Gay Marriage

Thanks Pro again for the debate. ---- Counterplan: Get rid of ALL marriage. Plaintext: The United States Federal Government will disavow all official recognition of marriage, and will no longer provide any marriage-based incentives of any kind. Timeframe, funding, and agency will all be through normal means. Clarification: I want to make sure that my opponent and I have successfully communicated that this debate centers around State-based marriage and not socially-instituted (that is, "unofficial") marriage, which is legal for anyone anytime in the Unoted States. Clarification2: I also request that my opponent clarify more of the specifics and details of their plan. ---- Marriage incentivizes "normality." Marriage is fundamentally a heteronormative power structure whereby the State apparatus issue incentives to those who have "normal" sexualities, and ultimately disincentives queer people. Like my opponent admits, marriage affects a lot of things--taxes, court cases, and job acceptance. However, these positive potentials of marriage are only possible for those the state considers "normal." But who is normal? Traditionally, marriage has included only partnerships between one man, one woman, who committed to lifelong monogamy. As Pro already pointed out, the government basically pays people to have normal relationships. Rather than letting individuals or communities decide for themselves whether their relationship is "appropriate," the government puts its own opinion forth about whether their relationship is "normal" enough to merit monetary compensation, tax breaks, and other benefits. There is nothing about a married couple that warrants their receiving special, monetary compensation. But there are many disadvantages, which I will lay out shortly. The fact remains that even if marriage included same-sex partner relationships, it would still be a method of elevating relationships that resemble heteronormative standards. In other words, gay marriage misses the: instead of removing the state's power to say who is and who isn't within acceptable relationship norms, it merely adjusts those norms. It replaces one system of inequality with another. Here are some disadvantages that result from state-sponsored heteronormativity: 1. Economic inequality. Single persons, polyamorous persons, persons who don't like labels, persons living together, and relationships with persons who do not identify as "male" or "female" are excluded from marriage. This means that the tax breaks and other economic benefits, when instead they could be des tributes indiscriminately. The fact is, however, that these benefits under Pro's plan would go to those who least need it--some opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples. Although it is true that same-sex monogamous couples are disenfranchised, so are many others, especially those that I listed above! Marriage has created this inequality, of some "normal" groups getting benefits and some "abnormal" groups getting no benefits. Including same-sex couples as "normal" fixes essentially nothing about this system of inequality. Instead, the state should refuse to recognize marriage as a whole. Doing so would solve 100% of this state-sponsored inequality. 2. Solidifies marriage. In it's current male-female-only state, it is very easy to see marriage's unjust nature. Which means that now is the best time to get rid of it. However, gay marriage gives the illusion of social equality, which means--if it passes--that legislators will be less likely to pass a bill in the future that would eliminate state-sponsored marriage, perpetuating all of te social and economic inequalities associated with marriage. 3. Loss of identity. Marriage allows the state to define one's identity, rather than oneself. There is no reason for the state to descriminate or define one's relationship. It would be as if the President of the United States were to hack into your facebook and update your status. The state has no business knowing what your relationship status is, let alone making you define it on paper or in court (in the case of divorse, or obtaining a marriage license). They also make you define and track your gender, which may be complicated, dynamic, or simply private information. Marriage allows te state to not only find out your relationship information, but will actually replace it with their own definition. The person who decides if you are marriages should be you and your partner(s). