Same sex marriage

the first part of this round is hermiboys round 3 arguments and the second part id my response to it. Quick answer to your Equality argument; Your main argument why gays should be married is that "one should be able to marry the one they love...". But to avoid polygamy or incest, you are not taking into account love but arguing other aspects of marriage such as merging families and dividing out support. By doing this, you show that marriage is not or should not be all about love. Equality and destroying the institution of marriage For this section, I am going to combine these topics, since they go together very closely. Equality is a very emotional argument. It does really well when shouted in a march in front of City Hall, or spoken by a small child being interviewed by the local news. However, the equality argument does not do well when brought into a logical debate. I believe the reason for this is that equality means different things to different people, and when you try to explain or rationalize equality, it very often does not cover what the readers are thinking it is. Let me give an example. You mention that my arguments about how gay marriage will hurt the traditional institution of marriage are all discrimination arguments. I don't see it that way, I see it as arguments about freedom. Specifically freedom of religion. You would probably argue that discrimination is wrong on the idea that everyone should be treated equally. But let me ask you this question. Lets suppose that you run your own catering business. Lets say someone walks into your shop one day and wants to hire you to cater a large Ku Klux Klan rally in the area. Would you accept or decline? If you really believe in equality and non-discrimination, you would have to accept right? But if their cause is truly against what you believe in, and you fear accepting would hurt your business with your regular customers, you would want to decline. Equality and freedom are often inversely proportional. The more equality you have, the less freedom. Alexis de Tocqueville stated, "But one finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom." (1) In my example, you can choose freedom to withhold your support for a cause you do not believe in, or you can choose equality and treat the KKK rally as you do any other customer. In arguing that I must treat everyone equally, you also take away your own freedom to withhold your support for a cause you find distasteful. This whole debate comes down to 1 point The heart of the issue we are discussing is not the right of gay people to get married, it is the recognition of their marriage. I know gay people that have gotten married in states where it is not the law. Nothing happens to them, they are not arrested, they are not thrown in jail or fined. They can live together and treat each other as a married couple with virtually no repercussions. Their marriage just is not recognized by the government, and the government is not forcing others to recognize their marriage. You mention gay couples having problems with divorce, and I assume you may also mention hospital visitation and other issues such as these. These rights are facilitated by a marriage, but a marriage is not necessary. For divorces, any lawyer could write up a dissolution contract between any 2 parties prior to a marriage, whether they are gay or not. That is exactly what a pre-nup is. For hospital visitation, any 2 parties can get a living will or power of attorney contract that is every bit as good and binding as a marriage. The benefit of marriage is that these types of contracts are assumed and a default part of the marriage contract. While marriage may be the easy way to go, it is a fallacy to assume that it necessary for equal treatment. This is why the comparison between gay marriage and interracial marriage is not accurate. With anti-miscegenation laws decades ago, an interracial couple could be fined, thrown in jail, or punished by the law. Those laws were based on the idea that blacks were inferior as humans. Aside from a few very extreme groups, those opposed to gay marriage are not making the argument that gays are inferior. They are making the argument that the act of homosexuality or the act of gay marriage is wrong and inferior to traditional marriage. Gay marriage opponents are not taking this stand to keep gay people from being together. We are taking this stand because we do not want the government dictating to us what kind of behavior we should and should not accept. If 2 gay people want to get marriage and live together, fine. Just do not make me come to the wedding. Do not make me bring flowers or make a cake for it. Do not make my church perform the wedding. Do not tell me that I have to accept a belief or behavior that I am morally opposed to. The examples I gave in the last round prove that this is where things are headed. You call it discrimination, I call it freedom of religion. If you would cater a KKK rally out of a sense of equality, then I can understand why you would think I am wrong in this matter. But if you would decline the KKK rally, maybe you can understand my position a bit better. Child Care You make an assumption that may not be correct, and is not proven by any sources. You assume that children not adopted by a homosexual parent would instead have no parents at all. Can you prove that assumption? If an adoption agency refuses to adopt out to a homosexual couple, how do you know they would not be adopted by a heterosexual couple instead? Often children who are not adopted are placed with a foster family. How do you know they would be better off with a homosexual couple than they would with a foster family? Let me revisit my source (2) to give a better answer to your point. Unfortunately, foster parents or not/adopted is not a category, except maybe as part of the "other" category. But just as a test, lets compare children with a gay/lesbian parent to the 6 other categories such as non-gay adoptions, step families, single parents, and "other". (LM means children of a lesbian mother. GF means children of a gay father) Public Assistance: LMs are more likely to be on federal assistance than all other groups. GFs actually do well at being 2nd least likely. Full Time Employment: LMs and GFs are both at the bottom of the list of having a full time job. Unemployed: LMs are the most likely to be unemployed, GFs are the 3rd most likely to be unemployed. Had an Affair: LMs are most likely to have had an affair, GFs are the 3rd most likely to have had an affair. Touched Sexually: LMs are more than twice as likely to have been touched sexually by a parent or guardian as the 2nd place category. Children with a gay father are the 3rd to last category. Sex Against their Will: LMs are the top category who are likely to have had sex forced on them, and GFs are the 2nd most likely category. Use Marijuana: 2nd most likely for LMs, and 4th most likely for GFs Pled Guilty of Non-Minor Offense: GFs are the most likely to have pled guilty to a non-minor offense, with LMs the second most likely Level of Education: LMs have the lowest level of educational attainment, with GFs tied for 3rd lowest level of education attained. Depression Rate: LMs have the highest depression rate with GFs right behind in second place. I