There is no secular argument for a ban on gay marriage.

"This is the last round." - Captain ObviousLet's rebuttal this! My ace in the hole is the argument from semantics, which was dropped.Rebuttals:Pro writes "Not everyone is being treated equal. Heterosexuals can marry the people they find sexually attractive homosexuals can not. This is not equal treatment. This is discrimination."Discrimination is like when I don't let homosexuals drink from the water fountain all the heterosexuals drink at. Let me use this completely useless and confusing analogy:You are in love with squares. You adore squares. Squares are your life. No shape is better than than an equilateral quadrilateral that is equiangular. You love squares so much. Your friend loves circles as much as you love squares. One day, the government decides to give everyone a free shape. You say "GIVE ME A SQUARE, GIVE ME A SQUARE!". The government says "Everyone gets the same shape.". Is that unfair? Let's say the government gave everyone a circle. Everyone is treated the same, so it's not discrimination. Sure, you may hate the circle while your friend may love it, but that's like saying every single law should be customized on a per-person basis: The law is supposed to treat everyone equally.Pro writes "You are allowed the benefits once you get married that's the point. It is possible for you to get these benefits and stay true to your sexual nature. This is impossible to for gay people to do. :( To a gay person the though of straight sex is as unappealing as gay sex is to you (you probably don't believe that though)."What if I don't get married? What if I enter the priesthood? What if I take a vow of celibacy? What if I'm asexual? You're not entitled to benefits just because you pay taxes (under our current system); see people who pay no income tax and get benefits and people who pay lots of income tax and get no benefits.Pro writes "Umm No! Just No! My point was that gay marriage wouldn't hurt any straight people if allowed. Murder does!"Well, it wouldn't "hurt" them, but it would impact them in a negative fashion. I only used that bit of reductio ad absurdum because I hate it when people say that exact phrase that you just said. And I see that you conceded that it will not affect anyone, which was a much more critical argument.Pro writes "Yes but 20% do. So shouldn't these 20% of gays have the government "connect children with their parents". Even though they are not biological does not mean they cant have the same connection."Like I said, I was speaking of biological parents. Wait, I didn't say that? Well, I meant it! And actually, yes, being not biological does mean you can't have the same connection. Children do best when raised by two biological married parents [1].Pro writes "I would hope that we could agree that some benefit is better than no benefit."Pro also wrote "Many children need loving homes and ending this discrimination ageist gays will make easier for gays to help out these children."My point was that gays aren't particularly interested in helping out those children, as 80% of them have no children. Compare this to heterosexual parings, according to the US Census, about 3/4 of households include children [2]. Now, this is a really flawed way of misrepresenting data, but I think we can conclude that heterosexual households raise more children.Pro writes "Why? Maybe in a small tribe it would be important to keep population up but I just don't see what would be wrong with this in today's society?"Like I said, some philosophers of natural law (http://www.debate.org...) would disagree with you.Pro writes "Okay I will give you that but slavery is also grounded in human nature as is murder. Does this justify these things. I would think not!"You've got to be kidding me. Are you claiming that opposite-sex couplings are unjustified?Pro writes "Its also impossible for a completely sterile man to reproduce as is a 115 year old woman but both of these people could legally marry. Gays can adopt and that is arguably better for society than reproducing as it gives a home for some child in need. Look at these two scenarios:"Looking at them. We should ban both scenarios, because neither of them are likely to procreate.Pro writes "These people can't. I thought the point of marriage was as you say to "connect children with their parents""My first biggest mistake in this debate was taking it. My second biggest mistake was not saying "biological parents".Pro writes "I am thinking of the children just like Rob and Clay are. I don't think the 97 year old is."Because the majority of same-sex marriages have children, and only a minority of opposite-sex marriages do. I see what you're doing there ;)Pro writes "But if a gay couple adopts a child they are the child's parents. Not biologically but in EVERY other way."It's the biology that's important. We should outlaw marriage for everyone except couples that produce children.Conclusion:With my trademark poor conduct, I shifted the goalposts during the last seconds of the last round to say that we should ban all non-procreative marriages. This argument is a valid opposition to the resolution, which says "There is no secular argument for a ban on gay marriage", not implying that the argument should not advocate a ban on other types of marriage.The argument from semantics stands, but I think my opponent at least deserves conduct, because I completely mixed up my argument last round and pretty much introduced a new one, which is bad. Yup.I thank my opponent for a good debate.Sources:1. M. Coleman, L. Ganong and M. Fine, "Reinvestigating remarriage: Another decade of progress," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 62, pp. 1288-1307 (200).2. http://www.census.gov...