Being gay is harmful to society.

"No, it was caused by the child's belief that being picked last meant that some negative thought about him/herself is true." Yes, that is a cause, and that cause was due to a combination of some event or events in their life and the influence this had on their behavior as controlled by their trait makeup. This causal chain can continue back all the way back to the planck epoch if desired. There are primary causes, direct causes, root causes, etc. The definition of harm does not constrain itself and thus all causes have to be accepted. "If it is people who are anti-gay, then it is their beliefs about gays that causes themselves harm, not that others are gay." The argument fails even to be self-consistent, there are those who are gay and who lash out at gays because of self-loathing, denying that they are gay. Now again, of course you can take the causal chain one step further back and determine why they hate being gay, this can continue forever. The argument that you can take one thing, one action or one physical characteristic and say "Ah ha! That is the cause!" that is extremely naive. On a very basic level, it is known that all interactions are determinate only in approximation as we (and everything else) is influenced holistically by all that we experience, and thus using the naive definition of cause here - all thing are causal. Causality is a chain of consequences, and what is a consequence, an action which happens as a result of a set of conditions[1]. If someone is not gay then by definition they can not suffer a consequence of harm from being gay (they do not have that condition and thus can not have a consequence of it). However if they are gay then that is a condition, they do have it, and it has the probability of making the person come to injury and thus it fits the above definition. And yes, the chain can continue back, the direct cause can be examined for the underlying causes, this can continue indefinitely - but simply because an underlying cause is found does not mean that the direct cause is ignored. If you are supervising a work site, and you find that someone has twisted their ankle, the direct cause could be that were not wearing proper foot ware, the underlying cause could be they never received an orientation, the cause of that could be that the supervisor did not give it because they were upset that day and simply were trying to punch in the time to get to the bar at the end of the day. Or consider : I lash out in a fight in a bar, over react to a drunk who spilled a drink on my arm, he is gay and I am enraged and in my anti-gay hate I lash out. But no need to worry as Con is the judge. I argue that wait, the cause of his death was not that he fell and hit his head after I struck him, it was in fact my boss who fired me earlier today and it was unjust - that is the cause, blame him! Con immediately accepts and points the finger at the Boss, but wait he exclaims, my wife cheated on me, it is her fault I was upset, she is the cause, I am innocent my anger was caused by her, if she had not cheated on me then I would not have reacted that way and fired anyone! Con again accepts and charges at the wife, the wife cries out but it is not my fault, I had to turn away from my husband for I am addicted to sex and he can not satisfy me, and my therapist has said it was because I never received unconditional love as a child, it is my parents - they are the cause, not me, I am just reacting as I am because of what I have endured! Con again immediately accepts and attacks the parents, they are the true cause. But, the parents exclaim, we did not love her because she was ugly, but before you blame us, both of us are artists and surrounded by beauty, we were trained and encouraged by our parents to create and appreciate beauty, how could we stand to touch that ugly thing! And Con agrees immediately and charges off to find the parents of the parents, ... This is plainly nonsense, it is nonsense in the law, it is nonsense in business and it is nonsense in any aspect of life. A causal chain is created by events, that is why it is called a chain and each aspect of the chain is by definition causal [2] "People who are anti-gay believe that gayness cannot be tolerated and so they cause harm to themselves with that belief because they cannot stop everyone from being gay ..." Why stop there, why not find out what makes them anti-gay and call that the cause? What about if they were raped by a homosexual and that made them anti-gay, would you then also not call gay or would you argue that there was something that made the gay rapist a rapist and then find out the cause of that cause, etc. . "Again, this does not "harm" a person in any way, if a gay person feels hurt by this, it is because of their irrational beliefs seeing as this is not life-threatening or life changing." Harm is defined in the above as not only causing injury but also the potential, being legally classified has certain benefits, you really are not aware of any of them and wish to actually contend that? I can cite them as I am personally very familiar with it. I do not have these benefits as my marriage is not recognized legally because of that I can not even bring my partner into this country (VISA demands an accepted legal marriage), this obviously causes loss (financial, emotional, physical, etc.) and it is hardly irrational to consider these consequences as losses. As Con has not contested that if something causes harm to an individual then it causes harm to society, then it is trivial to continue with direct causes (if that is all Con really will accept) for being Gay. For one, the number of Gay's is much less than the number of straight people and thus the probability of finding optimal partners is much lower purely by numbers - this is obvious a loss by definition. Or continuing with loss, a gay couple now who would wish to have a natural child combining who they are with each other can not do so and thus they do not have the opportunity to bring a child into the world who is uniquely them. This opportunity is denied to them, it is something they do not have, it causes loss and is harm - if it was there, would it really be contended that it would not be undertaken, if we had such genetic engineering ability which was so freely available - that is an absurd argument to even try to make. [1]http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org...