The revisionist position of marriage is worthy of state recognition.

I, too, apologise for the delay. Fitting this into 8000 chars was very hard. RebuttalAt long last, my opponent has attempted to explain how marriage encourages reproduction. First he says that having a marriage certificate provides a more "apt" environment for procreation. I suppose that's slightly subjective, but in all honesty you can have a baby just as easily when you're not married. If my opponent thinks otherwise, let him justify it. He then asked whether I believe being married under a traditionalist marriage encourages me to have sex more than under a revisionalist marriage, and as I argued last round, my answer is no. Then my opponent continues "if no, my point is sound" (no further explanations or details as to why). So let me recap: my opponent's reasoning for why traditional marriage is better is that I'm always wrong (apparently). Nice. Next my opponent applies that same scrutiny to the revisionist position. Wait, no he doesn't. Actually he just asks me what I'm trying to prove. If he had applied the same scrutiny to the revisionist position, he would have seen that revisional marriages are exactly the same as traditional marriages with respect to procreation, because marriage is about love not sex. That’s also exactly what I'm trying to prove. Okay, moving on to how marriage does not enable reproduction. My point here was that traditional marriages allow lots of people to marry who, for various reasons, will never have children. In round two I explained why looking at gender is a bad criterion for distinguishing procreative marriages, for instance because of gender identity issues. I also argued that a single precondition for procreation is not enough. In response to all this analysis, my opponent said my arguments were a "rant. " And that's it! None of these claims was given the smallest look-in. What he did say, however, is that love is not a criterion of marriage. No further explanations or justifications. Actually, it is a criterion. I'm fairly clueless about US legislation, but I know that over here the purpose of the Marriage Act is to provide some legal recognition not to people having sex, but to people in love, which is why a vow of love is required before signing the register. But there is no vow in any major religion or secular marriage to procreate. Huh, looks like I already made this argument last round and my opponent neglected to respond to it. Next he argues that restricting marriage to only those that can go through all the steps of procreation is not more restrictive than not restricting marriage along the lines of procreation. But if procreation is so desirable, then why only empower some of the contributors? Sure, gay people can't do all the steps, but they inevitably end up doing a lot of them. If it were not for them, then much less procreation would be going on. So my opponent's apparently-less-restrictive restriction is to allow only those people who can complete the shortest, least expensive and least tiresome part of the process (reproductive sex) to marry. Gay couples often make a much greater sacrifice to ensure human survival than straight couples. But my opponent keeps on insisting that the couple must be able to complete all the steps of procreation to marry, without actually engaging with my argument at all. Why? In round one he told you that marriage is for procreation, and what better way to aid that than to avoid those unwanted, unloved babies I talked about last round? Gay people help solve the problem, gay people help us survive, and gay people only ask for the same titles as everyone else in return. Being married is not a symbol of procreation, but even if it was, that's no reason to bar same-sex marriage. CaseApparently it's now my job to justify why a revisionist marriage is, in and of itself, worthy of state recognition, as if no marriage institution already exists. First of all, I don't buy that premise. Marriage does exist, so it's no use arguing as if it didn't. It's because marriage exists that my harm accrues, and the avoidance of a big harm is far more important than justifying a model under unrealistic, hypothetical conditions. Nevertheless, recognising love is of clear advantage to states. Firstly, it makes their job much easier and less expensive in complicated legal situations, such as when a person dies without leaving a will. In places where illegal, it is an effective counter-measure to things like polygamy. But most importantly, as a general principle, love is a great thing for states to encourage. Love is the bringer of peace and prosperity; it orders society and makes people happy. Contrast that to procreation. When considering re-election, do people look more to fertility rates under a governments term, or do they look to things like prosperity when the government was in power? How often is conception discussed in political newspapers, compared with things like war and violence (and other opposites of love)? On the slippery slope, my opponent believes incest is currently legal. But as Wikipedia says, "In the United States, every state and the District of Columbia have some form of codified incest prohibition" (. http://en.wikipedia.org...). Almost all states also outlaw bestiality. However, if states have already accepted the principle that these kinds of relationships are okay, then why deny them recognition? It's not a slippery slope so long as there is a limit, and I have established the limit pretty firmly. Con further contends that since revisionist marriages are not legal, states should not recognise them for the same reason. Firstly, revisionist marriages are not illegal. They're just not officially recognised by the states. Gay couples are free to go ahead and do whatever ceremony they desire, and the government won't care. Secondly, even if they were illegal, the reason I would legalise them is to prevent a tangible harm. There is no tangible harm to not legalising incest or necrophilia (as I’ve already shown). Con further contends that homosexuality was illegal until very recently in many parts of the world. Firstly, this is not a historical debate. Secondly, that's a different topic. We're not arguing if x relationships should be legal, we're arguing if people in x relationships should have their marriages recognised by the state. Gay rights were granted for completely different reasons. Now that we have gay rights, there is good reason to institute gay marriage. On the fourth point, con contends that I haven't pointed out the flaw in the traditional position. The flaw is that it disenfranchises certain couples in legal relationships, which causes all manner of tangible harms. He then says, under this point, that the government is not entitled to give people everything they desire. That's true, but this isn't about just giving people something - this is about treating all legal relationships equally at the government level. The perception of fairness and justice is vital for any government to maintain. Then he says there is some kind of fair basis for making the exclusion, in the manner of being poor. No there isn't, and my opponent hasn't shown them. Finally con states that it's in the government's self-interest because the encouragement of self-preservation is important. To make this point, you need to prove the causal connection between government policy and humanity dying out. Like I said, even if there was no government and no state-recognised marriage, that would not stop children from being born, and therefore there is no causal connection. The revisionist position would recognise marriage to prevent a harm with the traditional position. The traditional position would recognise marriage to recognise love, not sex or self-preservation. And it so happens that I've been arguing this point for three rounds now, so restating continuously that I need to argue this point is poor rebuttal.