Resolved: High School Public Forum Debate Resolutions should not confront sensitive religious issues

I apologize for the forfeit as I had family business and could not make it. I will rebut all of my opponent's contentions and my rebuttals will be the core of my case, as I cannot make my case. I will then ask some questions. Contention 1: The Aff has provided numerous examples of religion triggering war and deaths, but this does not relate to debate. We are debating about sensitive religious issues, not religion in itself. The Affirmation has disregarded the key word "issue" in the case. He has made an illogical case that debates about religious issues will result in a hypocritical and "morals". I will not argue that religion is hypocritical and has no morals because it is not on topic, but I will say that there is a lot of educational value and tolerance in debating these sensitive religious issues. There are facts. For example, one can argue about property rights and popular opinion on the ground zero Islamic cultural center topic and not just anti-Muslim sentiments, which would be a horrible contention anyways. As we learn more and more about a sensitive religious issue, we gain more tolerance because we talk about the issues surrounding a religion. This may clear many misconceptions about a religion. For example, right now about half of Americans believe that Muslims are more likely to commit violence, and 37% have an unfavorable view on Islam [1]. As we debate about sensitive religious issues like this, educational value will increase, and in turn tolerance will follow suit. As education increased, there was a 12% increase in tolerance [2]. . As Helen Keller says, the highest result of education is tolerance. Contention 2: Aff said that people will get emotional. Remember, we are talking about religious issues, not religion in itself. Based on the Affirmation's logic, we would pretty much take away all of public forum as every topic is controversial and will someway or another offend somebody or get someone emotional. Furthermore, the Affirmation has no proof that many people would leave public Forum if we put in sensitive religious issues. If it is a small amount, can't they just step out of the month's topic? Or just go to LD debate or Policy debate? The Affirmation also claimed that the Islamic Cultural Center (no, it is not a mosque) should not be allowed for debate. For the previous reasons I said about the ground zero Islamic Cultural Center, and because it is the most interested topic in news (with 19% followship) [3], it should be allowed for debate. Most sensitive religious issues are very recent and popular topics. To go back to the Affirmation's attack on sensitive religious issues being too emotional, this applies to all issues if it is true (which it is not). Topics can be politically sensitive and make people emotional. Almost all political topics are also inherently religious. For example, the NATO topic could talk about women rights. This goes against the religion of the Taliban (deobandi Islam). Should almost every topic be taken out of Public Forum? Should the most popular topics in news be not allowed in debate, especially Public Forum debate, which was made to debate about recent and popular topics? This is all I can do without a case. But please, do not quote the Bible. It is a disqualification in a regular Public Forum Debate. Now for questions: 1. How are your examples in the first contention related to the debate room? 2. How does hypocrisy take away from the debate environment? 3. Do you have any proof that personal emotions will be dragged into the debate after a month of being exposed to the topic? 4. You said if a topic is "'Resolved: The Islam Mosque should be built at Ground Zero,' people who consider themselves strongly Islamic may choose to not enter the event because they may have to represent the Negative side of the argument, and then they would be debating against their own religion." Do you have any logic that the Negative side would be debating against Islam? If so, can you give some examples of contentions that may go against Islam? 5. How is PuFo a public event if there is a (at least for the high schools here) a entry fee to the club ($100) and a 20-25 dollar fee for all the tournaments? If there are poor students, aren't they not able to join? So should Public Forum be free to everybody just because some people cannot join due to financial issues? 6. Would you agree that not participating in an issue that he or she thinks will make her debate emotionally for the month is a reasonable alternative to debating an issue that the debater thinks is wrong for them to be debating? 7. What is an argument block? 8. Are you saying that religion in itself is hypocritical? If so, are all followers of a religion hypocritical and dumb? I would like to thank my opponent and apologize for my forfeit. 1. http://people-press.org... 2. http://www.gallup.com... 3. http://people-press.org...