No Marriage

I would prefer to specify the definition of "marriage" as it is specified under law, rather than assuming that my opponent's and my conception align. Furthermore, both federal and state-by-state definitions exist. For this reason, we should prefer [1]: The ceremony containing certain legal formalities by which a marriage relationship is created. I do, however, concede that possession of a marriage license will allow citizens to seek state- and federal-provided benefits. While I'm not sure why my opponent felt the need to define "civil benefits," as the taxation benefits are also of primary concern to the debate, I won't argue the matter until it becomes an issue. Con Advocacy: 1. Committed coupling is a societal and special benefit, and the state has an obligation to encourage such behavior. While marriage, in and of itself, obviously has little power to solely influence a type of household, the commitment that it represents does. Such commitments should be rewarded by the state, and a marriage license is an easy and documentable way of bestowing benefits on those who perform such a useful task to both their society and the human species. The benefits of committed coupling, assuming that these couples can survive, are as follows: a. Committed couples provide a safer, healthier environment for their offspring. Because such couples typically have combined incomes, a single household, and have made both a legal and emotional declaration of their loyalty to the relationship, married couples are statistically much more likely to raise healthy, balanced, and socially capable children. Rick Santorum states: "…there is a wealth of evidence that children living in two-parent homes are better off than those in single-parent families. They are 44 percent less likely to be physically abused, 47 percent less likely to suffer physical neglect, 43 percent less likely to suffer emotional neglect, and 55 percent less likely to suffer some form of child abuse." [2] As an educator, I can assure you that a vast majority of modern day psychological and educational research points in the same direction: stability is the key to raising a child (stability of affection, of home, of school, etc.), and that stability must begin with a child's home environment. It is, therefore, paramount to the state to create as many healthy households as possible. b. Couples committed to each other are far more likely to be committed to other tasks. A marriage license is a statement of profound accountability. Such statements are necessary to the thriving of a species, especially one such as our own. Encouraging altruism is critical to the survival of the human race, and the marriage license is one such way of encouraging it. Based on the symbolism of the gesture alone, one could vote Con. 2. Retaining and expanding state-sanctioned marriages and civil unions helps legitimize minority sexual orientations. It is the state's duty to legitimize all that which falls under the purview of "liberty," a key founding concept in our ideology. Essentially, if my actions do not violate any other citizen's guaranteed rights, then my action is just. Homosexual unions, when put to this test, are clearly just, though a combination of religious fanaticism and homophobia has stopped the freest nation in the world from affirming a homosexual's right to a state-recognized committed relationship. Hence, dissolving all marriage does absolutely nothing to change any of the stigma surrounding these relationships, and does absolutely nothing to maximize equality or equity. There are still a host of services and benefits that will be denied to such committed couples based on the fact that they are of the same sex, and not based on the possession of a marriage license. However, by requiring the state to, as it should, both locally and federally recognize a committed homosexual couple with a marriage certificate, we do two things. First, we legitimize that sexual preference, as it does not violate the principle of liberty and carries with it the same benefits to society and the human race as does a heterosexual marriage. The government effectively endorses homosexuals as actual citizens of the nation, which is something that the Pro can never hope to achieve. Second, we solve the problem of unfair treatment entirely, rather than having to revamp every piece of US infrastructure that uses a legally binding marriage as part of its decision-making calculus. Pro Advocacy: On Contention 1: 1) This assumes that all these benefits are rights, rather than governmental mechanisms to ensure equitable distribution of burden. The purpose of tax breaks, for instance, or any other type of benefit, is to enable coupled living. While there are, perhaps, some benefits of marriage that could be altered to perfect it as a social institution, this alone does not justify abolishing it. The benefits given to married couples are a matter of equity, which is prized highly in every facet of American society. 3) The Pro's example of immigration fast tracks is a misuse of the institution, and is punished as a crime, an abuse of the institution. That isn't a freedom at all, considering the spirit of such an allowance, which concerns practicality and a respect for the human tendency to monogamously pair off. We don't have the right to drag anyone into our borders that we please—the marriage is supposed to be legitimate, a product of love, and not a matter of citizenship. This, as I mentioned previously, is something that we could improve enforcement on, but is not a reason to abolish the entire institution of marriage. On Contention 2: 1) While it is true that many of these "civil benefits" are accessible to couples regardless of marital status, my opponent doesn't speak at all regarding the existing financial infrastructure that surrounds married couples. He simply tries to define these benefits out of the resolution. Mind you, if we were to abolish state-sanctioned marital unions, the tax and financial benefits would dissolve, as well, but the Con advocacy speaks directly to why these benefits necessarily help human beings not only subsist, but thrive. 2) Though the state of matrimony has been pockmarked by some unfortunate statistics and celebrity couple disasters, the reason why so many of these "civil benefits" are easier to obtain with a marriage license is because the purpose of said license is to display some sort of monogamous, stable commitment. There is, as my case points out, a positive link between nuclear family stability and this sort of commitment, so the state should be attempting to maximize the benefit to citizens coming out of monogamous homes by offering incentives to couples who choose manifest this lifestyle. On the Conclusion: My opponent offers a sort of conclusion in which he essentially introduces a very vague plan, which is to introduce what amounts to a marriage. If marriage is to be abolished, then it would require my opponent to be entirely contradictory to advocate for "some form of legal contract that grants most of the civil benefits granted by marriage to a couple." Furthermore, marriage is not even close to comparable to vegan-ism or nudism in that one is not contractually, legally, or even emotionally responsible to another human being. Unlike a sexual orientation that will result in the pairing of individuals who will share some portion of their entire lives with another, me choosing to not ingest meat or dairy products will most likely not lead directly to a nuclear family, a shared household, or any number of different life changes that a partnering would result in. [1] http://dictionary.reference.com... [2] http://www.heritage.org...