Marriage should be legal in the United States.

Thanks for responsing, Freeman. I would just like to remind the voters of two things: 1. I am advocating that marriage exist without government interference, so if you're assuming that I'm advocating the complete elimination of marriage and all things associated with it, I would appreciate it if you would get that assumption out of your head. 2. As this is the last round, my opponent may not put forward any new arguments. Contention 1-: Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This contention was apparently merged with my conclusion from last round, below. Contention 2-: Delegalizing marriage has many positive effects. 1. Government can no longer discriminate who can and can't get married. My opponent's analogy of "cutting off your entire leg to get rid of a pain in your foot" assumes that delegalizing marriage would end up worse for everybody. However, it would not. A more appropriate analogy would be giving one child a piece of chocolate because you gave the other child a piece of chocolate, and there is no good reason to discriminate between the two. 2. People have more liberty to do what they want with certain rights. The "more liberty" that I am referring to includes the ability to let your co-workers visit you in the hospital, the ability to create joint bank accounts in a business partnership, and the ability to let your best friend handle your end-of-life affairs, all without having to marry all of the above people, which would be awkward. 3. All people would have equal rights. My opponent's only justification (note that he cannot create more, as this is the last round) is a rather poor one. When two people marry, they generally consent that they would handle the other's end-of-life issues in the event of death. However, it is clear that both people consider the idea of having another person agreeing to handle their own end-of-life issues to be worth pledging to handle another's end-of-life issues. If one decided that the fact that his wife's willingness to handle his end-of-life issues was not worth his having to handle her end-of-life issues, then the two of them should have the liberty to come up with some other solution. The main point is, the responsibility comes with its own reward, or else the handling of end-of-life issues would never have been thrown into marriage in the first place. Same for all other responsibilities. It is, essentially, trade [1]. If an unmarried man who inherited an STD agrees with his widowed sister that in the event of either's death, the other would handle the end-of-life issues, both only benefit overall, as it is a positive-sum voluntary transaction. They should not have to be married in the eyes of the law to have this voluntary transaction (the important part) legally acknoledged, as that would be awkward, and the social connotations of marriage would be inapplicable. Contention 1 : Discrimination is justified. My opponent believes that any two people should be allowed to marry for any reason whatsoever. That means that if a large group of people were to all marry each other, they'd have increased liberty, even if they don't even regard a marriage as a marriage. As I have already said, the martial confidence priviledge would be easily abused. Finally, two people who wish to stay single should not be required to have the social connotations of marriage over their heads just to start a business partnership, especially if they don't want to be considered gay [2]. Contention 2 : Legal marriages are good for couples. My opponent said that marriage rights are open to everyone, but in that case, why even require marriage in the first place to attain such rights? My opponent implies that "social pressure" can only come from government. However, society can handle this without discriminatory government's intervention. If two people go about saying that they are, for all practical purposes, married, then society would view them as such, and therefore, the social pressure would exist. Why do we need government to tell us what do do with our social pressure? Furthermore, any contracts made on Legal.gov would still have legal importance, which is the function of the site, but the concept of marriage would never appear. People would inevitably create apps that would allow people to automatically fill everything out as if they were married, and people could sign social contracts with each other anyway, without government intervention. My opponent uses an example of the white house to represent government. However, there is nothing legally binding one to go to the white house, just as there is nothing legally binding one to be in a marriage, but the negative social reprecussions would still exist. For divorce, an app could easily be created by a third party to allow for couples to set up anti-impulsive divorce procedures. For example, a couple could set up a rule that a person would have to desire a divorce for one week, month, or year straight, so as to prevent impulsive divorce. Additionally, the legal matters of redividing bank accounts and negotiating child custody would still come into play, so divorce would still be a lengthy legal procedure. In conclusion, the website proposal would not lead to an increase in divorce. People currently get married impulsively anyways. Doing so on a website could actually allow for a marriage to end rather easily and efficiently if no children were born and no bank accounts were opened yet, so impulsive actions could be undone, while longer-lasting marriages would still naturally take longer to undo. All decisions made on Legal.gov would still require acknowledgement from all parties involved. Therefore, any marriage decisions would take about as long as normal ones, especially if people choose to hold formal weddings, a tradition that would probably continue, as it has currently done. Government did not create the formal wedding, and is not required for its perpetuation. Contention 3 : Marriage is good for society and should be promoted by government. My opponent wishes to subsidize marriage with benefits. However, should these benefits only include the rights already discussed, then they should be avaliable to everybody. Including extra benefits such as tax cuts would be foolish, as huge groups of people would all marry each other without even socially acknowledging it just to receive the most extra benefits possible, which would be a time-consuming (on the part of the people and the government) process with no net benefit for the people overall. However, government would be unable to establish a limit, as that would be discriminatory against extreme polygamists. My opponent then calls marriages stabilizing even without children, but provides no arguments for this statement. In conclusion, when it comes to marriage: 1. If government does not discriminate at all when it comes to who can be married, as my opponent proposes, then people will marry fifty other people just to take advantage of multiple tax breaks or other discriminatory benefits. 2. Having to marry to receive benefits not necessarily connected to marriage is illogical. 3. It does not make sense to force business partners to have the social connotation of marriage over their head if they do not want it, or a brother and sister to have to marry to handle each other's end-of-life issues. 4. All rights currently given by marriage should either not exist (should it be unwarranted benefits like tax cuts, that harm most of the people in having to pay extra taxes) or be allowed to everybody (should it be something to get by a zero-sum regulation placed by government in the first place, such as hospital visits or end-of-life issues). 5. Government contract is not required for social pressure, as evidenced by my opponent's own analogy. In conclusion, marriage should have no legal value in and of itself. Again, thank you.