Gay Marriage should Not be Permitted

Thanks, Zarroette!PRO's CASEA1. Marriage is Oriented Naturally1. Pro commits an Is/Ought Fallacy. She writes: "marriage is merely about the intrinsic link between marriage and procreation." Therefore, Pro argues, a just society should continue to treat marriage in that same way. A great example of why this kind of logic is fallacious is this: "[t]he simple fact is that war is good for mankind, since the tendency to conflict is a human instinct." [1] Another example might be that "slavery happens, therefore it is justified." Clearly, just because something IS the case, doesn't mean it SHOULD be the case.2. Pro needs to justify the inclusion of infertile, heterosexual couples in matrimony. The argument about having marriage "ordered" for Procreation is that marriage includes a class of people, i.e. heterosexuals, most likely to further its goal of procreation. However, if the goal is to procreate, why not restrict marriage even further, to a class of persons composed only of fertile heterosexuals? 3. Historically, procreation was not the most important part of marriage. Marriage used to be centered around forming alliances, strengthening family ties, getting economic resources, declaring love, etc. In fact, history tells us that procreation was not always the most important consideration in marriage: "'[t]he early Christian church...always took the position that they would annul a marriage if a man could not have sex with his wife, but not if they could not conceive.'" [2] This says something important: that while procreation mattered, stability, and perhaps other socioeconomic or religious concerns, trumped the goals of procreation. Similarly, in traditional African, Asian, and other cultures, same-sex marriages are permitted [3] as a means of preserving family lineage, gaining wealth, and/or as a way of keeping goods and property inside particular families. What matters here is that, historically, the claim that marriage is intrinsically or primarily related to procreation is a false one.4. Gay couples can contribute to procreation via artificial means. An infertile person may not even be able to do that much if they do not have sperm or eggs that can be artificially employed in the insemination process. In this case, gay couples are actually more ordered towards procreation than infertile couples, yet the former cannot marry while the latter can. This seems to contradict the whole intent of Pro's argument. 5. Gay couples can participate in child-rearing. I will touch on this more later, but, suffice it to say, that procreation alone is not sufficient if a couple refuses or is unable to raise a child. If gay couples can provide parenting to children in need of it, they are serving a useful purpose.6. There is more to marriage than procreation, as I stated before. These benefits include socioeconomic teamwork, the forming bonds between families, etc. These types of unions, even if they don't produce children, benefit society by promoting the welfare of individuals and stability. Surely, society can incentivize marriage for those reasons. 7. Finally, even if marriage was designed for procreation, will including gay couples in the institution truly jeopardize those goals? Legalizing gay marriage won't cause straight married couples to stop having kids, and it may just benefit the gay couples in other ways (e.g. happiness). That's a net positive.A2: Homosexuals Make for Poor ParentsOverview: 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.1. Non-biological Parents1. Gay Parents are highly motivated. Unlike stepparents, who may fall in love with their partner, but not their partner's children, gay parents seek out the child, whereas the stepparent does not necessarily do this. In fact, "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." [4,for further reading, see: 13] So, what may be true of stepparents is not necessarily true of gay parents.2. Pro's argument is an argument against non-biological parents in general, not specifically against gay parents. Using Pro's logic, we could just as easily making remarrying when you have kids illegal. Since she is defending the status quo, her argument turns against her, not just me.3. There are some issues with Pro's studies. Firstly, she does not show that it is likely that stepparents will hurt their kids (just "more" likely, but the scope of that increased risk is never defined in-round). Secondly, re: her Canada study: "Daly and Wilson's 1985 Canadian sample included cases of sexual abuse as well as cases of unintentional omission, such as not buckling a child's seatbelt in the car." [5]4. There are alternative explanations for the Cinderella effect: "according to resource theory, individuals who contribute resources are granted authority, while individuals that lack resources are denied authority and more likely to resort to violence to obtain authority. It is therefore hypothesized that stepparents who are able to contribute resources to a family and have those resources be accepted by the family are less likely to be abusive." [5] So, the effect may have less to do with the biological relationship between parent and child and more with other factors.II. General Problem with Same-Sex Parenting1. There are severe methodological flaws in the Regnerus study, such that "this study was widely discredited by researchers." [6]1a. The study examines children who witnessed their parent having a same-sex romantic relationship. It fails to consider important variables, including the length of the relationship (was it a day, a week, etc.), whether or not the child was raised by a same-sex couple or by a single parent, socioeconomic challenges, parental drug abuse, educational opportunities, parental harmony, geographic location, etc. In fact, Regnerus "admitted under questioning...that only two of the subjects in his study were raised from birth by committed same-sex couples and both had positive outcomes." [7]1b. Regnerus has a long history of anti-gay bias [7] and his study was funded and supported by right-wing organizations seeking to advance that agenda. [8]2. There are possible alternative causes to the effect described by Regnerus (if you believe his study). One such hypothesis is that the social stigma gay families suffer, as well as the fact that childcare benefits reserved for married couples are often withheld from gay households, may adversely effect the children. Thus, the cause of the children's adverse outcomes was not their parents, but rather that society systematically disadvantaged them.3. Many studies directly contradict Pro's claims. "Empirical studies comparing children raised by sexual minority parents with those raised by otherwise comparable heterosexual parents have not found reliable disparities in mental health or social adjustment. Differences have not been found in parenting ability between lesbian mothers and heterosexual mothers. Studies examining gay fathers are fewer in number but do not show that gay men are any less fit...than heterosexual men. Additionally...clinical research shows that 'children of gender-variant parents do not develop gender dysphoria...due to their parents' diagnosis with gender identity disorder." [6]To site a specific study: "Crouch and his team surveyed 315 same-sex parents with a total of 500 children across Australia...Children from same-sex families scored about 6 percent higher on general health and family cohesion, even when controlling for socio-demographic factors...However, on most health measures...there was no difference compared with children from the general population." [9] This is the world's largest study on the subject. [10]4. Pro gives a lot of preemptive rebuttals, but she needs to address my specific studies, not strawmans (which is what she does when she lambastes literature I didn't even cite, or when she attacks a genre of studies even when some of those studies might not be flawed.) Moreover, a simple google search [11] of Tray Hansen reveals his history of defending traditional marriage.A3: Religious Immorality1. "Freedom of religion...also protects those who do not follow a religion by shielding them from being forced to live in accordance with religious beliefs...they do not agree with. The legalization of same-sex marriage is consistent with freedom of religion in that it removes from marriage laws religious notions." [12] 2. Many religions, e.g. Episcopalians, permit gay marriage. In Pro's world, they would not be able to perform those marriages, restricting that faith's right to free practice of faith. I would not require all faiths to perform such marriage (no violation), but Pro would prevent faiths from following their beliefs (violation).SOURCES1 - http://www.txstate.edu...2 - http://www.livescience.com...3 - http://www.colorq.org...4 - https://www.psychologytoday.com...5 - http://en.wikipedia.org...6 - http://en.wikipedia.org...7 - http://thinkprogress.org...8 - http://www.regnerusfallout.org...9 - http://www.washingtonpost.com...10 - http://thinkprogress.org...11 - https://www.google.com...12 - Source 17, R213 - http://www.livescience.com...