Gay Marriage should Not be Permitted

Thank you, bsh1. As dictated by round rules, I will rebut Con’s case.HOMOSEXUALITY IS NOT A CHOICEHere, my opponent has severely blundered by making several irrelevant arguments. The rejection of homosexual marriage does not come from the means of homosexuality, rather the end of homosexuality. In other words, homosexuality is not wrong because people choose homosexuality, rather it is wrong because marriage is orientated towards bringing one man and one women closer together whom can properly raise children their union produces, and these facets are ones which homosexuals do not possess, regardless of whether homosexuality is a choice. INJUSTICEP1. DiscriminationI. Recognising actual differencesMy opponent’s incorrect assumption here is that the differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals is irrelevant, in regards to marriage. In actuality, the differences are very important and when applied to marriage, avoid the charge of discrimination.To use an analogy, take a brain-dead person. This brain-dead person applied for a job before she became brain-dead. Since becoming brain-dead, an employer rejected the brain-dead person’s application on the basis of the person being brain-dead. Is that discrimination (i.e. denying human rights based on discrimination)? No, the person does not have a “human right” to the job. Is that unjust? Not at all, because the business needs competent people to do the job, and the person is clearly unfit. It is merely differentiating between people based on actual differences. Jobs require people to have functioning brains. Similarly, marriage requires the presence of the intrinsic ability to procreate.As highlighted in my initial A1 argument, marriage is intrinsically related to procreation. Homosexual couples do not have the intrinsic ability to reproduce. Thus, there is no discrimination here because homosexuals simply do not have what is required for marriage. Much like it would not be discrimination to deny a pair of 4 year olds or a giraffe and a man a marriage license, due to them lacking the requirements, it is not discrimination to deny homosexuals on the same grounds. In actuality, it would be unjust to allow these non-marriages marriage status because the standards for what a marriage is are being disregarded. II. Governmental benefitsAs to why the government gives all of these benefits to married couples: same-sex marriages does not have the positive benefits that heterosexual marriages have, thus there is no reason to incentivise gay-marriage. In other words: society does not exist without procreation, yet society can exist without homosexual unions. Things like paid leave obviously exist so women can bear children yet not lose out on vital income. All these benefits exist to make child-bearing and child-rearing easier for married couples. They are NOT human rights. Again, the function of marriage is the intrinsic capacity for reproduction. Not love. Not to give people human rights. My opponent, as the paragraph continues, then begins to beg the question as he says that all these things would benefit homosexual parents, as he has failed to provide evidence to show that they should be parenting in the first place. In fact, I have given arguments why they should not, but remember that my opponent has the burden of proof to show that they should. Please refer to my A2 arguments and my P2 II. counter-argument this round to see why they should not.BUT EVEN IF these counter-arguments are unconvincing to you, even if you still think that gays should be allowed to raise children and should be entitled to all these tax breaks and financial advantages (despite my substantial evidence that shows that, on average, homosexuals make for noticeably inferior parents), homosexual marriage is still unjust due to the nature of marriage. It is the crux of my affirmation in regards to the resolution: marriage is intrinsically related to procreation. This special, social value is indispensable and can never be replicated by homosexual unions, hence the term and meaning involved with marriage always being unjust when used to label homosexual unions.P2. Social Stigma and Otherization“Marriage equality, as I and others can attest, would be a symbolic gesture affirming the equal rights and value of homosexual unions, of homosexual love, and of homosexuality in general”This will highlight the fundamental problem with my opponent’s arguments here. Marriage is not about “homosexual love”. Marriage is not about “homosexual unions”. Marriage is not about “homosexuality in general”. What marriage is about is, as I argued under A1, is the intrinsic ability to procreate – to bring opposite genders together in this valuable union. Not only that, but homosexual parents are statistically far worse at