Gay marriage

Thanks for the debate Ken. == Loving Supreme Court case == Loving found that the right to marriage is a fundamental human right. When you couple this with my opponent's concession that homosexuality is not a choice and homosexuality is an immutable trait, gay people are being denied a fundamental human right: the right to marry someone they love. Gay people cannot fall in love with someone of the opposite gender; therefore, they are not currently granted the fundamental human right to marry; they are only granted a false choice. My opponent says a bisexual should not have a right to marry two people. I agree. Bisexuals generally are just as monogamous as straight or gay people; they merely can choose a monogamous mate from either gender. Bisexuals should have the right to marry someone of the same or opposite gender, but not to marry two people. The other infinite regress – that people can't marry animals – is just silly since animals don't need legal protection. Animals are not denied Social Security benefits and citizenship status because they are not allowed equal access to marriage. Gay people are. I clearly have won the 14th Amendment argument in this regard. == Appeals to authority == My opponent doesn't really bother answering my 14th Amendment argument that legalizing gay marriage is the only way to ensure gay people receive equal protection under the law (such as receiving employer insurance, Social Security, citizenship status, etc); instead of refuting this, my opponent just cites a bunch of random quotes about how marriage is between a man and a woman. A case about forced sterilization is not relevant. A 1885 case is not relevant. Griswold v. Connecticut, which ruled that what happens in the privacy of the marital bed should not be the business of the State, was ultimately applied to gay people as well, to overturn a Texas sodomy law in Lawrence v. Texas. This proves that definitions and court cases are not static – case law is ever changing. This is proven in Brown v. Board, which ruled the *exact opposite* way as a previous Supreme Court case, namely Plessy v. Ferguson. Because the Supreme Court can overrule even itself, past case law will never be relevant. Lastly, it doesn't matter if there are court cases that say gays cannot marry. There are also cases like Goodridge (in Massachusetts) and Kerrigan (in Connecticut) that have ruled that the 14th Amendment mandates gay marriage. The Supreme Court will ultimately need to rule on the conflicting case law, and I, unlike my opponent, have provided actual analysis as to why the Supreme Court needs to rule in favor of gay marriage. == Definition of Procreate == My opponent claims third party involvement is not procreation. His *own* definition just says that it requires the involvement of two gametes, which would include one gay man and a donated ovum or one gay woman and donated sperm. Procreation just means "to beget offspring. " . http://www.thefreedictionary.com... Gay people can beget offspring. My opponent never answers why the state would care that the offspring is related to both partners. In his previous rounds, he seemed to only care that we propagated the species and raised children in stable homes. If marriage makes homes more stable, then gay couples with children need marriage. Since gay couples can procreate, there is no rational basis to deny marriage to them. Lastly, my opponent's arguments contradict. Women who are 79 cannot procreate, according to his own definition, because they need 3rd party help; they need eggs they froze 20 years ago and hormone injections. No 79 year old has conceived naturally. If procreation is the standard, elderly women should not be allowed to marry. == Teen pregnancy == Ken says, "Well this is just more of a reason why we need to promote traditional marriage. " Apparently my opponent is in favor of shotgun marriages for 15 year olds. If a 15 year old girl gets pregnant, rather than encouraging abortion or adoption, we should force her to marry the 15 year old father, force them to marry, drop out of school, move in together, and raise the child. And this somehow does not degrade the definition of marriage? And this somehow leads to good and stable childrearing? == Baker == The Supreme Court has many reasons for refusing to hear a case. Refusal to hear a case does not necessarily mean the Court agrees with the decision. Regardless, the whole Supreme Court argument is the is-ought fallacy: we should not recognize gay marriage because the Supreme Court currently does not recognize gay marriage. That is what *is* happening now, not what *ought* to be the case. == The Netherlands == My opponent claims that marriage rates went down after gay marriage was legalized. However, his evidence only said cohabitation rates went up. I provided evidence that people were cohabiting (living together) more often *before* marriage, and 90% of people with kids in the Netherlands are married, which is a number that is MUCH HIGHER than in the US. Clearly, case studies show that gay marriage does not decrease straight marriage rates. This takes out my opponent's ENTIRE case, since it was all predicated on devaluing the institution of marriage. Personally, I never understood why my marriage would feel any less valid because gay people could marry. If anything, it's sweet that they want to commit to each other too. == Divorce Rates == My opponent says, "Yeah but they don't stay married. " He never cited divorce rate data for the Netherlands. However, I *did* cite divorce data. I argued that if we are so concerned for children, we should ban people from getting married more than twice, since third marriages have a divorce rate of 75%, and the statistics get even worse for additional marriage. How is it good for children who are products of third marriages to have a *three in four* chance that their parents split up? Either we abandon this whole "stable environment for children" argument, or ban marriage entirely for everyone. == Separate but unequal == This is just the is-ought fallacy again – we *could* give 100% equal rights to civil unions, but we don't. Political ennui, status quo bias, and homophobic Congressmen will ensure that gays do not receive 100% equal rights, just like the same factors prevented blacks from receiving 100% equal schools. Separate is inherently unequal. This is merely a case of "those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. " Homophobia is not any different from racism in its tendency to deny equal rights. Thus, I win because: 1. I prove that the government does not grant equal rights to civil unions. Gay couples do not get equal access to health care, Social Security, or citizenship benefits. Only legalizing gay marriage upholds the 14th Amendments' requirement of equal protection by extending all the legal protections afforded to straight life-partners to gay life-partners as well. All my opponent's arguments in this regard are just the is-ought fallacy and appeals to authority. 2. My opponent concedes throughout the debate that gay marriage provides significant revenue for states. In 6 years alone, California would have enough money to shore up UC's budget to the point where they could undo the massive University of California fee hikes. On a utilitarian level, I clearly win. 3. Childrearing is not a compelling reason to deny gay marriage. Gay couples have kids – they would benefit from more stable relationships. Countries that legalized gay marriage did not see declines in marriage rates, increases in divorce rates, or decreases in fertility rates. Logically, such predictions of doom are flawed. No divorce filing would ever say: "reason for seeking a divorce: ‘gay marriage was legalized. '"