Gay Marriage Should Be Legal in the United States

Sad to say it but my opponent has made a few fatal flaws that will cost him this debate. He begins his speech by saying that we are not arguing about how to preserve equality but rather about what laws are constitutional. I understand this and completely agree. He is arguing that Gay Marriage being legal is constitutional, I'm arguing it's not. My opponent goes on to state that my position stems from a misunderstanding of the strict scrutiny law. In fact he goes on to say that it applies to not marriage as an institution but the laws that govern marriage. I completely agree, I understand strict scrutiny rather well and that's exactly what I'm arguing...... As a final point in this overview section my opponent argues that my case could not happen because federal law does not deal with marriage. Then he goes on to say, "Plus, all laws concerning marital benefits, legality of church marriages, etc... would have to be changed at the federal level..." I realize of these things which is why my case says: "The alternative is that the federal and state governments will no longer have a hand in marriage what-so-ever and will discontinue to recognize marriages as a legal entity." Notice two things. First I'm focusing solely on marriage as a legal entity not as an institution. Secondly I'm focusing on both the state and federal levels. This allows for the laws on the federal level concerning marital benefits etc to be thrown out on the federal level and for the states to play their own role on the state level. Yay..... In short my case is pretty salient. And I have not conceded; while not allowing gay marriage is flawed under the current system so is allowing it simply because of the system. So let's check out these contentions: ========================= Contention 1: The Most Fair to all ====================== My opponent makes two responses onto this entire contention. Let's take a look at those: "The correction of law to allow gay marriage would be necessarily done as a freedom to choose one's partner, regardless of gender. The trans- and ambiguously gendered would not be ostracized at all. In fact, a genderless selection pool would include them to a much greater extent." and "So does allowing partner selection that has nothing to do with gender..." My response to the first argument... LOLOLOL There is absolutely no way that you're changing the resolution that easily. My opponents positions is quite clearly: Gay marriage should be legal in the united states. That is the position he is constitutionally advocating for. There is absolutely no mention in that sentence of anything to do with transgender or other marriages. What my opponent would like to do is switch the resolution it's current state to something to the affect of: Freedom to a marriage of ones choice should be legal in the United States. Or perhaps: Transgender, Gay, and ambigously gendered marriage should be legal in the United States. These are doubtlessly not what the resolution says. If my opponent can just change the resolution at his will there is absolutely nothing I can do to win this debate. He would always just be able to change it in order to avoid my arguments. Don't let him do this. Having said that his plan suffers from all of the things that he argues against in the first speech. He says gay marriage should be legal because otherwise people would be unfairly excluded and it would not meet the scrutiny standard. This rational is exactly why he will lose this debate. Having straight and gay marriage unfairly excludes people in much the same way. My argument is that gay marriage is UNCONSTITUTIONAL in exactly the same way that straight marriage is. This means that I negate the resolution by saying that no part of the United States should uphold legal marriage. I'm saying that laws in the United States regarding marriage should be abolished. The institution can stay on the church level. But the laws get abolished. This means that nobody gets unfair benefits and that everyone is equal. EVERYONE. People of course could still draft legal contracts but those are also gender neutral. =) Sweet. In response to the second argument. My opponents case does not allow for partner selection that has nothing to do with gender. It allows for partner selection between gay and straight people nothing else. This means it's not as equal as just abolishing marriage laws. However, even if my opponents case allowed for completely gender neutral marriages it still wouldn't be a better idea than simply abolishing the laws. If you'll recall I have an entire contention on how "marriage" is a church creation and that would unfairly fringe upon their religion. Contention 2: Religious, Religions, and God ============================= My opponent makes two arguments, "Good call. But marriage the religious rite and marriage the legal institution are two different things." "True, but the problem remains that members of your club get fancy benefits from the government - benefits people can't get if they make their own club. It's like if Mom only visits the no-girls-allowed clubhouse with cookies and refuses to give cookies to any other clubhouse...." To the first argument. I realize that they are two different things. My case abolishes the marriage legal institution while leaving the marriage religious rite in tact. My only argument here is that the legal institution emerged and was based off of the marriage religious rite. This means that the United States government has taken a religious institution, turned it into a legal one in part and is now attempting to change it under my opponents case. This is devastating for religious people because it's doing the exact opposite of what their doctrine says. My argument therefor is that if we simply abolish marriage as a legal institution we can avoid the entire fiasco. There won't be protests and nobody's religion is being infringed upon by the government, everyone wins. To the second argument. Here's where we see the real problem with this debate. My opponent misunderstands my case. In a world where marriage as a legal institution is abolished there are no longer perks to being married. Marriage simply defaults to a religious ceremony for those who care to. But people who are married would no longer receive any benefit over those who are not. This means mommy isn't giving cookies to just one club house. Contention 4: Finish Him ================ My opponent wants to examine this debate in a legal way. He introduced the strict scrutiny standard to decide if not allowing gay marriage is constitutional. Under our current system, it is not. However what my opponent failed to do was apply the strict scrutiny standard to the world in which gay marriage is allowed. My opponent assumes that there are only two alternatives, either have gay marriage or not. If this was the case then the strict scrutiny standard would apply. However there are quite a number of alternatives thus it fails. Neither gay nor straight marriage concerns a compelling government interest. Equality does concern a compelling government interest. The best way to achieve it is by abolishing legal marriage. Extend my entire second and third contentions here. Gay marriage hurts religion and marriage in general hurts society. These are compelling government interests against allowing marriage in the United States. Additionally neither gay nor straight marriage laws are narrowly tailored or are the least restrictive means to a goal. The best way to achieve both of these prongs of the strict scrutiny standard is by abolishing marriage as a legal institute. For these reasons gay marriage is just as unconstitutional as straight marriage and should be rejected under the strict scrutiny standard. *********************** Closing note: Yeah I do know, and I'm definitely not. Check the literature. ^.^