Homosexuality is a mental illness

I will start off by rebutting your claim that my argument for thinking is begging the question... I'd also like to point out that you did not present an argument against this point, and merely used the Argument from Fallacy.I'll speak about your final point, that I did not provide an argument. I don't need to provide an argument. You have the Burden of Proof. If you are new to debating, whoever doesn't have BoP only has to refute statements made by the person with BoP. There are many theories for how to establish BoP, so much so that who has BoP is often a debate in and of itself. If you have a problem with me deferring BoP to you, please state why, but I am operating off of this assumption. I stated this very clearly both at the beginning and the end of my initial argument.As for the rest, a simple appeal to majority is not sufficient for considering something "an alteration in thinking, mood, or behavior". This can be illustrated by the fact that the transition you make from minority to fundamental alteration could be used for race. Certain races are minorities, their racial identification changes their behavior. But the fact that they are a minority is not a sufficient or even relevant condition for their consideration as an altered state of being. Normality is not defined in cases such as these by simple numbers. You have to show that there is actually impaired functioning from what a human is clearly supposed to do, not a simple majority/minority. Furthermore, 49% of people is technically a minority as well, but no one in their right mind would consider it small enough to be considered abnormal, that is ridiculous. So, where do we draw the line? It's obviously a gray area, but I certainly don't think a fifth of all humans is that much of a minority to be classified as "abnormal".As a quick example, there are less males in the world than females. Would you then call being male "abnormal"? Because that is essentially the transition you made, from slight minority to abnormality.Your rebuttal against my behavior argument is similar to your first rebuttal in that it is both fallacious and contains no actual rebuttal. I justified my claim that homosexuality is sexual deviance above, by definition.Likewise I'll extend my argument above to this.You are correct in that correlation does not equal causation. However... to prove that mental disorders are directly correlated with homosexuality [3][4][5].As I've explained several times, you have BoP, I don't need to provide arguments. Any positive claims I make that are more than refutations are unnecessary on my part, but I make to illustrate my refutations more clearly.Your argument against my proposed real cause for higher rates of depression in homosexuals assumes that fundamental discrimination against gays has actually decreased. Your second source doesn't really help the issue, I don't know how you used it. You don't think that social conservatives have gotten substantially more fired up against gays now than in the past because now it is a matter of social schism? For example, Arizona tried to pass a law that was specifically designed to allow free discrimination against gays by businesses. This wasn't an issue before, so this shows that social conservatives feel that they are under attack, and when people think that society is attacking their views/rights, they become much more impassioned. It is very possible this counter by social conservatives against progressive trends cancels out any positive effects that changes in laws have in our society.But that was just an example I gave, because again, I don't have BoP. Your refutation of it, even if successful, does not mean that homosexuality actually causes distress, because there are other potential causes. For instance, a homosexual who falls in love with a heterosexual has entered into a doomed relationship from which they might not leave unscarred. This would be constant across all societies regardless of progressive trends, because heterosexuals will never take kindly to homosexuals making moves on them.In response to your final argument, I'd first like to point out the strawman and the appeal to nature fallacies... This firmly supports my claim that homosexuality impairs biological functionality in individuals afflicted with it.You are just throwing the term strawman around, I haven't done that. I have responded clearly to each of your individual points, that's not strawmanning, thats organized rebuttal.As far as appeal to nature... let me quote what you said in your initial argument:Impaired functioning: Homosexuals (and some other kinds of sexual deviants, not all) are not sexually attracted to the opposite sex, therefore impairing their biological functionality by deterring homosexuals from seeking out mates and reproducing. You are the one who argued that homosexuality "impairs their biological functionality". You provided no evidence for this, so really my argument is done here, since I don't have BoP, and if you make bare assertions I shouldn't even have to respond. But I did respond, because it would help with getting my problem with this argument across to you. So, I'm going to ignore your claims of "no evidence" against me, because I don't actually have to provide any arguments, and thus no evidence, unless they are absolutely necessary for rebuttal, which they have yet to be.As far as my counter-rebuttal. You claim I am misrepresenting your arguments, but I am responding quite clearly and to-the-point concerning your claim of "impairing biological functionality". You are the one who is changing your argument now, because you say "you still would have not rebutted my argument that homosexuality impairs the reproductive capabilities of the individuals afflicted with it." Obviously homosexuality impairs the reproductive capabilities of individuals affected with it, but that is very different from impairing biological functioning in general. I brought up animals because it is clear from examining them that it is not necessarily true that homosexuality impairs general biological functioning, because reproduction is not necessarily a good thing in all scenarios. This is the lack of understanding of gene variance I pointed out in you, because you wrongly assume the inherent biological goodness of heterosexuality and the inherent biological badness of homosexuality. You assume it impairs biological function in general because you falsely assume that biological function can be reduced to whether the creature reproduces, but there is obviously more at stake when you are considering the long-term survivability and efficacy and variation of a species.Finally, I would request that you share the burden of proof. You... has something to argue against. I don't have to provide evidence if I don't have BoP. You should have said this in your opening statements, and it was not an unreasonable assumption on my part that you would have BoP; how am I supposed to argue that something isn't a mental disorder with positive claims? All I can do is refute your claims that it is, since it assumed that a state of being is not an illness unless proven so. Innocent until proven guilty, so to speak.So, I am in no way to blame for your lack of communication as far as BoP expectations. I don't blame you either necessarily, since you are apparently new to debate/formatting, but you speak about BoP as if it is somehow my fault that you failed to communicate an unexpected and, frankly, unreasonable (to me) expectation. But you should cover this in the opening post and not continually critisize your opponent for taking a reasonable BoP stance in a debate in which you did not specify.Fallacy list: 1.Argument from fallacy: Used throughout your entire rebuttal. It's called refuting your opponent's claims. :/ 2. Strawman: Used several times throughout your argument, especially at the end Nowhere did I implement strawman, you changed your argument and made false assumptions about biological efficacy. You didn't even point out where I strawmanned. 3. Appeal to nature: Used in your final argument. We are talking about biology, it's the study of natural things. But nice try. 4. Ad hominem: Used in your final argument. Where? The mediocrity comment? That wasn't even remotely intended to be ad hominem, and I apologize if it came across like that. You're simply making false claims about biology. Furthermore, mediocrity doesn't actually mean awful, as it is often conoted to mean, it actually just means average, just not at a high level. Furthermore, you provided no evidence whatsoever for your reasoning.I am perfectly sympathetic to your inexperience with debating, but I will not tolerate you turning your lack of specificity into a point against me. I debated according to accepted forms in debate in general but specifically on this website. If you make a claim that something is a mental illness it's assumed you have the BoP, for the same reason people are considered innocent until proven guilty. This is a disrespectful attempt at your part to deflect your own inexperience and turn it into a fault of mine.Conclusion:My opponent generally provided very good sources, and I commend them for this. However, I can not be expected to provide sources myself when I lack BoP, so I would request a reasonable scoring with this in mind.I refuted all of my opponent's claims, while my opponent changed their statements, specifically concerning biological vs reproductive functionality, to fit the need.My opponent only requested a shared BoP at the end of the debate, while this should have been provided in the opener. I do not fault them for this, however I do fault them for their attempt to use this as a point against me. I acted under the reasonable assumption, which I stated very clearly on multiple occasions, that claiming something is a mental illness is a positive claim that gives one BoP.