Traditional Marriage (Man/Woman) and Same-Sex unions are not Equal. Convince me otherwise.

1. Marriage Meaning In R1 you stated that this debate was about mf/mm/ff relationships and their importance to the State. As such, I don't feel the requirement to debate what individual religions believe about the institution of marriage. There are too many for me to address, But I'll take on a simple one. 1a. "I x take you, Y, To be my lawfully wedded (husband/wife), To have and to hold, From this day forward, For better, For worse, For richer, For poorer, In sickness and in health, Until death do us part. You have declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. What God has joined, Men must not divide. Amen. " Nothing in this even vaguely resembles a requirement or an implication for children. The point is moot. 1b. The State I had my own wedding in a court of law. The judge took the first sentence of the Catholic vows and deemed us husband and wife. There was no requirement for us to present documentation that she was fertile and that my semen was potent. There are no benefits given to married couples for the purposes of children. The law enables married couples to file taxes together. This can be beneficial or harmful depending on the situation of the individuals. For some married couples, One person works and one person stays at home or goes to college. The way taxes are handled is beneficial for the couple. This does not mean it was designed this way specifically for children. It enables some couples to have more leeway in how they get things done. There are tax credits for children. There are tax credits for dependents. The state helps with healthcare for children below certain income thresholds. These are all examples of how the state favors people who raise children. None of these are tied to married couples alone. Marriage is not a requirement to benefit from these. Creating the child yourself is not even a requirement to benefit from these. I have adopted two daughters. I can receive child credits. It's asinine to say that marriage was a requirement for any of this. It is an entirely separate institution made, From the State's point of view, To assist couples. To publicly recognize individuals choosing to pair with each other, And to make it legal for them to not be required to testify against each other. There are an assortment of benefits and negatives that come with marriage. Children are not required for any of this. I submit to the readers that if my opponent's view were in any way true the state would require fertility and potency testing. They'd require analysis on the probabilities of successful and healthy pregnancies, They'd require documents to be signed for the intent of producing children. This is IF marriage were the vehicle by which the state supported children. This is a poor way to encourage the birthing of new citizens. Better is to target policies directly at those who have children and make reporting births beneficial to those who birth them. Tax credits and other support vehicles do this. Local governments can fund childcare, Youth sports, Public schools, Etc. There are hundreds of ways to go about it. Marriage is not one. You have as much as admitted that 'maybe' from the State's viewpoint. 2. Gays can't have kids. Your arguments are true in a scenario that you described, A mm or ff pair being stranded on an island cannot have children. This would be problematic for me if we weren't analyzing the situation based on the State. Seeing as how our state is comprised of millions of individuals and sperm banks and surrogate mothers are real things, Your claim that gays cannot have children is patently false. Plenty of gay women still want children. Plenty of gay men want children. Some choose to adopt, Some choose donors and surrogates. You try to take mm or ff pairs out of context of society in a debate you initially proposed to analyze from the State's viewpoint. Your protests do not stand. 3. "Why should the state recognize marriage? " Because it chooses to, And its citizenry wishes to. The state is not required to. People wish to be married. People wish to have their name legally changed. People wish to not be forced to testify against their partners. Society currently views marriage as the bond between two individuals. The state chooses to honor this by granting married couples rights. They could not do so. Society could change its views at some point and say marriage (or a new kind of marriage by a different name) was for those who intended to produce offspring. In that case, That institution would be for offspring and you'd likely have fertility tests etc as a requirement to get in. This would be a fairly inefficient way to do things. If your definition of marriage is not the common one accepted by society, That is a personal problem. You can argue to society why marriage should be something else, And perhaps society would agree. If society redefined the word "Marriage" then of course I would agree it means something different. A secular society cannot be expected to accept the hundreds of different contradictory religious definitions for marriage simultaneously. We are not a theocracy, So accepting one will not do either. To conclude, As humans, We speak languages. The definition of these words, All of them, Is vague. There are typically multiple definitions of the same word. Many of our debates spring up around the definition of these words. New words are invented to cover new situations. The state has accepted marriage as an institution. The state could easily rename "marriage" to "union" and nothing would change. The word is not important. The meaning behind it is. My opponent asks if society changed the definition of "cheese" to mean something different, Would that be right? Yes. It would be. We as a society could all redefine cheese to mean bananas, And redefine bananas to be cheese. We could redefine cheese to mean 'the material composite of which the moon consists' and the moon would literally be made of cheese. This is how language works. I choose not to muddy this debate by engaging with analogies that do not fit. As a final word, The state is perfectly willing to recognize the union between my opponent and his best friend Drew if they wish. Oddly enough, Marriage doesn't even require that the partners have sex. If your friend makes you that happy, I encourage you to marry. We will all be happy for you and your amazing, Loving relationship together. May your thoughts be clear, -Thoht