parenting than heterosexuals parents are. The fact that my opponent thinks marriage should is about these selfish ideals shows a complete disregard of the value in intrinsic procreation and the statistics that would clearly leave children under much poorer conditions. Homosexuals can have unions, love and acceptance of homosexuality in general without demanding that homosexuals can become married.I. Marriage would lower “psychological distress” My opponent merely quotes the supposed findings, rather than important things methodology (i.e. was the sample selected? Was the sample controlled for demographics?). Furthermore, I cannot access the full reports for either of my opponent’s sources here (have to log-in as a paying member or “request” the text), so no one but my opponent has any idea of the legitimacy of the studies (which is not fair). Anyway, the most damning evidence against the idea that marriage helps homosexuals is that suicide seems to not decrease amongst homosexuals. A collaborative paper, by Mathy, Cochran, Olsen & Mays (2011), found that the generally accepted three/four-fold (~2 for lesbians, ~6 for gay men [11]) suicide rate between homosexuals and non-homosexuals leaped to eight-fold for gay men in institutional partnerships. Note that this is not suicide attempts, but actual suicides. If homosexual men experience less psychological distress, then why are they killing themselves at 8 times the heterosexual rate, which is an increase from homosexuals outside of marriage [9]?For further counter-evidence, in the Netherlands, the first country to legalise gay marriage [5], a large study found that homosexuals, on average, have higher levels of psychiatric disorders. Controlling for demographics, homosexual men suffered from higher rates of substance-abuse disorders, mood-disorders, and both homosexual men and women were far more likely to have psychological disorders [4]. Despite the legalisation of gay marriage, homosexuals still suffer from higher rates of all kinds of negative affect.II. Children under Homosexual marriageMy opponent’s final point, under this section, refers to children raised by homosexuals being humiliated and whatnot. Let me make this abundantly clear: homosexuals should not be raising children. When it comes to raising children, homosexuals are clearly inferior, as I have argued under A2 and I will elaborate here. Furthermore, I could flip this point on my opponent and say that because of the increased risk to humiliation and whatnot, that this is further reason to disallow homosexuals to raise children.To further bolster the evidence, research into Scandinavian marriages (which includes Sweden, another country which has legalised gay marriage [7]) found that “divorce risks are higher in same sex partnerships than in opposite-sex marriages, and that unions of lesbians are considerably less stable, or more dynamic, than unions of gay men” [8]. This further shows that homosexual marriages are unstable and therefore not as desirable for child-rearing.Also, in Canada, where gay marriage is also legalised [6], children of married same-sex couples were less likely to graduate.III. Homosexuals are a fraction of the population; heterosexuals make up the vast majorityIn 2010, a representative survey of 238, 206 British people found that approximately 1.5% identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual [1]. In the U.S in 2010 and 2011, the United States Census Bureau and the Williams Institute found that 1.7% identify as lesbian or gay, 1.8% identified as bisexual [2] [3]. I challenge my opponent to find a statistic wherein the percentage exceeds 10%, let alone becomes a majority. This, of course, pales in comparison to the heterosexual populations in each country. For example, in Australia, it was found that 97.7% of women identified as heterosexual [10]. The 2010 Britain study (already cited [2]) found that 5% did not identify as heterosexual. It is quite obvious that an overwhelming percentage of any country’s population will be heterosexual. So, why should this sense of entitlement by a small minority be able to impose a mass reconfiguration of an institution that they have no right to?References[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk...[2] http://www.census.gov...[3] http://tinyurl.com...[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[5] http://www.businessinsider.com.au...[6] http://en.wikipedia.org...[7] http://en.wikipedia.org...[8] http://www.baylorisr.org...[9] http://www.mygenes.co.nz...[10] Smith, A. M.; Rissel, C. E.; Richters, J; Grulich, A. E.; De Visser, R. O. (2003). "Sex in Australia: Sexual identity, sexual attraction and sexual experience among a representative sample of adults". Australian and New Zealand journal of public health 27 (2): 138–45[11] http://www.fiercegoodbye.com...