Homosexuality Is A Mental Disorder

WIKIPEDIA Generally associated with distress or disability. Here, my opponent basically misunderstands and therein misaddresses my argument. If you’ll recall, my criticism of his associations was not that the actual magnitudes of the correlations were weak, it was that there were too many intermediary causal factors between the items being compared to make the comparison valid when specifically addressing whether homosexuality is associated with distress. An extreme example of this, but a useful example nonetheless, is the graph often cited by Pastafarians to support their claims that the global temperature has an inverse relationship with the number of pirates in the world: Despite the correlation seen on the graph, nobody in all seriousness claims that average temperature is generally associated with the number of pirates in any way. In the same sense, though to a lesser degree, Pro’s associations of homosexuality with distress are largely too general as they have important intermediary causes. Regarding increased rates of suicide among homosexuals to the tune of 700%, Pro continues to fail to acknowledge that the study only draws this conclusion with homosexual males in high school. So, just as he later protests that pregnancy only affects female heterosexuals, I point out that this study only demonstrates this point with high school males. Pro argues:“No where in the definition of 'associated' is the word 'causation.' If Wikipedia's criterion called for causation, it would have used the word 'causes' instead of 'generally associated with.'” This is actually incorrect. According to Google, “associate” can mean “Connect something with something else because they occur together or one produces another” [1]. If that’s not causality, I’m not sure what is. Because he has the BoP in this debate, it is up to Pro to prove that is not what the intended definition is. In the previous round, I already explained why in looking at other things that are mental disorders, we can see that the mental disorder, itself not outside social factors that can be associated with it, causes significant distress. When discussing schizophrenia, we do not consider it to be a mental disorder because of the negative social stigma it can attract, but rather because of its direct distressing effects. Pro has failed to meet his BoP regarding this criterium. Not considered part of normal development. Pointing out that there are no laws restricting homosexual relationships is not a straw man on my part. I did not claim, nor did I intend to claim that Pro said that such laws did exist. I was merely adding this fact to the discussion, as it demonstrates that our culture is not adamantly opposed to homosexuality. While my source does say that the majority of people questioned oppose gay marriage, the majority of people did support some form of legal recognition of homosexual relationships. I would have to infer that many of the people who said they opposed gay marriage said so due to marriage being tied with procreation. The important thing to get out of the poll, is that the majority does favor legal recognition of homosexual relationships. Con writes in response to my question regarding states that have legalized gay marriage: “the culture in question is the American culture. I chose the legality of gay marriage to defend my position that homosexuality is not considered part of normal development in American culture. If Con wants to argue about an individual state's culture, he needs to specify a state by name.” I am, of course, referring to states within the United States that have legalized same sex marriage. Because he as asked me to name individual states, I will: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Washington, Maine, and Maryland. Additionally, there is nothing in the resolution that implies American culture. While I understand my opponent’s making the assumption that we are talking about American culture since that is the country in which we both reside, I encourage him to address this criterium with a broader view. Regarding Pro’s question as to why I used a poll to demonstrate something, when science isn’t determined by public opinion, I have this to say: I agree. So, why did I do it? Because public opinion is the standard through which this criterium is evaluated. Like I have said: I think it’s a silly criterium to use. Finally, Pro wrote: “Con argues that I contradicted myself when I said "legal recognition [...] is the utmost sign of social approval" and when I later said "Recognizing homosexuality is not the same as accepting it." This is not a contradiction; mere recognition of homosexuality is not synonymous with legal recognition of homosexual relationships.” This still does not address my point, as my source showed, cultures throughout history have recognized homosexual relationships. Since Pro likes specifics, I’ll mention Sparta, where homosexual relationships were valued in the military because a man would fight better in front of his lover. This criterium is defeated. BRITANNICA Illness Just because pregnancy is a required part of human life, Pro has not explained why this means it cannot also be an illness. And just as the government has given advice on how to have healthy pregnancies, the government also provides information on things like how to avoid transmitting STDs such as HIV [2]. Although the source is womenshealth.gov, these things apply to men as well. Pro also pointed out that pregnancy only effects females. While women are more affected than men by pregnancy, there are plenty of ways that men can be psychologically affected due to pregnancies. If, as he says, Pro is not claiming that procreation is necessary to keep humanity alive, then he needs to explain why procreation is so important that homosexuals relationships not resulting in it is so bad. OTHER CRITERIA Pro says that he never claimed that statistical infrequency demonstrates that homosexuality is a mental disorder. If this is the case, why did he bring it up? He says that because homosexuality satisfies all of the criteria presented here, it is a mental disorder, but if that is one of the criteria, then it must in some way have an impact on whether something is a mental disorder. It does not. CONCLUSION Pro has failed to meet his BoP regarding any of the disputed premises. As such, the resolution stands negated. Sources: [1] https://www.google.com... [2]- http://www.womenshealth.gov...