Gay marriage should be legal in the United States

"...something is not always legal until it is made illegal. In the second example, marriage as a legal union simply did not exist. An action can be considered legal until it is legislated otherwise, but something provided by the government, (in this case a marriage by law), does not exist until it is brought into existence by law."Allow me to start out by reintroducing the tenth amendment while defining the United States Constitution. According to the tenth amendment, "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (I won't bother sourcing this, since it has been sourced previously. United States Constitution: a document that outlines the basis of the federal (national) government of the USA [1]. Ultimately, my opponent is confusing legal and establishment, when he says elsewhere "Because there are no laws pertaining to marriage in this situation. Legal marriage does not exist." According to Con, legal marriage is not established according to federal law, because federal law cannot establish it. I say that this does not mean it is neither legal or illegal, however, and this is because the Constitution does not mention it. If the Constitution restricted it, it would then be illegal. But since it does not restrict marriage, and thus passes on the powers of legal marriage to the states according to the tenth amendment, the Constitution permits it, making it legal according to the previously agreed upon definition: permitted by law. It does not establish it, but that does not mean it is not legal, since it does permit it. Since the federal government must abide by the Constitution, gay marriage is legal according to federal law, since it is legal according to the Constitution. Con will certainly disagree with me on this, and it is unfortunate that I am not be able to respond to his attempts to refute this argument. "The resolution, interpreted using the agreed upon definitions, states that the federal government should legislate to make gay marriage legal. The choices states make concerning the definition of marriage is not a part of the resolution. The important part is that states are allowed to make that choice."Con's understanding of the resolution is incorrect. According to Con, "My opponent has the BoP to show why the United States is obligated to make gay marriage legal." This does not mention any form of legislation; it can include legislation, but it does not have to. Instead of legislation, I have shown the USA should make gay marriage legal through the Constitution. In other words, above, I have shown that gay marriage technically already is legal in the United States. My previous arguments concerning whether or not the states can decide is technically irrelevant, but that is because I had an incomplete understanding of the resolution, one that already assumes that gay marriage is legal in the United States according to the Constitution, which means we will be arguing about whether or not the states have an obligation to allow gay marriage. My opponent seemed to have an understanding of the resolution that too seemed incorrect, because he figured it involved legislation; as I pointed out above, this was incorrect. "My opponent chose not to answer the question because he felt it was not topical to the resolution. This question is absolutely relevant to the resolution. This is because if we are exploring redefining marriage, we must look at the possible precedents that it could set. Polygamy, as a comment on this debate pointed out, could become part of the definition of marriage because of the precedent set.I suspect the real reason for his response is that he simply did not wish to answer the question. Why might he choose this response?"I have an explanation. I did not understand the context of the question, because there was not any context at all. It was just the question itself, not mentioning how it applied to precedent or anything. It was your responsibility to explain how the question applied to the resolution. Without context, I was unsure how it applied to the debate; I had ideas, but I did not know exactly. It was not my responsibility to provide context to the question. You, as you basically admit in round three, wanted to follow up with more arguments, which I shall address. The arguments was the context I was asking for. "Let's say he chose to affirm the question and say that yes, if gay marriage can be a civil right, then polygamy too can be a civil right. In that case, he would have to defend polygamy because I could use a moral argument to show why polygamy was wrong and if gay marriage led to polygamy, this would be a morally wrong procedure."I don't necessarily see a problem with the legalization of polygamy, under the same precedent as gay marriage. States have the ability to define marriage as whatever they wish, as long as it is a legal contract between adults; thus, simply having marriage as a government institution would open the doors to polygamy. To argue that gay marriage would create precedent is not true. My opponent would have to argue that polygamy is immoral and that marriage should not be involved in government."I myself feel no reason to push for voters to vote one way or the other on conduct because I feel my argument are strong enough to win by themselves. I will, however, remind readers that my opponent has chosen to not respond to a question which I have shown to be directly related to the issue at hand."Well, I did not chose to respond to the question before he tried to show how it was relevant to the debate, as opposed to after. Here he is simply being dishonest, trying to make it look like I ignored the question that had context behind it. Once he put context behind the question, I addressed it. I should not be punished for questioning a different topic my opponent brought up without placing any sort of context. If anything, he should be at fault for not putting it in context of the debate. Summary:"1. I proved that legal marriage does not exist until brought into existence by law."I have addressed how marriage is still legal, in that it is permitted by law, even if it is not established under federal law. "2. I proved that marriage is not a civil right throughout the United States, because only some jurisdictions recognize marriage as both homo and heterosexual."I believe he meant to say that he proved gay marriage, not marriage, is not a civil right throughout the United States. In any case, I have already provided arguments why gay marriage should be included in the definition of marriage, which already is a civil right. "3. I proved that my opponent is advocating for an unconstitutional action."I have refuted this."4. I proved that how states choose to define marriage is not important to the resolution."This was due to my misunderstanding of the resolution, something we are both guilty of, just in different ways."5. I proved that my unanswered question is relevant to the resolution, so it is my opponent, not I, who am drawing away from the resolution."I shall quote my previous rounds post: "I am not at fault from drawing attention away from the debate in this instance because I am simply addressing a question asked of me as opposed to asking one myself. Likewise, my opponent shall not be at fault if he tries to explain why this question is relevant to the debate." I assume that Con had simply forgotten what I had said in my previous post, because he did not address it. It's an honest mistake, and he should not be penalized for drawing attention away from the debate with this part of his summary, and neither should I, because I was simply pointing to his honest mistake.I thank my opponent for the debate. This was my first one, and I learned a lot, not just about the topic, but debates in general.[1] http://www.enchantedlearning.co...