they should make productive members of society. Even if gay couples don't have a intrinsic link to procreation, they can definitely raise and adopt children, which is an important part of the equation, and perhaps more important than procreation alone. " [1]Fourthly and finally, I argued that even if marriage were about intrinsic procreative ability, that legalizing gay marriage would do nothing to stop straight couples from procreating, and that it would have psychological and social benefits for gay people. That is a net benefit--there is no loss but a clear gain. So, there seemed to be no reason to prevent gay couples from marrying when looked at from this point of view. ------I believe the resolution here has been resoundingly negated. Source: . http://www.debate.org...