Marriage should not be redefined or gay marriage should be illegal

Seeing as I have been challenged to this debate, without being told the rules, I shall create them now:1 - There shall be an additional round in which my opponent and I do not post. This shall be in case someone has to forfeit a round. In the case of none being needed, none shall be used.2 - The debate is "gay marriage should be illegal"; not a double-debate. Apart from that, there are no other constraints.3 - We shall assume that all countries [should] abide by the UN declaration of human rights. I shall address my opponent's points before furthering my own, but shall show the points as seperate clash points. What is marriage and the purpose of it?My opponent cites a quotation from...somewhere. I tried 'googling' it and working out the location, but the best I can come up with is a youtube source. If I assume this is part of the next source that appears, NOM, I think that NOM is wrong on this issue. They seem to have the idea that sexual unions are to create life. Well, I want to just show a simple table: Married? Not Married? Having Sex / IVF treatment/ equivalent? Can conceive children Can conceive children Not Having Sex / IVF treatment/ equivalent? Cannot conceive children Cannot conceive children The fact is simple: People have children when they have sex. Unless my opponent is proposing some argument of storkism of some sort, where when you get married, and wish really hard, you get a child, then it is obvious that marriag does not 'make children'. Also, my opponent cites some very patriotic American promoting arguments. I would feel like I needed to refute them, except for the fact that I am not American and I do not care. Proposition 8 could be reverting to the stoning of homosexuals, but no homosexuals in my country will be victim to your laws. However, if we look at the UN, the treaty of which all countries [should] follow, article two states: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. (1)When we bear article two in mind, and view article 16: Men and women of full age, without any limitation ... have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (1)It is clear that international laws dictate clearly that both it is in coincidence with law, and it is wholeheartedly promoted. In fact, it is an offence to not grant Same Sex Marriage.Also, I'd like to refer to a source: my opponent's source, smartmarriage, is an ironic one: the source supports my case that marriage is based on love, not procreation. I thank my opponent for doing my work for me: "The way wehave it set up now a couple gets married and we send them out there to win based on "love and commitment."" which shows how empirical sources trust love over procreation. And let's be honest: wanting children is a terrible reason to get married. All it leads to is unhappiness, and getting into a relationship that you don't want, and cannot get out of easily. It's even worse when you believe marriage is a commitment to God: you've just got married into a loveless relationship, where you have to stay together because of the promise to God. But if you are happy, and want to get married out of love and respect for your partner, I cannot say that you can't. Also, Sheri and Bob Stritof, happily married for 48 years and major contributors to about.com's marriage section,[2] write about what makes a good marriage. I have yet to find an article which says desire for children is a strong basis, but a fair few saying it is not.What about the children? Won't somebody please think of the children!But my opponent('s source) brought forth an interesting point. "marriage provides a means to help society regulate this [biologically driven sexual act] so that children do not get hurt." I wholly agree with the beginning and end, that is, it should read "marriaeg provides a mean to help society ... so that children do not get hurt". It should be to help the children, so that leads into my second clash point.Many studies show[3] that[4] homosexual[5] parents are either equal to or stronger than heterosexual marriage. In fact, the very few studies that do contradict this claim are from the Family Research Institute, or the FRI. I can only say about them what the CPA (Canadian Psychologist Association) has said: The FRI "consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism". Or the ASA go into much more depth: "It does not take great analytical abilities to suspect from even a cursory review of Cameron's writings that his claims have almost nothing to do with social science and that social science is used only to cover over another agenda. Very little of his work could find support from even a bad misreading of genuine social science investigation on the subject and some sociologists, such as Alan Bell, have been 'appalled' at the abuse of their work."Also, I would like to 'steal' my final argument from Bluesteel, simply due to the brilliance of his point:"The gay marriage ban costs California $1 billion every 6 years. Marriage is a big industry that stimulates businesses (bakeries, photographers, DJ's, etc) in the state and generates tax revenue. $1 billion is a lot in California. Cutting $1 billion from the University of California's budget is ultimately what forced them to triple student fees over the last 10 years"[7]. I'd also like to state, in case my opponent uses the same rebuttal that he uses against bluesteel, that, if my opponent wishes to claim that " Including same sex couples into the legal definition of marriage would increase the tax burden", I would like to see the mathematics behind this claim. After all, it is quite a simple one to do: get the 84,000 homosexual couples living in California[8], reduce it by, say, 50% for those who won't get married. Then, separately, work out the average married person's money return every year based on marriage tax returns, and divide it by 2 to make it per couple, then multiply it by 3 to compare it to the 349 million dollar cost that the study states. That would provide the comparison. I would very like my opponent to do this if he uses this argument.In conclusion, there is no reason to ban homosexual marriage. My opponent's case rests on the idea that marriage is based on pro-creation, but his 'proof' comes in the form of bloggers. I present my arguments which state that marriage is about love, then marriage promotes the health and lives of children, and finally that the banning of marriage is a financial burden. I shall create more arguments next round, in order to strengthen my case.1 - http://www.un.org...2 - http://marriage.about.com...3 - http://www.livescience.com...4 - http://www.time.com...5 - http://www.tandfonline.com...6 - Careful with that Gun: Lee, George, Wax, and Geach on Gay Rights and Same-Sex Marriage - pages 4 to 5.7 - http://www.debate.org...;8 - http://online.wsj.com...;