Gay Marriage

After reading my opponents argument, I think it's clear she is very confused as to just what we are arguing over. She claimed 'The Church doesn't have to practice gay marriage, they need to let it alone' The first half of that sentence "The Church doesn't have to practice gay marriage. .. ," is basically conceding the debate because the whole point in contention is what the church should do. As it was defined in round one marriage is a spiritual belief that two people could possible be 'one' that came out of the bible. For the nonspiritual individual this should sound as a rather crazy and inherently impossible thing as married couples do appear to still be physically separate beings. But for the people of faith who believe in the bible that this concept came out of, they do not find it quite so crazy. So they do practice it, but the practice is based on a number of beliefs that justify it and explain the full purpose behind this seemingly crazy concept of two people becoming one, and as explained in this source . http://www.intothebible.com... part of basis of this belief rather requires both genders involved "There are two reasons for taking up the theme of marriage in a study of biblical doctrine. The first is that the subject of marriage is an essential part of the doctrine of man. Every human being is made in the image of God, and this is usually taken up in the doctrine of man. But, every human being also has gender, and the image of God in us is not to be divorced from the fact that we have gender. The biblical doctrine of man must take into account that man was created male and female. Once we take up the subject of gender, we must press on to the subject of marriage because gender was created for marriage and its significance is only fully realized in marriage. " So as you can see, there doctrine of marriage would just start falling apart if have only one gender involved. both man and woman is in God's image according to our teachings, so having marriage only involved one would sexist start to separate one gender or the other from the image of God, and that would not be correct or at least consistent. My opponent speaks of the Church though and there teaching as if they are on the side of this issue that matters to a larger group then them. It is there teaching and comes out of there beliefs so altering the belief justified by their doctrines to start with would of course only be of concern to them. I believe my opponent may be under the impression that marriage is a thing the state, or government is to be concerned with, that the reasons for practice exist somewhere outside of the church and thus they can 'leave it be' and just do there own thing. the very concept of Marriage is there own thing though! If you don't agree with the principle basis of there faith like there scripture's for example than the idea of two people becoming one become totally insane and a wishful form of thinking. The concept that parties un-related to the church, such as the state, can be concerned with is that of civil unions, a legal concept rather than a religious of how people have chosen to live together. But this debate is not concerned with legal questions or debates but a religious one as it clearly say's 'Gay Marriage' in the resolution not 'Gay Civil Union' and Marriage was clearly defined in round on as a biblical religious concept, not a legal one. This simply is not a question of equal treatment of people who are leaving you alone but what they themselves are going to practice. and on a further note, equal treatment really is meaningless term when it comes to what a group 'should' or 'should not' do. At Bush Gardens when I was 8 I was not treated equally as the taller older people than me when they refused to let me ride roller coasters like the LockNess Monster . http://www.buschgardens.com.... But they would have been daft to let me on, I just didn't qualify to get on the ride I was too short. the reasons for creating those prerequisites were sound of course for my own safety. likewise with marriage seeing as it is only justified as being practiced for certain prerequisite line of reasoning (stuff the bible teaches) then it goes to follow that the way practice must be justified in line with those prerequisite line's of reasoning. And marriage between the same genders simply dont match the criteria for what marriage is in the first place. I 'wanted' and 'seeked after' riding the roller coaster when I was 8, but I just didn't qualify because of height. It's just a fact that the rides design was not made for my participation at the time, nothing wrong with that, you can not accuse Bush Gardens of treating me more like a dog than a human because dogs are also without exception not allowed to ride the roller coaster. It's a strawman to even bring it up that dogs are not allowed on the ride.