Homosexuality

Introduction: Thanks to my opponent for his reply. I am going to go right into the debate rather than wasting space with a needless introduction. Argument One: Argument from Abrahamic Morality. While the ontological argument does not content that the God it proposes is the God of the Bible, I suggested several reasons why it would be plausible to assume that this is true. To reiterate: if such a being exists, it should actively be involved in teaching moral agents (human beings) its perfect moral knowledge. We have moral knowledge that seems to be from a God, and God would probably not allow his Word to be distorted. The ontological argument does not assume that God exists, only that it is reasonably possible that He could. My opponent has not suggested any reason why it is truly impossible for God to exist. My argument only requires that it is possible, and there is no reason to close ourselves off to the possibility. As a final step, my opponent attacks the morality of the Bible. This is simply a mistake in reasoning. If the Bible is God's Word, then its moral truths are absolutely correct. My opponent cannot begin to argue that the Bible is immoral without first establishing that it is not God's Word. He is effectively arguing that the Bible is immoral on the basis that it is immoral. Well, based on the arguments presented in this debate there is no reason to believe anything in the Bible is wrong. Argument Two: Homosexuality and Health Issues My opponent seems to have misunderstood my argument. I never blamed anyone for anything, I merely stated that homosexuals suffer from certain problems more than others. Unlike Argument One, this is not a moral argument. My opponent claimed that homosexuality was fine. I am trying to avoid semantics, but if something reduces people's quality of life then I do not think we should consider it fine. I agree that homosexuality is not a choice and that social and religious pressure is harmful to homosexuals. If anything, this is harmful to my opponent's position because it suggests another problem facing homosexuals: people are biased against them. If people hate you for irrational reasons, you are clearly not fine. That is a harmful condition. I doubt that suicide is common enough in any demographic to affect life expectency significantly, but even if it did this would further strengthen my argument. If many homosexuals kill themselves, that leads to the conclusion that homosexuality is not fine. I am sure we would all greatly prefer if it were not this way, but the fact of the matter is the homosexuality is closely associated with physical and emotional suffering. Argument Three: Principles of Democracy Proposition 8 was overruled because it was found to have violated the California State Constitution, not the United States Constitution. [7] Once again, I did not make a moral argument. I argued that gay marriage would not be fine in a democratic society because the majority of people disagree with it. Democratic societies are not based on the idea of protecting everyone's rights [4]. My opponent sticks to his elitist assumption that the majority of people in America are indoctrinated and uneducated. However, the point of democracy is that people with this false sense of superiority cannot force their views on anyone else. No doubt my opponent's blood would boil if he heard a conservative Christian accuse him of being indoctrinated by secular philosophy. He has established no basis on which to consider his world view superior. Argument Four: State Sanctioned Marriage Should Be Abolished My opponent has basically conceded this point. He gave no specific definition of marriage and he never said the debate was based on the assumption that straight people should be allowed to get married too. People are too quick to argue for gay marriage under the assumption that it is equivalent to gay rights. Readers may consider this argument contrary to the spirit of the debate, but I think that it is important for social liberals to seriously examine marriage as a social institution before arguing that everyone should have the right to marriage in the name of uncritical support for equality. I had it extremely clear why legal marriage is unfair to others. My opponent has no basis on which to define marriage simply as a ceremony between two people. Children have pretend marriages all the time. In the United States, a marriage is more than a fun ceremony between two people in a relationship, it is a legal agreement. Such legal agreements are unfair and should not be permitted to anyone. Conclusion: In conclusion, I agree with none of this, except the last part and then only partially. However, these are all important arguments that the gay rights movement has to be able to address. My opponent has not been able to adequately defend his position against any of my objections, and only one of them would have to be valid to negative the resolution. Sources: [7] http://en.wikipedia.org...