Marriage should be legal in the United States.

Thank you for responding, Freeman. Contention 1-: Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. My opponent cites "many more responsibilities" held by married people as opposed to unmarried people as a reason for privileged treatment. However, he does not mention a single one. In fact, more natural benefits are gained than responsibilities. Only one member of the couple usually cooks, cleans, etc., while the other can devote full-time to a paid job, and this specialization caused by division of labor increases efficiency. Additionally, cleaning one house for two people is considerably easier than cleaning two houses for two people, as is cooking for two people at once rather than separately. And then there's the bonus of sex. If my opponent considers parenting as one of these responsibilities, then he is sadly mistaken. Many couples choose not to have children [1], and therefore should not receive any benefits meant to go to those who raise children. It would be much more efficient in these cases to reserve rights for parents, rather than married couples. Contention 1 : Discrimination is justified. My opponent still neglects to mention "extra responsibilities" besides child-bearing and child-rearing, which isn't even a characteristic of all marriages. Therefore, these benefits should not be granted to marriage, but to parenting. My opponent also proposes that single people should just get married. However, some people have much easier times getting married than others. For example, the ugly, the poor, and the unskilled have a much harder time finding a marriage partner than others. The fact that nobody would want to marry a person prevents that person from receiving rights, and though the discrimination may be ethical on their part, it is not ethical on the part of government, which must protect all citizens equally. A person who gets an STD at birth, for example, would find it near-impossible to get a marriage partner. Additionally, by my opponent's proposal, a person who otherwise does not want to get married would have to be married to receive benefits, which would result in people getting married just for the benefits, such as Rezzealaux [2]. That hardly sounds like the interpersonal relationships upon which marriage is based, and is just an insult to the institution of marriage. Contention 2 : Marriage is good for couples. The fact that the people being discriminated for benefit from being discriminated for really adds nothing to the core problem. The rights mentioned by my opponent should not be reserved to those who claim to be married, but to everybody. All people, married or non-married, should have the right to write wills and appoint other people to take care of them in case of unconsciousness or death (with consent). This could be easily handled by having a website set up called www.legal.gov in which people can write their wills, select people to have permission to visit them in hospitals, set up a hierarchy for matters involving death and unconsciousness, etc. This would allow for much more freedom than there currently is. When this is first implemented, all people who already had government-recognized marriages would have their accounts on legal.gov formatted so that they keep their current rights. For other people, a button could easily be developed to allow for any two people to have their accounts give each other all of the rights and appointments to be considered "married," although marriage itself would not be a legal institution. With joint tax filing, shared property, and shared bank accounts, any group of people should have the ability to do this, and it should not be reserved only to married couples. For example, two men in a business partnership [3] would want the ability to set up such things, but would not wish to be considered "married" at all, especially if they each have their own wife to be married to. The martial confidence privilege and spousal testimonial privilege are unfair privileges given discriminatorily. If government has no standards for marriage, mafia bosses could get married to take advantage of the privilege, not caring about social standards, and such things. If government has standards, then it is discriminatory. The solution: no privileges. Finally, when it comes to children, this should all be determined at the time of birth or adoption. A child's biological parents and legal parents would be determined. The woman would naturally have initial control over the child until signing a contract agreeing for the father to also have custody, unless they agree beforehand that any child would belong to both of them. Why should married people be the only couples to take care of children together? I don't even understand "rights to non-resident or alien partners." Any explanation? My opponent asks why the process of "marriage" must become "needlessly convoluted." However, with the legal.gov proposal, legal matters such as these would be easy as pie, and discrimination would not be possible. Contention 3 : Marriage is good for society and should be promoted by the government. This entire contention assumes that if marriage was no longer a legal institution, it would just fall apart, and all families would become dysfunctional. This is hardly the case. Adults could consider themselves to be married despite lack of government intervention, and this mental state is more important as government recognition. Additionally, this contention assumes all marriages to lead to children, which is false. People will have children regardless of government. Finally, calling marriage "financially strenuous" is wrong. It is parenting that can be financially strenuous. Marriage actually has financial benefits, among others. Contention 4 : Legal arrangements that produce maximal utility should be preferred in a society. The positive benefits my opponent mentions would produce more utility if they were available to everybody regardless of marriage. My opponent calls it a risky venture, but where is the risk? Marriage didn't start out as a legal institution [4], and it won't fall apart if it isn't any longer. The positive effects of delegalizing marriage: * Government can no longer discriminate who can and can't get married. * People have more liberty to do what they want with certain rights. * All people would have equal rights, with no discriminatory benefits for those who people are willing to marry. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org... 2. http://www.debate.org... (Fourth post) 3. http://en.wikipedia.org... 4. http://en.wikipedia.org...