Gay marriage should be legal

You never said that the point of the debate was changing how society defines marriage. This debate is supposed to be on whether gay people should be allowed to get married. Therefore, my point is relevant. “I have proved why these religious beliefs are no reason why the government should not recognise gay marriage to support basing my arguments around the separation of the church and the state.” You stated in your previous argument “This man is just one of the growing support for gay marriage within religious communities. This shows that even if religions were to hold power over the governments decision this would not restrict the passing of this motion for long because people are willing to accept others because most people are generally quite pleasant”. When you brought up the religious supporters of gay marriage, you implied that religion should be part of the decision. The majority of the religious community is still against gay marriage. So if religion held power over government decisions, gay marriage would not be legalized. You did not prove anything about the separation of church and state. “Only a minority in society now still believe that gay marriage is wrong” Can you prove that statement? From what I know, a large percentage of society does not support gay marriage. “the common belief that we had about gay marriage being wrong stemmed from the fact that the government would not allow it to happen” I would also like to see the proof for that. “When we get rid of this last piece of "legal stigma" society can then fully integrate” You have not yet proved that legalizing gay marriage would make more people support. If people hated gays before gay marriage was legal, they will hate them after it is legal. Society will still not fully integrate. But you still do not bring up the benefits for society as a whole. The stigma and hate crimes relating to gay couples are directed at the LGBT community. The rest of society is not harmed by it. Legalizing gay marriage would benefit the LGBT community but it would not end the stigmas or hate crimes. It would also not benefit society as a whole. “the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage”. This definition still supports my point. Gay couples can be united in a relationship LIKE that of a traditional marriage. It is called a civil union, so you are practically “married”. It is not and should not be recognized by the law because it is not the same as a traditional marriage. “The only difference here is that heterosexual marriage is " recognized by law " and homosexual marriage is not. That is what this debate is about.” You should really decide what this debate is about. Since at the beginning of you argument you stated “the whole point of this debate is that we should be changing how society defines marriage. That is the definition as it stands the now but this debate is about changing the definition”. “Because gay marriage does benefit our society and it can lead to improvements in other societies” You have not proved why gay marriage is beneficial to a society so you cannot say it would lead to improvements in other societies. You also say in your first argument that this debate is about American government and society. If this debate is about America, it does not matter whether or not it benefits other societies. Gay marriage should not be legalized for multiple reasons. First, it would require the definition of marriage to be changed. If the government changes its definition of marriage to allow gay couples to get married, people could then say it should be changed so that they can marry their family members or pets. Marriage is a very sacred thing to many people. Allowing gay marriage would take away the value of marriage because it would show that the meaning of marriage can be changed to suit the needs of a group of people. Gay couples are already allowed to have civil unions. They can be joined together but it is not called the same thing as when heterosexual couples are joined. They are not the same thing so they should not be called the same thing. Same-sex couples are unable to procreate, meaning that there is no compelling interest to subsidize their marriages. The majority of heterosexual couples can procreate or were able to procreate at some point. There are exceptions but those are exactly that, exceptions. Homosexual couples cannot naturally procreate. There are no exceptions.