Gay Marriage

Pro Case Rights In response to my opponent's claim that marriage is a civil right and that denying gays the right to marry each other violates their civil rights, I explained that the right to marry is derived from the right to liberty and therefore is a natural right. Since it is a natural right, and natural rights entail noninterference and not positive enforcement, marriage does not require social recognition. My opponent concedes that this analysis is true, but he then claims that in addition to being a natural right, the right to marry is also a civil right because marriage is a legal institution as well as a social institution. I have several responses. First, the existence of civil ordinance recognizing natural rights does not transform them into civil rights. Natural rights exist independently of the state; they are not granted to individuals based on the existence of the state. Civil rights, however, are granted by the government and are thus subject to governmental regulation. I'll use my opponent's example to clarify. The right to vote is a civil right and thus is subject to state control and implementation. The state can choose to whom to give these rights; for example, it can bar children from exercising the right to vote. State recognition of natural rights does not affect natural rights in any way because they are not subject to governmental regulation. Indeed, to claim that natural rights are transformed into civil rights as a result of state recognition would violate natural rights theory since it would give the state the authority to regulate the exercise of those rights and thus permit them to violate the non-interference property of natural rights. Since natural rights cannot be transformed into civil rights, the right to marriage remains a natural right. Second, however, if you do accept my opponent's claim that marriage is a civil right, the argument can simply be turned against him. Since civil rights are granted by the state, they can be granted and implemented in any manner that the state chooses. Refer back to the right to vote example that I provided; the state can choose how to implement the right to vote (i.e. how elections are run) and to whom it should be granted (ex. not children). This means that if the state does not give gays the right to marry each other, their civil rights are still not being violated since the state is responsible for managing civil rights and it can do so in any manner that it pleases. So, my opponent is in a double bind. Either marriage is a natural right, in which case it is not a civil right and does not entail positive enforcement, and if it is a civil right, a state that does not grant gays this right is not violating their rights since they don't have an inherent right to them anyways. Also note that my opponent drops the argument that I made that notes that the legal recognition of marriage is the same for all insofar as no individual is granted marital recognition if he or she marries a member of the same sex. This is the same standard that is being applied to all, so this practice is not discriminatory and does not violate the civil rights of gays. Benefits In response to his discussion of the benefits of marriage, I noted that since homosexual marriages do not produce more children for society while heterosexual marriages do, individuals in homosexual marriages do not deserve those benefits. His response is that there are other means to produce children besides heterosexual marriages. He first discusses technologies that permit procreation without marriage. The problem is that all of these are still based on heterosexual unions; the gays are simply using heterosexual unions in order to extract children. The heterosexual unions are still the indispensable means to produce children even when these technologies are used (unless my opponent proves to me that two sperms or two eggs can combine to produce children, the unions are heterosexual unions). Gay unions cannot produce more children, so they don't deserve recognition. He then claims that adoption permits them to raise families. This is a nonresponsive point because my argument was that the producing effects of heterosexual marriages is what gives it special status. Even if gay couples can adopt, they cannot produce without resorting to heterosexual unions, either technological or biological. Since the adoption point doesn't respond to the production argument, this claim holds no water. He then claims that my argument about changing the status quo falls within his bounds. This isn't true. The change that he is advocating is recognizing gay marriages, and the changes that I am advocating (dispersing some benefits more widely) can be done without recognizing them. What this means is that those changes don't fall within the scope of his argument since his changes aren't necessary for my changes to occur. He completely concedes the points about child benefits and staying together longer. Those are therefore mitigated. Con Case At the top of the case I explained that 1. Justice is the end goal we must be pursuing in this round and that 2. Justice precludes utilitarian calculations. These two arguments went entirely conceded, so these are the standards that you need to evaluate the round through. Remember that the definition of justice explained that we must treat equals as equals and unequals as unequals. The burden now falls on him to prove that heterosexual marriages are equal to homosexual marriages. If there is even one significant difference (i.e ability to produce children within the marriage), they are not equal and thus merit unequal treatment. He next claims that my observation is false infertile marriages are not procreative in type and that there is no reason that marriages must be procreative in type rather than in effect. The reason that marriages are procreative in type is that they are geared towards creating sexual encounters that result in reproduction. Not all sexual encounters result in reproduction (this Is entirely natural), but the intent of the marriage is to result in reproduction. The claim that infertile marriages are not procreative in type is also false. What makes an act procreative in type is the nature of the act itself, and not any external factors which may be imposed on it. Gay sex is not procreative in type while heterosexual sex is; the infertility of one of the partners is an external factor that is being imposed [1]. Infertile marriages are still created with the intent to reproduce; the knowledge is simply lacking on the part of one of the partners. If the knowledge is present, however, then the condition no longer is external and the marriage should not be recognized by the state. He then claims that the function of marriage is to raise children and not to create them because children have positive impacts on society when they become adults. This actually doesn't make any sense. Society cannot exist without people, which is why the creation of the children (rather than raising them) is the important act that can be recognized. People can have positive impacts on society even if they were not raised by a family (Aristotle is a great example), but they cannot be created without heterosexual unions taking place. In addition, you can simply turn this argument because if raising children is what matters, gays should still not be granted legal recognition because they don't raise children as well as straights. A study from the University of Texas notes that children raised by gay parents are much more likely to have emotional and social problems than regular individuals [2]. This means that even in terms of child raising, the two are unequal and thus merit different treatment. I presented a syllogism that explained why heterosexual marriage merits better treatment. He responded by claiming that these are bare assertions and that my source is a blog. First, they aren't bare assertions; they're premises in an argument that are, for the most part, self evident. Even if they are bare assertions, he didn't respond to any of them except for the first one, so all of them flow directly through the round. Don't let him have new responses later since that violates debate decorum. Second, the fact that the source is a blog is meaningless since there is nothing inherently trustworthy about blogs; they are simply a source of information. In fact, most major news outlets use blogs in order to obtain news sources. The only one that he responds to is number 1, namely that heterosexual union is not an indispensable means for reproduction. I've already explained that all of those technologies he discusses are examples of heterosexual unions; children are not created through any other means. Sources [1] http://www.debate.org... [2] http://www.carbonated.tv...