The Great Gay Debate Regarding Marriage - Debunk

Thank you to Contradiction for his response. "The term "union" involves more than just a male and a female uniting in marriage -- it also refers to a procreative act." - Sexual intercourse is the procreative act. Although my opponent is now challenging the definition of "union" as used by Spiegel, after 3 rounds, I will still debunk Spiegel's argument. 3. What has special value to human society deserves special social recognition and sanction. PROBLEM Procreation does indeed have the greatest social value as without it civilization would cease to exist. As my opponent has argued the union refers to a procreative act which is the cornerstone of marriage. What are the sanctions with regard to procreation? With the exception of state level incest laws and federal child abuse laws (the age of consent in which to engage in sexual intercourse), there are no sanctions with regard to procreation. No authoritative permission or approval is required for procreation. Consenting adults are free to procreate as they wish. To further enhance my argument, Spiegel dismisses this fact and makes the jump to his fourth statement; 4. Civil ordinances which recognize gay marriage as comparable to heterosexual marriage constitute a rejection of the special value of heterosexual unions. Marriage is not a requirement of procreation nor is it an absolute that not all married couples procreate. My argument is corroborated by the statistics showing that unmarried mothers give birth to 40% of all children [3] My opponent refers to the nature of marriage as resulting in children. Spiegel is asserting that since procreation is what makes marriage deserving of special social recognition comparing it to gay marriage would be unjust. Procreation is not exclusive to marriage, it's a sub-effect of marriage. If my opponent's argument were to hold true, people would get married for the purpose of procreation. My opponent has corroborated my position by stating; "My argument perfectly accomodates the fact that some people marry for reasons other than procreation. It is concerned only with what marriage is supposed to be, not other uses for it which are not intrinsic to its purpose." - According to my opponent, purpose = procreation as its intent by nature. "But what Pro seems to miss is that this act is intrinsically heterosexual in nature. Consequently, there is nothing to be found here to support the introduction of homosexual unions into the definition of marriage." - There is nothing to be found that states that marriage is to result in offspring. The supposed nature of marriage "should" result in offspring is no different than stating that a sexual relationship between male and female should result in offspring. "As David Orland writes, "[h]omosexual 'families' of whatever type are always and necessarily parasitic on heterosexual ones." - Homosexual families leech off of heterosexuals yet no examples are provided. I kindly as my opponent to expand. "Pro dedicates a section of his response to no-default divorce law. This is more or less irrelevant to the point the debate, and I only mentioned it in my previous response as an aside. Additionally, in the wake of my previous responses, Pro seems to have completely dropped his statistical arguments, noting that this debate is about the nature of marriage, not marriage as it is practiced." I simply addressed no fault divorce as it was used by my opponent as an excuse as to why "marriage is inconsistently practiced." I agree that this is irrelevant to the debate. The statistical argument was already made. The very definition of normative is "concern of how things ought to be." of normative is "how things ought to be." [4] Using my opponent's logic one can state that the function of marriage is to procreate, then marriages ought to result in children. I did not respond to the accusation of fallacy as I did not commit the is-out fallacy to begin with. I simply pointed to divorce rates and the percentage of those divorced to show a correlation between procreation and marriage. I never argued that the definition of marriage as provided by DOMA is discriminatory. I stated the fact that the definition of marriage as provided by DOMA was ruled unconstitutional for being discriminatory by a federal district judge in the state of Massachusetts.[5] I never stated that other statutes were discriminatory; I simply stated that; "The legal definition that states between free man and free woman and out to exist between husband and wife is at the heart of the gay marriage debate. The homosexual community is fighting that those terms should not be included in the in the legal definition of marriage and since it does they feel it's violating their civil rights. As I previously stated in my argument; "Marriage has existed for thousands of years and the nature of marriage and make has changed many times over the course of history. There were in fact various places and points in history where same sex couples received the same recognition as married couples." [6] "Pro cannot simply assume that a certain conception of marriage is right and then argue that this is only a legal debate and exclude all philosophical arguments, for this would end up excluding his own argument. This would be self-defeating." My opponent is yet again making an attempt to put words in my mouth. I never stated that this is only a legal debate. I stated that the legal definition of marriage is at the heart of the gay marriage debate. The school of thought in the past is that marriage was integral to society. However as I mentioned earlier, "Marriage has existed for thousands of years and the nature of marriage and make up has changed many times over the course of history." We are entering a period in history where the nature and make up of marriage will change yet again. The overturning of proposition 8 in CA and increased public support bears support to my argument. "One of Judge Walker's strongest points was that traditional notions of marriage can no longer be used to justify discrimination, just as gender roles in opposite-sex marriage have changed dramatically over the decades. All marriages are now unions of equals, he wrote, and there is no reason to restrict that equality to straight couples. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage "exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage," he wrote [7] According to the U.S. Census Bureau estimates, 620,000 same sex couples lived together during 2010.[8] According to the 2000 U.S. Census, there were 601,209 committed gay couples.[9] Over a 10 year period an increase of less than 20,000 same sex couple relationships. Do these numbers indicate that if gay marriage were to be allowed it would prevent society from moving forward or threaten civilization in any way? CONCLUSION My opponent's position is that the nature of marriage is for the purpose of procreation while ignoring relevant data to the contrary. My opponent chooses to ignore that procreation is not exclusive to marriage while also attempting to put words in my mouth to strengthen his argument. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] http://www.nytimes.com... [3] http://agtivity.com... [4] http://www.boston.com... [5] http://books.google.com... [6] http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com... [7] http://www.businessweek.com... [8] http://gaymarriage.lifetips.com...