Gays

Thank you to Con. This was a short closing round from him--I'll try to be similarly brief, though it's not my natural inclination. He feels that "Despite how gay people feel towards the same sex, they can still decide whether to do anything about it. They can instead help increase Earth's population." Gay people have children. Dan Savage, the star of the relatively well-known "Savage Love" column and podcast, adopted a child. I see no benefit to "increas[ing] Earth's population" while there are still children waiting to be adopted. And, frankly, in a world as overpopulated as ours, I see no real justification for the necessity of breeding at all. But even ignoring the adoption issue, Con says "Gay couples sadly cannot contribute." This is untrue. They most certainly can, though artificial insemination. Gay couples can use a surrogate, and lesbian couples can use sperm donors. The argument simply doensn't fly. Con says that he does "claim that homosexuality in humans is unnatural." He has given no justification for this, despite me already calling him out on it, and as a bare assertion, it should be dismissed. Con says "As I said before most if not all species who participate in homosexual activities do it to help its species thrive." That is not quite what he said before, in fact. He claimed that "Most, if not all animals that take place in homosexual activities do it for purposes other than the reason of being attracted to one another. For example "male flour beetles are believed by scientists to engage in same-sex coupling to practice mating and to rid themselves of old, less effective sperm." I would concede taht there's an element of helping the species thrive in homosexualtiy, particularly in humans, in that I think our species thrives when more people are in happy relationships--though I don't think that's what Con meant. But at the risk of repeating myself, a single example is not sufficient to justify the claim about "most if not all species". While I'm as much a fan of Wikipedia as the next guy, the article Con linked to is just an (incomplete) list of animals that have "documented evidence of homosexual behavior of one or more of the following kinds: sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, or parenting"--a far cry from Con's claims. Con claims I dropped a point, and that I "did not address [his] points for that part of [his] argument", and he requests I do so. However Con, the "point" you made was this: "Whenever a person who comes out a big deal is made. Now, you say it is because they have been mistreated throughout history and I say it is because of how unusual it is(Which may or may not be true. Everyone has a different reason). Assuming you are mostly correct, they still have been discriminated against because of religion and how it is UNNATURAL. " The first is a statement I don't particularly care to argue; I can trivially concede that it is unusual (in fact, that's rather implied by my own earlier point). The second, though, is merely a restatement of an assertion that has already been dealt with, in the case of religion, or rebutted, in the case of your claims as to it being "UNNATURAL". There is nothing unnatural about homosexuality. To Con, I will say in conclusion: You must critically consider your own position. You may have been raised to think that homosexuals are bad, or should be shunned, but the same could be said of someone raised in the south in the 1800s, who might have been raised to think of black people as subhuman, or a different species. We recognize now that that's ridiculous. Similarly, I maintain that the prejudices you have been given should rightly be shed. I hope you do so. Thank you for instigating this debate, and I now turn it over to the voters.