understand the desire to want to believe that children with a homosexual parent are just as well off as any other situation, or at least better than foster care or no parent, but that just does not seem to be the case. If you can prove otherwise, please quote a source. (1) http://www.columbia.edu...... (2) http://www.sciencedirect.com...... this is now my argument. Thank you once again for an incredible argument and I must give you credit on that the hypothetical involving the kkk (my response will be stated later). As this is my last post in this debate I would like to thank you HermitBoy for the wonderful debate and to all those who have read this and will be voting. Now onto my closing statement Equality Earlier I had abstracted and taken the matter of love out of the equation because is by far in my opinion the hardest thing to apply a definition. Especially in the case of making law which you had asked me to do. Love is for the majority of modern cases the reason for marriage. Through marriage people are allowed to show their love for one another and this is the reason why the methods of obtaining the same benefits fall short. A dissolution contract or living will does not show to the public the undying love the couple feel towards each other. Marriage is a symbol of this love and I apologize for abstracting my argument to not include this but as stated I could not use this argument in response to your request that provide a legal reason to allow same sex marriage while not allowing it to progress further. On the matter of polygamy you quoted my earlier statement that one should be allowed to marry the one they love. This statement does not allow polygamy because I stated that one should be allowed to marry the one they love not the many that they love. Polygamy does not work because it is nearly impossible love a group of people equally even though it may be possible to provide for the group of people equally. Providing for a group of people equality brings with it the moral problem of deciding the value of a person as a means of deciding how large the group can be. Marriage is about love but as love cannot truly be defined it cannot be used a legal reason for marriage only a moral reason. Equality and destroying the institution of marriage Equality does have a diminishing effect on freedom but only on freedom regarding ones actions towards the public and not on personal freedoms. One can cater a same sex wedding and still practice their faith because religion is a personal freedom while how one acts toward the public is not. The service one chooses to offer to the public and one choose to offer it is a personal freedom while who one chooses to allow use of the service is not. By this I mean this is that I may choose to offer a service that caters to the needs of a target market that I and agree with actions of and I can choose how the service is offered but this is where my personal freedom ends. Once I begin offering the service the service to the public I have offered it to the entire public because of this I cannot refuse the service to any member of the public who requires it and meets all the requirements necessary to receive it (mainly ability to pay). After stating what I view as personal freedom I can now provide a response to hypothetical situation regarding the kkk. I would cater the event because I have offered a service to the public which they are a part of. Catering this event does not make me a supporter of the kkk. It only makes me a businessman who offers a service without allowing my own personal views to negatively affect those members of the public I do not agree with. This is because my freedom allows to have my views on certain groups such as the kkk but not discriminate against them in such a way that they are negatively affected by my personal freedoms. In regards to the religious adoption agency choosing to close its doors because the state required they adopt to same sex couple or lose state funding is discussed in link [1]. This article mainly states that the church should be exempt from certain anti-discrimination laws but only if it does not relate to affaires with the public (hospitals, schools, adoption agencies etc.) or if they accept state funding. The state cannot give money that is taken from the public and give it to a group that does not offer their services to the entire public. This whole debate comes down to 1 point Same sex marriage should be recognised by the government because homosexuals should have the same rights to marriage as the rest of the population. You say you do not care if they get married so long as they are not forcing you to agree with it or participate in any way. Legalizing same sex marriage will not force you to agree with just accept that people want to marry the one they love. Eventually society will progress to the point that people will disagree with but accept it much like how interracial marriage was not accepted but now is. This is because the government made laws that allowed interracial couples to have the same rights as other couples. During this time people were most likely forced to cater these events and provide floral arrangements. Now societies views have changed to accept this union and eventually if same sex marriage is recognised by the government it eventually be accepted by society. As you said same sex couples have gotten married, this shows that religious institutions have accepted this union already. Your religious institution may not have accepted it and so long as there institutions that do your institution will not be forced to do so. I have addressed this earlier but you said same sex couple can get the equivalent of marriage through legal documents. This is wrong they may be able to get the same legal benefits but not the social benefits such as the symbol of their love to each other or the acceptance of them through equality. You said interracial marriage was not allowed because black people were viewed as inferior but now that they are not they are treated as equals. I think this shows that we as society treat people as though they are not equal when we view them as inferior. By recognizing same sex marriage society is allowing same sex couples to symbolize their love with through one of the greatest institution of love and society will also show homosexuals that are not inferior. Child care [2][3] These sources show that homosexual parent are not necessarily worse than traditional parents and homosexuals adopting children provide a more stable home for the children as well save the state money. Conclusion Recognizing homosexual marriage will show that society views this minority group as equals and provide a more stable home to the children that may be adopted by the couple. This can be obtained without any negative affect on the current institution of marriage. Freedom may be lost but only in exchange for a better society where people are treated equally. Freedoms of slavers were lost when black people began to be treated as equals. This loss of freedom may be a good thing because it makes society grow and become a place where all people are equal no matter what their race, gender and finally sexual orientation may be. [1]http://www.harvardilj.org...... [2]http://www.livescience.com...... [3]http://www.urban.org......