Gay Marriage

“I agree that government rewards marriage because of the common good it creates. A married couple creates children, which they raise and become members of the society which benefits the common good.“ This is a concession to my argument regarding the purpose of marriage. - “Homosexual couples also meet this common good. “ Homosexual couples can meet this common good, in the same way that two friends can, or a group of monks can. The logic simply does not follow. If one bases marriage off what a couple can do, that is adopt and raise a child, then it too logically follows that marriage must be open to any social group that can also adopt and raise a child. However, this is simply absurd. Just because something can do something does not mean it will do something. In other words, it reasonably follows that if the government is interested in the common good of procreation, then the government should only recognize relationships that are distinctly ordered to that common good. In other words, these relationships will have a tendency to fulfill this common good unlike other relationships. Only heterosexual couples via biological complimentarily are distinctly ordered to this common good. The heterosexual relationship could be logically written as follows: X -> Y without Z Heterosexual relationships have a special connection via biological complementarily to procreation without any outside means of achieving the common good (surrogates, adoption, artificial insemination, ect.) Homosexual relationships, including all other non-heterosexual relationships could be logically written as follows: X -> Y only with Z That is, these relationships can only achieve procreation with outside means. However, outside means are irrelevant because this means the achievement of the procreation possesses no natural order and is simply subjective. - “There are many homosexual couples who choose to have children.” This is completely subjective, because since there is no natural tendency to choose to have children, we can easily imagine a world where every homosexual couple would not have children. This obviously defeats the purpose of why the government would recognize marriage in the first place, which as my opponent conceded, is due to the common good marriage produces. - “Homosexual couples have children in the same way a couple would if one of them was infertile. “ Infertile couples and homosexual couples are not the same. Even though the conclusion is the same, that is that neither can achieve procreation, infertile couples are still biologically ordered towards procreation even if it cannot be achieved. The government recognizes heterosexual unions because they are ordered towards procreation, not for the achievement of procreation in of itself. This explains why heterosexual couples can choose not to have children without repercussion. - “And your last bit about infertile couples seems to be disproving yourself by saying that the government is interested in the relationship and not what it produces which is not what you said in the beginning.” My entire argument focuses on the biological link to procreation, and not on the achievement of procreation itself. For if my argument focused purely on the achievement, then there would be no logical reason to deny any social union that could potentially have children. However, since such a notion is absurd it is reasonable therefore that the government is interested in what a relationship is ordered to, and not on the conclusion of procreation itself.