Gay Marriage

Thanks for the quick reply Cameron. ==Rebuttal== R1) Finger length My opponent merely confuses correlation and causation. Just because you're female and have a ring finger shorter than the middle finger does not automatically make you a lesbian, but it means you were exposed to more testosterone than normal in utero and are more likely to be a lesbian. Remember, the Breedlove study found that "'Every time you find a body marker that gives an indication of prenatal testosterone exposure, lesbians on average are more masculine than straight women." My opponent also doesn't answer the fruit fly study and the mice study that finds that homosexuality is genetically determined and thus not a choice. My opponent also doesn't answer the Bruce Bahemihl book which proves that homosexuality is widespread in nature, again reinforcing the idea that it is natural and genetic. R2) Homosexuality is uncommon/unpopular My opponent cites a statistic here that says that 3.5% of Americans are gay and 83% are Christian, and then he asserts, without evidence, that all (or most) Christians are anti-homosexual. There are a lot of problems with this. First, it is offensive that my opponent would argue that the government should appeal to the 83% rather than the 3.5%. It is firstly offensive to Christians who are not homophobic to imply that all Christians are adamantly anti-gay. It's secondly offensive for him to appeal to the tyranny of the majority – the same logic would justify denying rights to blacks, since they are only 12% of the population and whites were the majority. In addition, a more widely accepted statistic is that 1 in 10 people are gay. According to Gary J. Gates, a Senior Research Fellow at The Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, "if you define "gay" as having same-sex attractions or behaviors, you do get higher proportions that are a bit closer to the one in ten figure" than if you define it as "do you self-identify as gay." The UCLA study is flawed because many homosexuals are closeted and may not admit to others or themselves that they are gay, but people are more willing to admit to same-sex attractions. Also, not every Christian opposes gay marriage. According to a 2011 Gallup poll, 53% of Americans support gay marriage. [1] According to Andrew Sullivan, the gay marriage campaign is "one of the most successful political and social campaigns in history;" gay marriage has gone from having 41 percentage points more people DISAPPROVE than approve to having 8 percentage points more people APPROVE than disapprove in only 15 years. [1] That's truly astonishing and shows how quickly times are changing. My opponent should get with the program. R2) Definition of marriage My opponent continues the argument from tradition: marriage was originally between a man and a woman. Definitions change. Marriage was ORIGINALLY between a WHITE man and a WHITE woman. The argument from tradition is a total failure. "President" once meant "that white guy that lives in the White House." R3) Civil Unions My opponent says that homosexuals should have equal rights in civil unions. However, this will never happen since as the Supreme Court said in Brown, separate is inherently unequal. As long as homosexuals are given a separate institution, equality will lag; state legislatures will drag their feet; the INS will still deport gay partners, etc. My opponent says, "That is not what this debate is about though, it is about if gays are part of the definition of marriage, which they are not and shouldn't be a part of." No, this debate is about whether the judge should be in favor or against gay marriage. We are not debating about the definition of marriage – that debate could be settled rather quickly with a dictionary. For example, according to Princeton's Wordnet, marriage is "the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for life (or until divorce)." No mention of man or woman. R4) ??????????? My opponent says, "Should a kid at age 7 have to decide to marry a male or female?" NO. A kid should never be getting married at age 7. In addition, homosexuality isn't a choice. Homosexuals are attracted to the same gender because of their genetic heritage which has either exposed them to a large burst of testosterone in utero or not. So the 7 year old doesn't decide who to be attracted to at age 7. When he hits puberty (around age 14), if his peepee goes up when he looks at girls, he is heterosexual and if it goes up when he looks at boys, he is homosexual, and if it goes up all the time, well . . . that's pretty much what puberty is. R5) Does the Christian God exist? My opponent says, "Bringing up if God exists or not is a totally different discussion and is irrelevant. I am not a Christian but I do know what marriage is based from and that a majority of America is Christian." If he is not Christian, why is my opponent demanding we all live our lives based on what some fictional book tells us to do? The appeal to the majority is just ridiculous as well. If the majority of Americans believed in ghosts, that doesn't meant that we should model our lives after lessons learned from Ghostbusters. So whether God exists or the Bible is correct IS relevant since my opponent never proves why we should look to the Christian Bible as a model for our lives, especially when it advocates stoning disobedient children and seems to endorse rape and incest. R6) Filth My opponent says, "Telling gay couples that they do not deserve to be married does imply that there is something filthy and wrong about a gay couple." I'm glad my opponent admits to being a bigot. I assume that all non-homophobics will dock him the conduct point. My opponent says, "Telling gay couples they cannot marry is similar to telling a black man they cannot be white." EXACLTY. Back when whites held all the power and blacks had no rights, the whites told the blacks they "could not be white" since blacks had lower intelligence and other forms of eugenics research. The problem is, the opposite is true. A gay person cannot be straight. It's simply not possible. They can enter a "re-education" program and start lying to the world, but they cannot force themselves to be attracted to the opposite gender. A traditional "Christian" marriage was a marriage between two white people. At the very least, it was a marriage between two Christians. So by my opponent's definition, the U.S. should outlaw a marriage between a Jew and a Christian. The appeal to tradition is a bad one. R7) Stigma My opponent says, "Please explain to me why it is required that you need to be considered "married" to be equal." Well, let's look to an analogy. Let's pretend that my opponent has an IQ that is under 80, for the sake of this analogy. Now "traditionally" in this country, college degrees were only for the extremely elite and intelligent (when colleges were first around), but now they hand them out to pretty much anyone who is willing to pay. So to prevent the definition of "college degree" from being tainted, we say that for people who have an IQ under 80, they can still go to college and graduate, and they can have all the same rights as a normal college graduate, but if they ever refer to their college degree, they can't call it that; they have to refer to it as their "special token." Or to go with a slightly more crude and insulting analogy. Pretend my opponent has a penis that is only 2 inches long (or less). Now let's say women get together and decide that men with less than 2 inch penises can still have intercourse, but they can't call it sex, they have to call it "unsatisfying gyration." Imagine my opponent running to his friends when he loses his virginity and happily exclaiming, "Suzy and I just engaged in unsatisfying gyration." Words have power, and forcing someone to use a different word than the real one is insulting. The process and the adamancy with which we would deny certain people the use of the same word as everyone else is an obvious insult. It's like saying "here gay people, we know you're choosing to live in sin, you can have your little pretend marriage, but we won't let you call it that and sully the word marriage. So go play gay and be happy, but when you grow out of this phase, let us know and you can have the "real thing."" DROPPED ARGUMENTS 1. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment requires that all people have equal protection under the law. Since a gay man cannot choose to marry a straight woman, since homosexuality is not a choice, gays do not have equal rights to marriage. Banning gay marriage violates our Constitution. 2. Separate is inherently unequal. Anti-homosexual advocates will never grant equal rights to gays under civil unions. The only true way to grant equal rights is for the Supreme Court to recognize gay marriage as being mandated by the 14th Amendment. 3. Utilitarianism. Allowing gay marriage generates jobs and revenue for the state, with no downsides. My opponent drops the study that in countries that allow gay marriage, traditional marriage rates have remained unchanged. 4. God doesn't exist and the Bible is wrong, contradictory, and advocates evil acts. It should not be used as a moral guide. It should be clear from the dropped arguments that this debate is over. Vote pro. [1] http://www.patheos.com...