Argument magician: Gayness

Argument 1: Gays hinder the economyThe point of this argment, in my opponent's eyes, is that because of differences in sexual orientation, homosexuals hinder and do not help the economy. Qualifiers by my opponent for this opinion are their general lack of a need for things related to child rearing, general lack of children, and what my opponent described as "parasitic behavior" on their part. All of these points rest solely on the general lack of children reared by homosexual couples. The first claim in this argument is that homosexual couples will have less outgoing expenses without the need to but things used for child rearing. This claim in itself is fallacious. Homosexuals in several countries are alowed the ability to raise children. Coutries including Denmark, Iceland, Spain, Sweden, the UK, Scotland, Norway, several states in the US, parts of Canada and Australia allow adoption by same-sex couples[1]. Many more countries including Israel, Germany, Finland, etc. allow "step-child" adoption. So the all encompassing claim that homosexuals never raise children is completely false. Not only does this fact mean that homosexuals do contribute to items used in child rearing, can have children who will in effect likely pay for their retirement(this is more a symptom of the broken SS system in the U.S. than anything specific to homosexuals), and do not necessarily engage in "parasitic behavior" such as using non-renewable resources.Argument 2: Gays hinder government changeThis argument necessarily stems from the fact that as men generally earn more money than woman, they pay more in taxes, thus helping the government regardless of whether it stifles the rights of it's citizenry. He also claims that as homosexuals generally support homosexual rights, they are more willing to support a government(examples being Nazi Germany or he U.S.) who somewhat support a limited form of gay rights while oppressing another minority group(Jews, Arabs).The first point of this argument rests on the premise that men generally make more money than women. While this is true, it does not help my opponent's case as a homosexual is merely one who is attracted to a member of the same sex. A homosexual need not be a man but can also be a woman. If sources are requested, here they are[2][3]. Second, the claim that gay men "benefit, WHATEVER government is in power, as long as it supports gay rights" is of course false. For all this does is stereotype homosexuals based on one factor. What about a Jewish homosexual[4] or an Arab homosexual? What evidence is there that they will necessarily support any government that marginally helps their fellow homosexuals, but oppresses their fellow Jews or Arabs?The other points my opponent makes in this argument are either irrelevant or unfounded. For instance, he claims that homosexuals are trading taxes for credibility, a claim that is both unsupported and false. Most governments have been extremely slow to implement gay rights with a mass of resistance every inch of the way. Also the concept of a stealth tax was both unwarranted and never fully explained by my opponent. His other points about the undeserved "status quo" of gay rights and the alleged illegality of voicing opposing opinions are also false. Gay rights are not the status quo as the public has been consistently deadlocked or favoring the Con side of same-sex marriage[5] and other LGBT issues. Argument 3: Gayness cannot be explained by genetics and is likely a mental illness.Argument number 3 by my opponent could best be summed up as follows, homosexuals cannot biologically produce progeny, the fundamental purpose of genes is to eventually reproduce, therefore an organism unable to reproduce exhiits some form of illness. While my opponent agrees there is little DNA evidence to prove this, he claims it is thus more likely to be a mental disorder.This point of my opponent's stems from a complete lack of knowledge as to either what a mental illness is or what a disease is in general. Even if we are to grant his un-sourced definition of a disease, my opponent has provided no evidence as to why homosexuality is a departure from health. It's not that homosexual men do not have the ability to produce progeny with a woman, or homosexual women with a man, but that they have no interest in doing so and a lack of attraction to the opposite sex. My opponent even admits that there is little evidence supporting his charge of mental illness but only because "this option has not been properly explored because it is a taboo for science due to political pressure". However this is simply untrue. Homosexuality was characterized as a mental illness but was dropped from the list in light of new evidence to the contrary. As it stands today, the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization no longer hold homosexuality to be a mental illness. It's not that they were never allowed to research the subject, but that the research did not yield results in that direction.==Conclusion==Before I end my arguments and rebuttals, I would like to point out that my opponent has yet to fulfill his burden of proof. In R1, he claimed he would argue for seven positions, only four of which he has tried to defend.- Gays appeal to apathy- (never touched upon by my opponent)- Gays are confused about weather gayness is mental or biological- (also never mentioned though my opponent himself expressed apparent confusion on which is the correct view)- Everyone who supports gays is incredibly biased.- (never mentioned)As it stands then, voters ought to vote Con as my opponent has not upheld his BoP.[1] http://adoption.laws.com... [2] Female homosexual(lesbian) http://www.debate.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://www.washingtonpost.com... [5] http://www.pollingreport.com...