Gay Marriage Should Be Legalized In America

I strongly disagree with your right from the start. Marriage is not strictly about procreation; if it was, it would be illegal for infertile people to be married. And what about heterosexual couples who do not plan on having children? Should we ban marriage for everyone who doesn't plan on having childen? I also disagree with the statement about love; we are not animals. Marriage may have been formed for the benefit of rearing children, but this is America in the 21st century. There is no need to hold ourselves to the standards set thousands of years ago. In our society, marriage is fully for the reason of love. Family is not the main reason anymore. I disagree with you that homosexuals have "little positive benefits" from marriage. Marriage provides rights and benefits such as joint income tax, inheriting a spouse's estate, legal rights to making financial/medical decisions on your spouse's behalf, taking a family leave to care for your ill spouse, receiving retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse, legal rights to making funeral/burial arrangements, and many more government/economic/tax/medical/housing benefits. Denying homosexuals marriage is denying them these rights. Although you don't need a contract to show love between people, you need a contract to gain these benefits for the person you love. I completely, utterly disagree with your next statement. It is not a fallacy; animals cannot, and never will be able to give consent to sexual intercourse with a human. Consent needs to be verbal; a yes or a no, which an animal is incapable of doing. Although physical signs may point to consent, it does not equal consent. Does a drunk woman taking off her shirt give someone permission to violate her? I have never heard of an animal instigating sex, unless the owner has trained them to do so, which is not right. A dog humping your leg is not instigating sex, and it does NOT give a human consent to have sex with them. Animals are instinctual; their instinct is not consent. Also, animals are not as intelligent as humans. Most animals only have the mental capacity of a 4 year old child or younger. In the same way that a child cannot consent, an animal cannot consent. They also do not have intercourse for pleasure, only to reproduce. That is why having sex with an animal is always taking advantage of them, and always raping them. The marriage between humans will never equal marriage between a human and a person or animal who cannot give consent. I can agree with you on your next statement; homosexuality WAS taboo, and that is not a very solid reason to deny the correlation between gay marriage and incestuous marriage. However, incest can cause emotional damage since the person you are engaging in sexual acts with is someone who have a familial bond with; breaking that bond to form a sexual one has the potential to cause mental harm, especially if one side feels like they are being used. In your next statement, you are actually solidifying my point. How would gay marriage be a slippery slope into incestuous marriage if it is already legal, in fact, made legal BEFORE gay marriage? Not only in Indiana, this is legal. In fact, in 20 states, 1st cousin marriage is fully legal, without any age restrictions. In 4 other states, it is legal with age restrictions. In 2013, gay marriage was only fully legal in 13 states. I don't see how gay marriage can lead to a slippery slope to incestuous marriage if marriage between first cousins was legal before marriage between homosexuals. I did not mention polygamy in my argument because it is irrelevant. This argument is about whether consenting adults should be able to marry consenting adults- which I believe is true. I do not see a logical reason why polygamy should /not/ legalized, (I may remind you that polyamory is a real romantic orientation). But that is an argument for another day. I give a logical reason as to why gay marriage would not lead to polygamous marriages, but I also do not have a logical reason as to what is inherently wrong with polygamous marriages if it is healthy one, instead of more of a "love triangle" situation. Are you saying there is something wrong with a masculine female or a feminine male? In this world, there will always be children who are less sympathetic, or more masculine/feminine. I don't think that is a valid argument because that does not necessarily put them at a distinct disadvantage. And as I said before; marriage in our society is not about raising children. If it was, we would have to ban infertile people and couples that have no intention to have children from marriage. I do not think that marriage should be banned from a specific group of people because there have been studies that might show that their children may be more masculine or feminine, because not all gay marriage will result in children. I disagree with your statement about "normality". Heterosexuality is indeed the most prominent sexuality; that is why heteronormativity exists. However, the word normal has a negative connotation attached to it, which implies that anything other than heterosexuality is bad. I think that instead of demonizing valid sexual orientations, we should celebrate them. Many people of other sexualities "stay in the closet" because of this, making heterosexuality seem to be the more normal. Refusing to expose your child to anything but heterosexual relationships makes this even more prominent. I agree that marriage is not required for a loving relationship, but children see it that way. You stated that homosexuals raising children can bring negative affects; I will argue that homosexuals raising children while /not/ being married can have negative effects too. When they are taught from a young age that marriage = love, what will they think when they learn that their parents are not married? If you have studied the psychology of the child's mind, you will know that these sort of things can stress them out, confuse them, and have negative effects emotionally. To end this, I respect the majority of your arguments, but I think that the benefits gay marriage greatly outweigh the cons. It has been said that anywhere from 3-8% of the population is homosexual. Even more so are sexualities that are neither heterosexual or homosexual. I personally think that denying that amount of the population marriage and the rights that come from marriage should is discrimination. Saying that marriage is only for procreating wouldn't and shouldn't apply in a legal situation, since many couples who are eligible for marriage cannot or do not want to have children. In our society, it is useless to say that marriage can only be for purposes of bearing children.