Being gay is harmful to society.

"First you say that we don't know what the cause is because there could be many, then you say we have to accept all of causes?" Accept them as causes yes, but not as of equal importance no, the question comes in to significance. One of the primary justifications for calling something a primary cause or an actionable cause would be if you removed that would the thing itself disappear. This is often very trivial, but not always. As an straightforward example, you go to work and you slip on an icy step. The immediate causes : a) the ice b) the lack of salt/sand c) not having proper foot wear Now there are also secondary or indirect causes and these can and do need to be dealt with because they are also very important : a) focus (were you watching were you were going) b) why was the area not properly cleared (lack of training, lack of QA on the work, etc.) c) commitment to safety (why did you not take action to report/remove the problem, legally you are responsible to do this in Canada for example) Then there are also adjacent causes or projected causes a) could that be intentional in any way - was someone trying to cause you harm As an safety officer you would go through all of the list, starting at the immediate and then moving down to the point that it becomes unreasonable to continue further, unreasonable meaning simply not practical. For example if you are not focusing because you found out your brother just lost his job and he is under significant stress that is a cause, but it is beyond the scope of work of the officer to correct - but, may be for your friends/family. "It doesn't matter where, when, or how they started to hate being gay. What matters is that they somehow developed a belief that being gay is bad, and this causes their emotional harm." I would agree that if you are sensitive you can over react to insults, however not all discrimination can be so trivially ignored. Regardless of how content the gay person is with being gay, they are still going to come to harm if they are beaten for being gay. "If someone punches me in the face, what caused me physical harm? Was it that I stole the puncher's boyfriend yesterday? Maybe that caused the punch, but it was the punch itself that did me physical harm. The belief that gayness is bad is the punch." What about if right before you were punched in the face you said to the other person, "The world would be better off if you and your dyke lover should be incinerated!". Unknown to you, that person just tragically lost their partner to suicide because of relentless hate bashing. Now in that case, what caused your physical harm? By the above logic you have argued, is it not your own ignorant hate speech? "By your logic here, you say there is no way to find the cause." I am not saying we can not find the cause, I am saying the cause does not exist, we can only find the causes - plural. In addition to the action which is taken upon gays because of anti-gay hate which Con has made an argument to contend, there have been multiple cases of harm coming to gays simply because they are gay, none of these were refuted and they were simply conceded. To add to the ones already presented I will present the following, same sex couples are prohibited from adopting in many countries - this obvious has the potential to cause harm unless it was actually argued that no gay people would ever wish to adopt.