Gay Marriage should be legal

Thank you for your quick response. A. Contention 1+: Family My opponent assumes that because marriages are no longer recognized, husbands won't be able to visit their wives in the hospital. However, I have a win-win proposition to solve this. People write "living wills" of sorts to be kept in the hospital records, so that a person can choose who they want to be let in to visit them in the hospital, should they be knocked unconscious. A person could let in co-workers, wives, neighbors, etc. while not allowing family members they find creepy. This means less government, and more liberty. My opponent also suggests that a husband would not be a legal parent if his wife goes to a sperm bank. However, this could be easily handled. When a child is born/adopted, the husband and wife would agree to be the legal guardians of the child, and the government would merely record the parents' names as the legal guardians of the child. This would result in the potential for joint custody. B. Contention 2+: Change from Status Quo My opponent calls my proposition "too radical." However, that is the way it SHOULD be. As long as government simply transfers the rights from being reserved to married people to being avaliable to everybody, there'd be no problems. It would be very convenient. Those who are married would still have their rights, but their rights would be derived from elsewhere. My opponent says that "nobody will be affected for the worse," but people would. Non-married taxpayers would have to pay more taxes due to the increase in tax breaks. C. Contention 3+: Counterproductiveness "Our current marriage laws are not hurting anybody, and are mostly for the better." They hurt people that don't get the rights that are being reserved for the married. My opponent speaks of equalizing marriage, but then immediately discriminates against polygamists. Why should polygamists be denied anything? This would violate the Equal Protection Clause [1]. In fact, any marriage recogniztion would violate the EPC, as the non-married would be denied rights given to the married. Just because some polygamists spread STDs, doesn't mean that all polygamists should be punished. That would be a huge infringement on rights. My opponent assumes that just because people are married, they would keep a monogamous relationship. People cheat on their spouses all the time, and government doesn't say anything about that. And STDs are not a reason to infringe people's liberties. Nobody gets an STD that doesn't make the choice to expose themselves to it! Additionally, my opponent assumes that if government stops recognizing marriages, atheists will completely stop dating each other, living together, loving each other, and having children together. This is obviously false. The government is not the cause of marriage. People's natural tendencies are. D. Contention 1-: Discrimination My opponent's example of the hospital visiting rights is just one of the many rights given to the married, but given to the non-married. This violates the EPC [1]. Any tax cuts would violate the EPC. Unless my opponent can give a valid reason as to why the married must be given rights over the non-married, it is blatant discrimination. E. Conclusion: Rights reserved to married peoples should be avaliable to everybody. The question of parenting is completely irrelevant until children come into play, in which case knowing who a child's legal guardians are, but this can be decided when the children come. The switch from the status quo would be quite simple, as nobody would lose a single right that they actually deserved in the first place. Atheistic marriage will not collapse, as my opponent suggests, as social unions predate both government and religion. Any encouragement of monogamy is just more discrimination against polygamists. That will be all for now. Good luck. 1. http://topics.law.cornell.edu...