Gay marriage

Thanks again ken. Extend across my #1 – my opponent concedes that homosexuality not a choice and is thus an immutable trait, like race and gender. 2) Equal Protection The law protects married couples in various ways: the law requires employers to cover dependent spouses; the law provides Social Security benefits to spouses; the law provides quicker access to naturalization for non-citizen spouses, etc. The 14th Amendment says that if we give rights to one group of people, we have to give those same rights to *all* groups of people, unless there is a rational basis for denying those rights. It is unfair that gay couples do not receive *equal protection under the law* in regards to the many legal benefits and protections provided to married couples. My opponent already lost this point in the previous round by arguing that gay couples should not receive Social Security benefits because it would cost money. Lastly, my opponent's argument about child rearing *fails* the rational basis test because we allow barren couples to marry. Most women older than 55 cannot have children (because of menopause), yet they are still allowed to marry. And furthermore, my opponent puts the emphasis on child *rearing*, not on having children; the reason I obviously win this point is because gay couples can and *do* raise children. Thus there is no rational basis for excluding gays from marriage rights. Marriage is not a privilege – it confers a special legal status. Regardless, the state cannot deny equal access to privileges without a rational basis. After all, driving is a privilege, but denying driver's licenses to gay people would violate the 14th Amendment. My opponent cites a Nebraska court case – obviously the 1878 US Supreme Court case cited by Bruning case is not precedent setting because it's so outdated. == Goodridge == Remember, I showed that the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that denying gay marriage rights violates the 14th Amendment. Ultimately, the Supreme Court will have to take this case to resolve the contradiction between the Goodridge decision and the Nebraska case my opponent cites. Yet, my opponent demands something that doesn't yet exist – a Supreme Court ruling on the issue of gay marriage. Yet just because the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the issue does not mean that equal protection violations are legitimate. In addition, the Supreme Court reverses itself all the time. My opponent fails to disprove my arguments so he merely appeals to authority (citing a Nebraska court case) and demands negative proof (asks me to cite a Supreme Court case that doesn't exist). He must show why it does NOT violate equal protection to say – group A can have marriage rights, group B cannot. The same argument my opponent advances could be used to deny marriage rights to African Americans: "African Americans are more likely to raise children out of wedlock. Raising children out of wedlock devalues the traditional view of marriage. Thus, to preserve this definition of marriage, we should deny marriage rights to African Americans." Obviously this is a 14th Amendment violation. == Brown v. Board == Remember, the case my opponent himself cited here was about how the State had failed to provide equal educational and sports facilities for men and women. My opponent doesn't refute this point. I have proven that in California, domestic partnerships are not equal (gay men are half as likely and lesbians one fourth as likely to qualify to their partner's employer-provided health insurance). Separate is inherently unequal. == Denial of proper nomenclature violates equal protection == It's insulting to say that you can't call your marriage by the real name. "See item 2" is not an adequate response to this. The very denial of proper nomenclature is in-and-of-itself dehumanizing and thus violates the Equal Protection Clause. == Federal benefits == I win – the federal government refuses to change federal law to say "marriage and civil unions," so the only way to ensure equal protection is to allow gay marriage. Easy win right here. == State tax revenue == My opponent wants to take issue with the very idea of economic forecasting and predictions. I urge him to ignore the weather reports from now on, since he believes all predictions are automatically false. The $1 billion over 6 years in California is based on an estimate of how many gay couples would marry (based on the number of civil unions and marriages in other states). This number could obviously be wrong (the real number could be higher or lower), but it's indisputable that gay marriage would generate significant revenue for states. == Study of countries with gay marriage == The study actually concluded that straight marriage rates in countries that legalized gay marriage EITHER a) increased, b) stayed the same, or c) declined *consistent with other countries in the region where gay marriage was still illegal.* My opponent merely cherry picks the Netherlands out of the many countries in the study, but marriage rates in the Netherlands had been on the decline before gay marriage was legalized. It has to do with factors in the country other than gay marriage. The fact that my opponent himself states that *gay marriage rates* are on the decline as well proves to you that marriage rate declines have to do with economic conditions and tax incentives. This is a clear win for me too – the experience of other countries proves that we won't destroy the institution of marriage by giving it to gay people too. == How does the state encourage people to have children responsibly using marriage? == My opponent doesn't bother answering my statistics about unintended pregnancies. I'm still curious if he believes that marriage is the answer to the 5% of cases where a rape results in pregnancy. Should the state encourage/force the victim to marry the rapist? Would this be better for the child? What about teenagers? 80% of pregnancies are unintended/out of wedlock. Should we force underage minors to drop out of school and get married? My opponent talks about a lawsuit against a school, where a teacher read a pro-gay story to her young class called "King and King," which teaches children not to hate gay people. My opponent is essentially arguing for parents' rights to teach their children to hate gay people without state intervention. He objects to a teacher reading them a story that "being gay is okay." This is obviously bigoted and violates the equal protection clause. I don't really get what my opponent is arguing. He is being paranoid if he thinks that the State will try to teach children that they *have* to be gay. There's a difference between teaching a child that gay marriage exists and forcing a child to be gay. Media/Business – apparently my opponent just hates gay people. Again, I don't see what's wrong with the Boston Globe trying to promote more accepting attitudes towards gay couples. **And none of these things actually answered my question - how does the state promote child rearing?** == Does marriage confer benefits as far as child rearing == If yes, vote Aff because gay couples can have adopted children. If no, vote Aff because there is no rational basis to deny gay marriage to homosexuals. My opponent *again* claims that "people who hold the traditional view of marriage are most likely than anyone to have a successful marriage." He is using two *different* senses of the word traditional. In his co-habitation studies, *traditional* meant things like "having only one sexual partner" [as opposed to non-traditional "open marriages"]. However, he uses traditional *here* in a different sense, to mean a marriage between a man and a woman. Anyways, if people who hold traditional monogamous views about marriage and commitment have *better relationships,* then gay people who hold these same traditional views should have the right to marry and have access to these *better relationships.*