Same-sex marriage should be federally legal in the USA.

I find it odd that my opponent charged me with "belittling" her argument by pointing out that it's irrelevant. The goal of a debate is to cogently argue for a certain conclusion while refuting the arguments of the opposition. In my last debate, I used a thoroughly secular argument against same-sex marriage. This had the virtue of being completely immune from Pro's opening arguments, as her main arguments were directed toward religious-based arguments. One might be unhappy about this, but this is hardly objectionable given a debate setting where this is expected. Perhaps the fact that Pro's arguments were easily deflected (To her own admission) indicates that she should have used better arguments. Responding to ProNowhere was it argued that same-sex marriage endangers the institution of traditional marriage. Indeed, my claim was only that by recognizing same-sex marriage as being equivalent to heterosexual marriages, one denies the special social value of heterosexual union. This is not the same thing as endangering the institution of marriage. Consequently, her argument here is simply a strawman. Her statistics, though interesting, are faulty. For one thing, correlation does not imply causation. Rate changes could have been due to a variety of factors -- not SSM. Second, in many of those states, the trend in the divorce rate was pre-existing and thus not a direct consequence of legalizing same-sex marriage. [1] These statistics have also been shown to fluctuate. Now recall the argument I made:1. Heterosexual union is the indispensable means by which humans come into existence and therefore has special social value (indeed, the greatest possible social value because it is the first precondition for society).2. The indispensable means by which something of special social value can occur itself has special value.3. What has special value to human society deserves special social recognition and sanction.4. Civil ordinances which recognize gay marriage as comparable to heterosexual marriage constitute a rejection of the special value of heterosexual unions.5. To deny the special social value of what has special social value is unjust.6. Therefore, gay marriage is unjust.Pro responds to this by arguing that since heterosexual union and heterosexual marriage is logically distinct, premise four fails. Unfortunately, her response fails. Heterosexual union and heterosexual marriage are indeed logically distinguishable, but this is relatively trivial. She writes,"Arguing that same-sex marriage rejects the "special value" of heterosexual marriage is invalid because marriage is not defined by heterosexual union."This attacks a complete strawman. Consider premise four, which reads "Civil ordinances which recognize gay marriage as comparable to heterosexual marriage constitute a rejection of the special value of heterosexual unions." According to my argument, recognizing same-sex marriages as being the equivalent of heterosexual marriages denies heterosexual union of its special social status -- not heterosexual marriage. I hereby extend my argument. The contention that legally recognizing same-sex marriages would detract from the special social value of heterosexual union therefore remains. Since heterosexual union is the sole means through which society exists, it deserves special social value in the form of legal recognition and protection. This is known as a marriage. By elevating homosexual marriages to the same status as that of heterosexual marriage, one detracts from the fact that heterosexual union has special social value. One is in effect saying that the fact that heterosexual union is the sole means through which society is advanced is inconsequential, which is surely mistaken.The State's Interest in MarriagePro writes that "marriage is a vessel through which citizens are cared for by 1000+ rights granted by government."This is rather vague. What is marriage, and why does the government even care about it? If marriage is a mere emotional union of persons, then what business does the state have in intruding into the private lives of its citizens by extending legal recognition to their relationships? Why should the state legally recognize a mere emotional union of persons? As the Supreme Court has ruled in the past, the state has no business in this domain of public life. Thus, an overly broad conception of marriage does not make sense of why the state grants these rights or even why its in the marriage business to begin with.However, if marriage is understood in terms of procreation, then the state's very presence in regulating marriage becomes easy to see. Since the state has a compelling interest in responsible procreation, the state therefore sets laws on who can marry and the rights that are associated with marriage. Now, since the state's interest in marriage is in procreation, it should recognize as marriages only those relationships which are naturally apt to procreation. Because homosexual couples cannot by nature procreate, their relationships are simply not marriages.Contrary to what Pro says, then, the state's interest in marriage is not merely to dispense aid, otherwise we would have to grant marriage rights to all sorts of relationships, which is absurd. Moreover, this is not merely a legal debate, as Pro would like us to this. When one says that SSM should be legal, they are saying that the law should be a certain way. This can only be established by appeal to extra-legal evidence. This will invariably involve philosophical notions of what marriage is and what the state's interest should be.Pro brings up adoption. This is more or less irrelevant. I could grant that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. I would not follow from this that therefore they should be given marriage rights. After all, anyone can adopt -- one person, two people, three people, four people, etc... should we then give those types of couplings marriage rights? Of course not, that would be absurd. So adoption is irrelevant to the issue at hand. The purpose of adoption, moreover, is to place a child in an environment that mimics the natural family as close as possible. This would in fact serve to argue for the heterosexual conception of marriage, rather than detract from it.ConstitutionalityPro charges the traditional conception of marriage as being unconstitutional. However, as I pointed out before, this is circular reasoning. The debate over SSM is fundamentally over what marriage is. One cannot invoke notions of discrimination or denial of equal rights without first presupposing a certain answer to this question. As Robert George, Sherif Girgis, and Ryan Anderson note:"Any legal system that distinguishes marriage from other, nonmarital forms of association, romantic or not, will justly exclude some kinds of union from recognition. So before we can conclude that some marriage policy violates the Equal Protection Clause, or any other moral or constitutional principle, we have to determine what marriage actually is and why it should be recognized legally in the first place. [Emphasis mine] That will establish which criteria (like kinship status) are relevant, and which (like race) are irrelevant to a policy that aims to recognize real marriages. So it will establish when, if ever, it is a marriage that is being denied legal recognition, and when it is something else that is being excluded." [2]In arguing that homosexual couples are being unjustly denied the right to marry, Pro presupposes that there is such a right. Only if there is this right will the discrimination argument work to begin with. In doing so, however, she begs the question by presupposing a conception of marriage in which this right exists. If there is no such right to begin with, then constitutional arguments will not work.Sources1. http://www.infoplease.com...2. Sherif Girgis, Robert P. George, and Ryan T. Anderson, “What is Marriage?” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 34, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 251