Gay Marriage

Thanks for the open challenge Pro. Preamble: I intend to demonstrate that marriage between same-sex couples is generally negative for society and should not be allowed/legalized if it is not already. Pro's Contentions: Pro's contentions appear to be the following: 1. "Gay marriage should be legal." 2. "Homosexuality is not genetic." 3. "Gay people should not be mistreated." I see no reason to argue against #3 for the resolution, I will let that pass #1 is the main point and #2 will be discussed briefly. Marriage: I hold that marriage is a strongly negative custom for society for a number of reasons. And this following part of my attack on gay marriage is primarily with this in hand. While it is not directly at attacking the idea of same-sex, it prevents the greater evil of allowing additional marriages to occur. Cost: The average wedding costs in excess of ~"18,000 ($30,238 US) with an unsurprising substantial associated debt with the hosting of such an event [1]. We are entering an age where we much become economically stable and be less reliant on perpetual market growth, I assert that we should not be allowing people to so freely and socially acceptable purge a significant portion of their spending power on this. Legal: Married couples are unfairly contracted by the government, with various legal nuances that should not be allowed. Immigration rights, council taxation benefits, unfair adoption advantages. On the flipside the government empowers the less wealthy halves of marriages, leading to the uncomfortable custody and financial separation issues we are familiar with. Moreover marriage weakens a spouses ability to defend herself against charges that are brought against the other spouse, including and especially in homicidal & cases of rape. Socialogical Impact: The most striking statistic is in the United States, ~53% of all marriages currently end in divorce [2], with countries in the EU roughly in line with this statistic, and the countries that are lower are invariably due to legal & religious hoops that need to be traversed in the divorce process. Marriage institutes a culture of possession, jealousy, control and in many cases domination. Furthermore it encourages a social acceptance of monogamy, moreover it is seen as an accomplishment in life to be married and bear children. In a world with an ever growing population, and with our growing understanding of our natural social and reproductive tendancies (which appear to be somewhat in between poly & mono) [3-5], rapid changes are required in our presuppositions in what we deem to be acceptable and sustainable cultural values if we are to flourish. Religious Institution: I agree that religion is a poor argument against same-sex marriage, but it is a good argument against marriage altogether. Religious marriages all carry with them a plethora of values, requirements & expectations, and these are often negative from an external outlook. These include many of the values I have already mentioned, most commonly symbolism of particularly the female halves as a possession, subordinate or "to serve" her male partner. These amongst other unequal rights such as male polygyny, arranged marriage, underage marriage and mandatory conversion (interfaith marriage). By endorsing and allowing marriage we effectively endorse the manifestly negative religious practices I have described. Same-Sex Marriage: So, given that I have stated up to this point, just what are the social benefits of marriage? I can only come up with a tiny handful, but the major one that stands out is the contractual and social requirement for two parents to raise children. I concede this might have some merit in a society in which we would like to continue to expand out population, as the economy and total Earth population stands right now I see little reason to accept this desire (as I have already mentioned). More importantly though, many countries already have legal nets (monetary-wise) in place to mandate a partner to continue to contribute to the upbringing of a child outside of wedlock if they do not do so willingly (for example, the paying of child support in the states, UK and other nations). This argument for marriage (however weak) does not apply as readily to same-sex couples however, for they generally will not bring forth children. Moreover this line of reasoning is still weak since obviously in society today people marry despite being unable to reproduce or are unwilling to even adopt anyway (too old, sterile, etc.). Therefore Pro needs to bring forth an argument that endorses marriage more strongly than the reasons I have provided, and which would include same-sex marriages within it"s spectrum of argumentation. Genetics: Sexuality is a complicated trait and is known to depend on multiple factors one of the largest factors is indeed genetic. There are many studies I could list, but the easiest and most compelling one to show are separated-identical twins at birth. Identical twins share almost all their DNA with their identical siblings, and separation largely eliminates environmental factors [6]. More comprehensive data is found with non-birth separated identical twins [7] (as we have more examples of them), for example one study found a 48% homosexuality concordance between monozygotic twins, significantly greater than 16% concordance found in dizygotic female twins which is larger than the background rate of an adopted sister (6%). Sexuality isn"t entirely genetically determined, a number of complex factors including "brain gender", epigenetics and upbringing, but it is a significant component of it. Conclusion: I have built a good case for rejecting the motion that gay marriage should be legal. I look forward to Pro's rebuttals on the matter. References: [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk... [2] http://www.cdc.gov... [3] http://online.wsj.com... [4] http://scitechdaily.com... [5] http://www.ted.com... [6] http://bjp.rcpsych.org... [7] http://www.worldpolicy.newschool.edu...