gay marriage

First off, tremendous thanks to bsh1 for helping me with all of the legal documents (UDHR, ICCPR) and other things. Due to lack of characters, I will only post arguments in this round. I will refute in the fourth round since no rules have said that I couldn't. I. Opinions A. A poll representation of gay marriage Polls on gay marriage are widespread and credible, as issued by the U.S government. The polls show us that the majority of Americans are for gay marriage [1]. If the majority of the population believes that gay marriage should be legal, why should the U.S government rule in favor of the lesser amount of population? Below are poll results: Support: 59% Oppose: 34% Unsure: 7% (as of March 2.) If only 34% oppose gay marriage, while 59% support it, there would be less people not in favor of the ruling. Plus, another 7% don't care. In another poll, recording a smaller sample size (2,000 people) had almost the same result [2]: Support: 52% Oppose: 43% Unsure: 5% Again, another poll shows that the majority are for gay marriage. There you have it, the majority of U.S people approve of gay marriage. If you want more polls, I can give you some. B. A debating view on gay marriage I only use this argument because all of my peers on this site have a passion for debating and are more inclined to follow the opinions of expert debaters and their peers. My first example here is on USN, a U.S debate site [3]. There were 5 articles- all written by experts with a college and/or graduate degree- approving or apposing gay marriage. People who read the articles could vote up or down. The results are as follows: Pro (3 articles): 2,260 total points Con (2 articles): -1514 total points On another debate site [4], I checked out the readers' comments off of the pro and con arguments. The three top voted comments all approved of gay marriage: 2nd best voted comment: "LOVE IS LOVE. Period." -Savanna 3rd best voted comment: "Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?" -James W. In conclusion of this argument, not only do the majority of polled Americans support gay marriage, the majority of debaters and experts approve of gay marriage also. If most approve, then it is not beneficial for the government to not legalize gay marriage. II. Legally, and morally, accepted A. Gay marriage is legally accepted by documents such as the Constitution and the International Covenant. I will quote both, starting with the International Covenant. Article 23, law 2, states the following: "The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized." Notice how it does not say if it has to be "between a man and a woman." It does not specify if it has to be opposite-gender marriage. Therefore, gay and lesbian's rights to marry must be recognized, as the law states. B. Next, the Constitution, the foundation of America as we know it, states [6]: 4th Amendment: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." This means that all men shall have equal rights, and that no one shall be treated differently than any other man. This means that all men and women, same-sex or not, shall have the right ofchoice, and they shall have the right to choose to marry. You already said that gay marriage is not a human right, which is not relevant since all gays and straights shall have the right of choice. C. The UDHR, or Universal Declaration of Human Rights, declares the same thing. Article 1 states the following [6]: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." This document is made from representatives from around the world and represents principle in human nature. Not allowing a group of people to participate in a worldwide action that has been around for thousands of years just due to their sexual orientation violates the principle of human action. In no way is this acting in a spirit of brotherhood, and in no way is it free and equal in both dignity and rights. To sum up this argument, not allowing gay marriage is both a violation of law and principle of both the U.S and the people living inside of the country. To keep America a great, civilized country, we should try to follow all laws and principle to help us have a better reputation. III. It's going to win sooner or later A. My third argument will be that it will win sooner or later. Since '08, 17 states have legalized or is going to legalize gay marriage [7]. Illinois is going to legalize it on June 1st. Second, 8 of the total 18 states have legalized gay marriage in 2013, which suggests that the gay marriage idea is getting more widespread. Out of the total 18, only 5 states have legalized it before '10. That means it is really speeding up. B. Now, allow us to dive deeper down into the statistics. Of the 18 states, 5 states legalized gay marriage by court decision. This means the court found gay marriage legal by law. Another 3 states legalized gay marriage by popular vote, which meant the people favored gay marriage. The remaining 10 were legalized by state legislature (kind of like state congress).Rebuttal I:I have already explained this to you. If you would just READ, then you'd see why they can't accept a civil union. First off, it is not equal to marriage. Second off, straight people can engage in civil unions, while gays can't engage in marriage. So it is two options to one, and that is not equal. The gays are trying to build equality, which is the main reason that they can't accept civil unions. Also, marriage may not be a right, but choice is a right. Each human should have the right of choice, and gays should be able to choose to get married or engaged in a civil unions, just like straight people can. Second, your link says "christianvoice." Also, the Supreme Court of the U.S.A has ruled that marriage is a right [8].Rebuttal II: Gay adoption is not worse for children, as my links have shown. Want more? Here you go [9][10]. From link [10], it says:"In a 2010 review of virtually every study on gay parenting, New York University sociologist Judith Stacey and University of Southern California sociologist Tim Biblarz found no differences between children raised in homes with two heterosexual parents and children raised with lesbian parents." So gay parents are either better or the same as straight parents, as virtually every study has shown. Rebuttal III:Oh for the love of- READ. I did not call CBS not reliable, I just stated the title "Draws fire from experts." This means experts thought something was not right with the study, or it went against other studies, making THE STUDY unreliable. Second, I know my links aren't liberal for gay marriage because many of them, such as Huffington Post, go against some liberal topics. I will have to refute the rest in the 4th round. No new arguments may be presented (as I stated in the first round) only rebuttals and/or polishing up. Thank you for your time, and I hand this debate over to Cooldudebro! Good luck! [1] http://www.pollingreport.com... [2] http://www.gallup.com... [3] http://www.usnews.com... [4] http://gaymarriage.procon.org... [5] http://www.ohchr.org... [6] http://www.un.org... [7] http://www.statesthatallowgaymarriage.com... [8] https://www.afer.org...[9] http://thinkprogress.org...[10] http://www.huffingtonpost.com...