Gay Marriage should Not be Permitted

Thanks, Zarroette. My case:HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT A CHOICEPro drops all my evidence.It is worth noting here that Pro again calls upon her Is/Ought fallacy to justify her logic. She writes: "it is wrong because marriage is orientated towards...[the] children their union produces." Here, she makes a moral/ought judgment about the "wrongness" of something based on a factual claims about how "marriage is orientated."INJUSTICEP1. DiscriminationI. Recognizing Actual DifferencePro's argument is reliant on her claim that marriage is for procreation, and that gay couples are unfit to that end. Unfortunately, Pro logic presents a problem: if infertile couples are allowed to marry, Pro is allowing people who cannot procreate into the union of marriage. Why is it then okay to permit infertile, heterosexual couples' entry into matrimony, but not to allow gay couples' the same right? Neither group can procreate; both groups are consenting adults. The only real explanation for excluding gay couples is thus discrimination.But, even if you don't buy this argument, if you buy into any of the previous arguments I made about how marriage is not necessarily about procreation, then that eliminates Pro's criterion for establishing some kind of just difference between homosexuals and heterosexuals that would allow one group to marry while not allowing the other group to do so. So, all of those arguments from my last round can be cross-applied here.II. Governmental BenefitsPro suggests that "society does not exist without procreation, yet society can exist without homosexual unions." In fact, society could survive without marriage at all; people can (and do) procreate outside of matrimony. Therefore, it is not as if society could not exist without heterosexual unions. So, society"s existence is not--hyperbolically--in the balance.There are, in fact, myriad reasons for providing marriage benefits to incentivize such unions, and many of these reasons have little, if anything, to do with reproduction. Let me just rattle off a few stats here [1, 2, 3, 4]: (a) Marriage Promotes Physical and Mental Health According to my sources: Marriage reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, and increases long-term happiness. In a specific study in Arizona, for example, unmarried people were 3-4 times more likely to be dissatisfied with life. Married women suffer less psychological distress compared to unmarried women, and unmarried people are 3x more like to commit suicide. Unmarried individuals are also at an "elevated risk for STDs because of multiple partnership." [4] (b) Marriage promotes Social and Economic Stability Again, according to my sources: Income is higher for married couples, and marriage itself becomes a means of generating wealth for families. Furthermore, married couples experience less than half the incidence of domestic violence as co-habiting couples and are 3 times less likely to be victims of violent crime than those who are divorced or unmarried.In addition to these facts, it is also clear that: "Being married changes people's lifestyles and habits in ways that are personally and socially beneficial. Marriage is a 'seedbed' of prosocial behavior." [1] "The relational ties and community assets forged through marriage result in many positive outcomes for society. Marriage...fosters social connections, civil and religious involvement, and charitable giving. Marriage connects men and women to the larger community and encourages personal responsibility, family commitment, community voluntarism, and social altruism." [2]The conclusion we can draw from (a) and (b) is that government benefits that are designed to incentivize marriage may be offered not because of the link between marriage and procreation, but rather because of the link between marriage and social cohesion and the general welfare. The latter is most definitely something gay couples can link to, and the former (though the use of artificial means) is not out of their reach either. So, if society has an interest in encouraging marriage for reasons other than procreation, it should include gay couples because gay couples can help achieve those other reasons.Pro also writes: "All these benefits exist to make child-bearing and child-rearing easier for married couples." But that's just false. The government benefits given to married couples are not just benefits designed to help parents rear children. Gay couples are denied things such as spousal privilege, which has little to do with raising children, but more to do with ensuring cohesion between the couple, in furtherance of the social benefits I described above. So, even if marriage were about procreation, there is no justification for denying gay couples these benefits of marriage; yet, in the status quo, this discrimination persists. Note that Pro drops/concedes that civil unions are unequal to marriage, and do not confer the same legal benefits (e.g. spousal privilege) to gay couples. She also (again) resorts to her Is/Ought fallacy when she writes: "homosexual marriage is still unjust due to the nature of marriage."P2. Social Stigma and OtherizationIf you buy from the evidence above, and perhaps even from the historic analysis I presented last round, that marriage is not about procreation, but rather about ensuring social cohesion and social stability, then the stigmatizing and otherizing impact of denying gay people marriage rights has direct and important relevance to this debate. If you buy that marriage is even partly about social goals other than procreation, these arguments are still going to weigh. I. Marriage Would Lower "Psychological Distress"I am assuming that when Pro objects to my source showing the connection between higher levels of distress and a lack of marriage rights, she is referring to my source number 18 from Round 2. All the methodological information from that source was easily accessible if Pro had scrolled down and clicked "Click here for the full study." A link to additional (and methodological) information from this source has been provided as source number [7] in this round. Extend the study, as her only rebuttal against it is now defunct. Furthermore, there are good rational reasons to believe that marriage equality reduces suicide. [8]I would also note that Pro falls prey to her very own objection. She cites a study without giving a URL, so I cannot access it to examine its veracity either.Next, I will cite evidence showing how gay couples who marry actually have long lifespans than those who don't. In Denmark, the first country to legalize civil unions, a study was conducted using the country's civil registry: "During the study period, about 1.7 million of the people in the registry died, allowing the researchers to calculate mortality rates for the 29-year period. Controlling for education, income, city and population density, the researchers found that marriage made a difference...[Since] same-sex marriage was introduced, mortality rates among gays and lesbians who got married have declined. As of 2011, men in same-sex marriages were only 1.4 times more likely to die during the study period than men in opposite-sex marriages, a number lower than unmarried or divorced men." [5, for further reading see: 6] Moreover, gay marriage helps reduce HIV rates. [9, 10] So even if there is a higher suicide rate, overall lower mortality rates show that it is actually better (in terms of longevity) to be a married homosexual.Regarding the Netherlands study, I never suggested that marriage equality would end the psychological harms experienced by gay people, but I did suggest it would reduce those harms, which is what my evidence shows. Pro's source shows that homosexuals there still suffer illness at a higher rate, but what her source doesn't show is whether or not that rate is less than it was prior to the legalization of gay marriage (which my evidence does); so, her evidence doesn"t disprove my claim. I have a study that proves my claim; Pro has no study that disproves it. II. Children Under Homosexual MarriageCross-apply my Round 2 arguments about gay parenting here. Pro asserts that because gay families are at great risk of "humiliation," that they shouldn't raise kids. But that's just perverse. It's basically saying that because society otherizes gay families, they should be denied the right to raise kids. That does gay people a double wrong. Also, on page 262 of the Sweden report, the researchers write, "[o]ur data is based on legal unions of short durations only, so we can say nothing about the fraction of unions that eventually will end in disruption." Additionally, the report cannot prove that gay couples in general have higher divorce rates, since it is possible that the years sampled were not reflective of general trends.III. Heterosexuals are the MajoritySo what? Just because African-Americans were the minority didn"t justify enslaving them for cheap labor. Justice and morality are universal concepts, and apply just as much to the minority as the majority.SOURCES1 - http://www.foryourmarriage.org...2 - http://www.usccb.org...3 - http://azpolicypages.com...4 - http://www.guttmacher.org...5 - http://m.livescience.com...6 - http://www.cbsnews.com...7 - http://ajph.aphapublications.org...8 - http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk...9 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com...10 - http://shared.web.emory.edu...