Religous zealots should not be eligible to vote

I am against the resolution that religious zealots should not be eligible to vote. First, I would like to reconcile the resolution with my opponent's first round, the former pointing to zealots and the latter pointing to religious people in general. Zealot: A fanatically committed person. I am inclined to suppose that my opponent used the term tongue-in-cheek, so I will assume he really refers to religious people who: a. believe in their religious tenants enough to defend them. b. devote consistent time to their belief (go to church weekly, etc.). c. base their values and morals on the teachings of their religion. My opponent may choose, if he wishes, to correct my assumption and assert that only religious extremists apply to the resolution. If he does so, I will address that argument in round 2. For this round, I will be arguing that religious followers (believers) ought to retain voter eligibility. ---------- In his opening remarks, my opponent compares believers to convicted criminals, the mentally ill, and children, asserting that the commonality shared between all groups is the incapacity to reach properly informed decisions. I will now show how doing so commits the guilty by association fallacy. In all cases, when referring to believers, assume I mean the group of religious followers that are not also convicted criminals, mentally ill, or children. 1. Believers, unlike convicted criminals, respect the law. Convicted criminals are considered incapable of reasonable voting practices given the fact they have selectively chosen to disobey the law. By violating the rights of others, they have forfeited their own right to contribute to the law of the land. This is not the case with believers, who respect the law despite their disagreement with it. Their willingness to live within the law and work within the political system is evidence of their capacity to make informed voting decisions. While some believers have chosen to take matters into their own hands visa vi terrorism--in which case they can be rightly associated as criminals and their voting privileges revoked--law abiding believers cannot be associated by guilt. 2. Believers, unlike the mentally ill, have a proper grip on essential reality. Mentally ill people are recognized as having lost a grip on major reality, and this is were my opponent seems to want to associate religious followers, emphasizing their "preposterous" beliefs. The main problem with this thinking, however, is that it lumps observable reality with unobservable reality. Mentally ill people are unable to perceive reality regarding phenomena directly provable, such as a patient who believes the ball they are holding is a baby. Issues such as the origin of the universe are not directly provable, and the answers one chooses to accept on these matters is irrelevant when comes to voting in present politics. Beliefs about human origin, God, and the meaning of life cannot be associated by guilt with insanity. 3. Believers, unlike children, have developed the same reasoning faculties as non-believers. Children are not eligible to vote because they have developed neither the experience nor aptitude to make such decisions. Not so with adult believers, who carry the same reasoning capacities as adult non-believers. The difference between a child's reasoning capabilities and an adult's reasoning capabilities is physiological, thereby rendering this comparison as the most obvious case of guilt by association. ---------- 4. Religious zeal is too subjective to determine voter eligibility. Convicted criminals, the mentally ill, and children all have the characteristic of being unambiguously defined. It's easy to determine when someone is criminal enough to have their voting rights revoked: they get caught breaking the law. Mentally ill people can be carefully diagnosed and documented. Children are simply defined by age. Believers, however, cannot be so easily categorized since belief comes in varying degrees of intensity and adherence. Some believe both the biblical creation account and evolution combined. Some treat their religious text as mostly allegorical. Others find the bible inerrant. By what standard does my opponent intend to measure one's zeal? If he cannot provide clear criteria, then his resolution is nothing more than ranting. 5. Suppressing religious votes is oppressive. At the core of democracy is the notion that all people are valuable and within it dwells various ideological views. If only one ideology were able to vote, then democracy has been eliminated and replaced by a single-party dictatorship. In this sense, my opponent finds himself within a self-contradiction. His resolution is inconsistent with the democratic electoral system and he must choose which to defend. He cannot have it both ways. ---------- My opponent's is clearly frustrated that there are religious believers with the audacity to vote according to their religious moral code, but his pet peeves alone are not enough to warrant the elimination of voter rights on such a grand scale. I hope my opponent intends to provide clear-cut criteria for determining when religious zeal reaches some kind of breaking point. As I've pointed out, some religious zeal does go too far, but in those cases, the believer will fall into existing categories and have their rights revoked anyway. Until then, the resolution stands negated. Believers should be eligible to vote.