Kleptin Tourney: This House Would Legally Recognize Homosexual Marriages

Thank you, theLwerd, for your quick response. 1+. Equality A. Now, my opponent continually denies that civil unions are marriages, so I'm going to go back to the basics here. According to Dictionary.com [1], the dictionary we've been using since Round 1 (as theLwerd's 1st source), marriage is defined as: "the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc." As a homosexual marriage cannot be between a man and a woman, this definition is obviously not what we're looking for. However, there is a second definition: "a similar institution involving partners of the same gender: gay marriage." This is clearly the definition of "homosexual marriage" that the resolution is looking for. Now, let's look at a civil union. Is a civil union an institution similar to marriage? theLwerd: "Obviously I am not denying that they are similar." Does a civil union involve partners of the same gender? theLwerd: "civil unions are granted to OPPOSITE SEX COUPLES" And so, a civil union, being an institution similar to marriage involving partners of the same gender, is, by definition, marriage. This should explain the "run-on" sentence. My opponent's mistake seems to have been looking at the Wiki definition of "civil union" and seeing if homosexual marriages are civil unions. However, the proper method is to use the definition of "homosexual marriage" and see if civil unions are homosexual marriages. My opponent argues that legally, a civil union would not be called a marriage. However, there is no legal definition of "homosexual marriage," so trying to use a legal dictionary to define the resolution would be pointless. Dictionary.com proves sufficient enough. Additionally, it doesn't matter whether or not the government calls a civil union a marriage; it is still a marriage, by definition. If the government does not legally declare its own actions to be tyranny, does that mean that its actions are not tyranny? Not at all. In the same vein, if a government does not legally declare civil unions to be marriages, does that mean that civil unions are not marriages? No. My opponent claims that I made civil unions equal homosexual marriage for my own convenience. However, Dictionary.com obviously beat me to the punch, as did Merriam-Webster [2], Wikipedia [3], About.com [4], and almost every other online dictionary one can find. B. A man cannot marry a man, but a woman can. Only a certain gender (female) can marry men. Not every gender is free to marry men. That's sexism. Simple enough. My opponent complains of wasted characters (even though I used over 1,500 to explain why civil unions are marriages, even though I've established it long ago), but I would like to point out that according to the voting rules (outlined in Round 1), conduct isn't even a voting category; all seven points are used to grade the Contender's ability to play devil's advocate. Just a reminder in case you forgot. 2+. STDs Extend the solid argument that civil unions are marriages. My opponent claims that mandated blood tests are not designed to protect people from STDs. However, this is obviously a lie. The blood tests are mandated so that a person knows whether or not their partner has an STD, allowing that person to either take necessary precautions against the spread of that STD or end the engagement; both cases help protect the person from an STD. My opponent claims that I said nothing about men cheating on their wives, but I pointed out that this does not immediately mean a lack of a correlation between marriage and true commitment. As for lesbian STD rates, low rates aren't zero rates, so what does it really matter? Marriage would still help. 3+. Why Not? This is pretty much irrelevant, given that civil unions are marriages, regardless of what the government calls it. 4-. Marriage and Government My opponent practically screams at me for accusing her of not using arguments that she used before. However, she completely straw-mans me. I stated that she should be arguing AGAINST her old arguments, as per tournament rules. I never said that she must maintain arguments of PRO as CON. Finally, my opponent claims that I "completely ignored" one of her "strongest" contentions. However, I had three more nice paragraphs for that very purpose, which I shall post here again for your viewing pleasure: "Now, I am in complete support of removing tax breaks from marriage, but there are special priveleges that we would definitely want to extend to homosexual couples, but would not need individual people to have, including the right to open joint bank accounts, the right to inherit each other's property, the right to visit each other in the hospital, the right to visit each other in a morgue, the right to adopt children, etc. "My opponent argues unconstitutionality, but does not source the Constitution at all. The Constitution is kind of important in determining constitutionality. "Finally, the equivocation of murder to granting married people the right to open a joint bank account is rather crazy. Plus, a more appropriate analogy would be stealing (A steals from B, so B steals from A, and all is fair), which or direct, not indirect, murder (A murders B, so the state has A killed, but the jury's still out on that one). My opponent is trying to construe an analogy in the weirdest, most biased way possible." My opponent has apparently read over all of these. By ignoring my counter-arguments to Contention 4-, she drops her sole argument that isn't just a counter to one of my own. By choosing not to respond to any of my arguments for Contention 4-, she forfeits them to be true, and may not provide any counter to them in her half of this round; such would be an abuse of the system, and a strategic forfeit. To prevent my opponent from trying to bypass this standard, I've found an example of my opponent agreeing to the standard rule that dropped arguments are automatically conceded, just in case: "Pro completely dropped this argument and therefore this point is awarded to the Con" [5]. With that, all that I need to point out is that I've solidly, though the use of an agreed-upon dictionary and my opponent's own quotes, proven that civil unions are homosexual marriages, so all of my opponent's arguments that pre-assume that civil unions exist to ensure equality actually affirm the resolution, rather than negate it. My opponent's only contention that did not involve civil unions, Contention 4-, was dropped last round, and is therefore void. My opponent has no leg to stand on. The resolution is affirmed. Vote PRO. Thanks to theLwerd, for the debate, and to the voters, for the time and your RFDs that you will hopefully give, and to Kleptin, for organizing the tournament that this debate is a part of. 1. http://dictionary.reference.com... 2. http://www.merriam-webster.com... 3. http://en.wikipedia.org... 4. http://marriage.about.com... 5. http://www.debate.org... One last reminder of the voting rules: Voting rules: "The categories give you 7 points to play with. The contender will always be the one trying to defeat his or her old arguments. "Use the 7 points to show how well the contender managed to respond to his/her old arguments. A link to the contender's old debate should be available. "If the contender made some roundabout attempt to avoid arguing against his/her old argument, then be the judge. If you felt it was clever and applicable, award full points. If you found it desperate and unconvincing, give points to the opponent." People not participating in the tournament may not vote. Please don't.