Gay Marriage Ought To Be Permitted

Looking over your initial arguments and premises you are basing your arguments off let"s start by looking at this moral debate through your monetary eyes putting a Dollar on things because that"s how we solve problems with society just throw money at them and they will be quiet. your evidence for this point is that New York city made $250 million in revenue cited by an article in the Huffington post titled "8 Ways Legalizing Same Sex Marriage Is Good for The Economy" because that sounds like an unbiased headline that will present the facts to me straight so I can formulate my own opinions...no they got this figure from a different news website CNN which admits that gay couples spend less on average in comparison to straight couples. The main reason for this initial increase was because it was only recently allowed so the demand was at a maximum and will die out as people re normalise. but let"s see how much of an impact $250 million is on NYC total revenue, NYC has about 1.4 Trillion dollars in revenue so as a percentage the contribution of gay marriage is around 0.0002% so miniscule by all accounts. One more thing on this article, it also cites the major Mr Bloomberg I wonder if he has any impute to the Bloomberg citation you put in at number 6, food for thought. When following through your 6th link to Bloomberg I was faced with a 404. page not found. So if your "$450-million-dollar reduction to the federal budget deficit" statement is really true I'm sure we can find the academic study this was replicated in. couldn't find anything reliable first off maybe if we go to the American federal budget and compare 2015 to 2016, seeing if there are these great differences we are being told of. So in 2015 GDP was $16.2 trillion with a deficit of $399 billion now if by simply legalising gay marriage we should drop this number to around $398.5 billion give take. before I tell you the estimates for 2016 lets first note how little a change this is for the economy negligible to say the least so basing your arguments on the fact that is economically sound if flawed. But we will give you one more shot what does the estimated federal budget for America in 2016. so the GDP is expected to be around $16.5 Trillion which yea that gone up maybe you might be...oh the Deficit is at $552 Billion dollars that is a lot more. now I"m not going to claim that it is because of gay marriage that the deficit has increase but merely putting the maybe benefit, of less than 0.00003% of the GDP, into perspective. you can"t justify this moral argument monetarily because the monetary value is negligible thus your 2nd main premise can"t stand. you have said that economically legalising this is a sound ideal but you have skewed the facts and muddied the waters benefiting the economy is a good idea but not when it comes at the moral cost of your citizens and what they believe. Because that is what this issue is a Moral one. Look at this from a moral stand point, you addressed this in your first premise of Equality where, instead of the topic equality under the law like your title suggests, you went for more of an it is natural and thus should be allowed in a "civilised America". let"s delve into what you said in a little more detail. You made a very solid case that homosexuality is natural and that it is an inherent trait that we can"t discriminate people for. But you have taken a major leap of knowledge without following a logical process. Where your premise is flawed is that is assumes that a natural innate instinct is a positive or morally correct one which rationally is impossible. If we accept the argument you are putting forward we must also accept many others that are obviously immoral. Easy and slightly extreme example murder an act that most people will consider is immoral but let"s say it was a psychopath who committed such an act that is perfectly natural. The psychopath doesn"t consider the societal effect, almost like you are doing, but instead acts on impulse and follow his/her instinct to the natural conclusion murder. "But the psychopath was acting naturally it was in their genetics to become a psychopath" that doesn"t excuse the action that doesn"t make the action immoral. We are a civilised society which means we don"t always act on our impulses we consider our actions and the consequences thereafter. You also said that because it is genetic they don"t have a choice but you always have a choice no matter that circumstance there is always a choice. But in this case you are asserting that the Genotype of an organism determines the phenotype expressed which any year 12 biology student will tell you is incorrect. The environment takes play in the gene"s expression be it inhibitory or excitatory. The gene alone doesn"t mean that it is predetermined that you will be gay or not. Now looking at how your arguments measure up to mine: First you over simplify my premises were, that the church historically determined the rules of marriage based on their beliefs, marriage allows for a stable environment for both parents and children, this initially aligned with the states interest of a stable society so they encouraged. The state shouldn"t have the power to change people"s beliefs/culture thus it should not be able to force the church to marry people that under the laws of the church cannot marry. In my premises the church and the state once has similar beliefs. When the law was written the church and the state were 2 separate entities, the church never forced the state into writing the laws the state did that in order to develop a more positive relationship with the church. So the point you missed from my argument is that not the state is trying to change laws of others where as in your case it was the state changing (creating) its own laws. Moving to your argument on the state justifying banning gay marriage, if you looked at my model where I stated that Gay people can use Civil unions to access the same legal rights as straight people and this does it without breaking the rules and beliefs of the church. So your assertion that I am "violating a central tenet of American Government" is void. Then you say I support majority rules principle, use the quote that "instead of doing what most people would do and leave people to believe what they wish, you would force them to change their culture and their beliefs to suit you. It is not moral to force your view upon others..." which claims the other way that the majority (your side of the argument) is coming in guns a blazing forcing an unjust change to the churches beliefs where as normal or civil people would leave them to practice their own way and by acting as you are you are acting immorally. You then go on to say that I stray from the argument by talking about children and how this will affect them. You claim that growing up outside of social norms will not affect the probability that the child will grow up with rejection and isolation at a much higher amount than a child who conforms to societal norms, that is the falsehood. You claim it is a different argument but the point of marriage in both the state and church is for marriage to provide a stable environment that children can grow up in. My opponent then addresses my minor slippery slope argument by asserting that the government won"t change its views based on this decision but here is the fact. They will they see the arguments you are making and when advocates for the other mentioned crimes come forward with similar ones they are faced with a double standard, that is the logic followed so don"t make lacklustre claims otherwise. Just think of the standpoint of the state on Gay marriage 20/30 years ago. Finally, you finished by agreeing with my blanket acceptance is not ok but then claimed that you would be completely fine with forcing people to go against what they believe because you say that"s equality and it"s in the job description. I await the final round