Resolved: Private corporations supporting gay rights should remain neutral instead.

I would like to mention that I'm excited to debate Scarlet on this issue as LGBT topics appears to be a specialty of hers in regards to the topics she debates. Observation: Corporations in the resolution.Before I begin my resolution of Con's case I need to make an observation regarding the use of the term corporation in the resolution. The resolution states that corporations "supporting gay rights" should remain neutral. Since my opponent is Con the proposition she is defending is that corporations that support gay rights should not remain neutral. The point that is interesting though is the use of the word remain. The term doesn't imply an obligation to any other corporations. It only seems to apply to those who have already made a stand in support of gay rights. Therefore it would seem my opponent's case would be inherently inconsistent in that she is arguing for corporate recognition of gay rights by those that already do without any say on corporations that don't. Since gay rights are already not fully recognized (as implied by my opponent's case even though they have yet to be defined) my opponent's case wouldn't actually serve to further the gay rights cause. At best it would only be able to justify the maintenance of current corporate support and not anything more.Contention. Gay Rights Require Passage.Before I start my case I feel the need to point out that my opponent was ambiguous on what exactly she meant by the term 'gay rights'. She uses the term several times over the coarse of the debate but it was never explicitly defined. Does gay rights refer to gay marriage, gay voting, gay adoptions, prohibition of private or public discrimination based on being gay?, what does it mean specifically? Gay rights can refer to any number of things[1], none of which may be specifically surmised from my opponent's case. I feel as though this debate will stagnate until we can clear this definitions issue seeing as her main contention is that gay rights are worthwhile and their acceptance is obligatory.Sub-C1. Second Class Citizenry.As I pointed out earlier, I feel as though stagnation is inevitable in this debate if what actual rights gays have are not defined. My opponent argues: "The systematic discrimination of gays via denial to recognize their rights designates gay people as second-class citizens of inferior status." I'm afraid I can't make an adequate response as my opponent has provided neither a definition of what gay rights entail or specific examples of these rights being violated in the real world. Secondly, my opponent has not defined whether the mechanism through which these rights are violated are through the government itself or private corporations. This distinction will become important once the rights specifically are defined as I will explain once Con elaborates.Sub-C2: Negative Utility of Denial.(1) I would like to first make the observation that the basis of my opponent's case and this specific point (Sub-C2) can be shown to be contradictory from the outset through their general approaches to the issue at hand. This can be shown without Con even defining gay rights, which is what is stagnating Sub-C1.The reason why they are contradictory can be seen more clearly by looking closely at the resolution firstly. It focuses around gay rights and the obligation to recognize them on the part of some corporations. The keyword here is rights. The resolution presupposes within itself the existence of rights and thus the scope of this debate will have the preservation of rights as a general value. If someone's rights are violated, that would be opposed in this debate. The contradiction comes from the nature of Con's Sub-C2's utilitarian outlook on the issue at hand.My opponent has moved away from the defense of gay rights to the effects of treating them a certain way. At the best this point is moot as its approach is generally irrelevant in a debate about rights. Consider an analogy. If we all have the right not to be murdered then the prohibition of murder should be based entirely on the fact that it is a rights violation (of course this takes the right as a given, my opponent has not even made it this far). We would not argue that killing someone has bad effects on their friends psychological state because even if it didn't we would still prohibit murder as it is still wrong!My opponent's point here serves to approach the topic from mutually incompatible angles. Either we base obligation on the preservation of rights or we base it on utilitarian concerns on the consequences of adhering to certain behaviors. We cannot do both and since my opponent's mentions gay rights in the resolution we will assume my opponent will approach the topic from a rights preservation angle.===Sources===[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk...