A Good Debate on Gay Marriage

Many thanks to InVinoVeritas for keeping his initial remarks brief and for embarking upon this exploration with me. At this time I will rebut Con's case.OVERVIEWCon's case is, essentially, teleological in nature--it attempts to understand and divine the purpose of marriage, and to extrapolate from that an answer to the resolution. There are several problems with taking this approach to the topic:1. Purpose is nebulous. (1A) Purpose is not always something that can be determined--take, for example, life. What is its purpose? existentialists and theologians have been struggling with this question for millennia. (1B) There is also a more concrete reason for Purpose's ambiguity. Take for example the nuclear bomb. Some would say it was created to kill; others would say it was created to deter; still others might say it was created as an exercise in vanity and egotism present within the military-industrial complex. For almost every object, from forks to atom bombs, we can identify more than one possible purpose for that item. How then can we narrow down marriage's purposes to a single root? It's impossible.2. Purpose =/= Should. Let us say--for the sake of argument--that a gun's purpose is to murder people. Does that necessarily imply it should be used to murder people? No, of course not. It is neither desirable or right to murder people, and therefore it should not be done. Even though an object's purpose is X, than does not mean it should be used for X. In this way, Con's whole argument is a non-sequitur.3. Purpose is not exclusive. Let's use the same example of the gun whose purpose is to murder people. Is that the only thing it can do? No--it can be used to hunt, to defend, to scare, and so on. Should it be used to do those things? Yes, in many cases. Therefore, even if an object's purpose is X, that does not mean it can only do X. It may also do Y. So, even if we accept that marriage's purpose is to promote stable procreation, that does not mean that it cannot also do other things, which might allow it to include gay marriage under it's umbrella.CON's ARGUMENTSI will italicize Con's statements as I conduct my line-by-line rebuttal.-- The Exclusivity of Marriage --"Marriage is not a 'natural right,' as many 'equality' advocates have often suggested; marriage is a privilege that enables people to have the government invest in their legal status."Marriage is, however, a legally recognized right in the United States. We only have to look to the ICCPR to see this evidenced. In Article 23, the ICCPR guarantees the "right of men and women of marriageable age to marry." [1]"Whether same-sex marriage should be legalized or not is not relevant to the principle of 'equality'; rather, it is a question of whom we ought to exclude from the exclusive legal doctrine of marriage."Con says that equality is irrelevant, and posits that the appropriate question is one of exclusion. I would think this question could be better reframed to this: "Who should have equality when it comes to marriage?" Clearly, a chair does not, but people, as equally human entities, should. I daresay that equality is not irrelevant either. Consider the following, real-life example. Two lesbians lived together for 15 years. There homophobic neighbor had trained his dog to bark whenever they passed his house to scare them. One day, the dog got loose an savaged one of the ladies in front of her partner. Her partner recieved no death benefits from the state and her wrongful death suit was dismissed for lack of standing. I think there is an obvious lack of justicein this situation--by depriving one group of people marriage, you do descriminate against them. This formed the basis of the DOMA ruling leveled by the Supreme Court. [2]Moreover, Con has failed to explain why marriage should be exclusive. Gay people are unlikely to reproduce anyway, so there is no real harm in permitting them to marry. Heterosexuals can still marry and reproduce even in a world where gay marriage is legal--so why can't we have both? Con never provides justification for this.-- Drawing the Line for Marriage --"Marriage is unique in that it is a bodily union that promotes a stable institution of childbearing and rearing. A heterosexual marital contract, at its core, upholds a union that can internally reproduce and raise its own biological offspring. "An here we come to the crux of Con's claims. But, why is biology necessarily the line we should be drawing. Consider that infertile heterosexual couples are still allowed to marry. If marriage were truly solely about reproduction, then would it not have evolved to exclude barren individuals from being able to marry? Clearly marriage has had other purposes through out history: binding families together, protecting property, etc. [3]More recently, marriage has become (and in some cases was always)an institution of love. [3, 4]"A homosexual union cannot bear children internally, and when a child is raised, it is not the child of one or both of the parents in such a union--and this creates a demand for children whose biological parents do not want them"This assertion is fallacious. Look at celebrities like Cat Cora who had children with a sperm donor. [5] Now she and her partner are raising a family where the kids are biologically related to at least one of the parent. So, in a sense, homosexual couples can reproduce and form stable family units internally/with minimal external assistance. Furthermore, I am interpreting the latter half of that sentence as imply that gay couples would cause an increase in people giving their children away to orphanages. This is also ridiculous. There are 153 million orphans in the world--in the U.S. alone there are 115,000 available for adoption. [6] It is unlikely that every gay family would adopt, but they could put a serious dent in this number. I know I want kids and a husband sometime in the future.There are enough children right now that could use a loving family that they would likely sate the demand you mention. "Supply and demand" also doesn't really apply to birth and child rearing. In places like Japan, where demand is increase, supply is decreasing (the population is shrinking.)-- The Slippery Slope --"A standard needs to be set. Without a standard, we create an all-inclusive institution."Sure--that standard is informed consent, as set down by international law. [1] A chair cannot consent anymore than a goat can or an 8 year old can. But two grown adults--they most definitely can consent to marriage. Insofar as we have a reasonable, clear-cut standard in the consent doctrine, there is no slippery slope.So, if we return to the question I posed earlier (Who should have equality when it comes to marriage), the answer is consenting adults. Thanks again. I look forward to Con's arguments! SOURCES 1 - http://www.ohchr.org... 2 - http://articles.latimes.com... 3 - http://en.wikipedia.org... 4 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com... 5 - http://en.wikipedia.org... 6 - http://www.ccainstitute.org...