Resolved: Same-sex marriage ought be legalized in the United States

Yes, my study shows us that tolerance shows to reduce AIDS rates among the homosexual population, but there's a distinction between tolerance alone and acceptance of homosexuals. Tolerance is simply sucking your teeth and trying to get along with homosexuals whereas acceptance is some kind of acknowledgement that there really isn't anything wrong with homosexuality, and while tolerance is a great thing and helps our society a lot, it's not as effective as acceptance, as you can clearly see from my study from Emory University. Tolerance is great, but acceptance, including gay marriage, is better as far as the statistics are concerned. So, my contention about the gay marriage health effect still stands as far as I'm concerned. Before talking about the economy, let's talk about my opponent's argument on civil unions. What my opponent argues is that he doesn't even need to talk about civil unions because he doesn't support that as an alternative. However, as far as civil unions in this arguments are concerned, it's not about who supports them and who doesn't. What really matters is that they are acknowledged by the country in some way. It doesn't matter whether my opponent doesn't support them, considering that I support them as well and here I am arguing against them and the fact that the country in some way is providing an alternative, but the said alternative is not as good as the marriage itself. Therefore, we must talk about it in this debate regardless: because it exists. A republic, by the way, is a type of democracy: a representative democracy. Yes, it doesn't extend to the people as much as a direct democracy would, but the main idealism is still more or less the same: "by the people, for the people." In fact, the Constitution has been changed throughout the course of time to better accomodate that standard, whether it was to provide more rights for blacks and women to allowing elections for senators in order to put a people's voice. Therefore, it's a tacit obligation for the government to look at the society's perspective on when it comes to a social matter. As I said earlier in my argument, we must look at the duty and the correctness of the action, and based on what I've proven to my judges in my case, not only would it be correct to uphold democracy in this sense because we are upholding something good, but the government would also be fufilling its obligation to the people. Then, we move on to the economic benefits. An economy is not only dependent on production. It's dependent on commerce in totality, and when we increase the amount of same-sex marriages, we're generating more commerce. Sure, if it's not spent on tourism or the marriage itself, it would be spent on something else, but the question is: how much would be spent on something else? We can also acknowledge that they would be spending on something else AND make spending for same-sex marriages, which would only supplement my case. In addition, this is a report made from a university-level analysis, and not to condescend my opponent or anything, but it's the university professor's word against his, and my opponent hasn't posted any evidence contrasting my economics case. So my economics case still stands. As for the evidence that I asked for in his debate, it was more to try to clarify his position considering that we never really put forth a cross-examination, so I guess I should do so in order to make more clarifications:1.) You stated that same sex marriage is a contributor to the tax structure and puts more regulations. Are you saying that gay marriage is unfair because it raises taxes? If so, how much would it raise it by? 2.) What exactly do you mean when you stated that it reduces pressure for fair hospital visits? How does gay marriage do that? Do you have any reports explaining that or evidence explaining that and how significant it is?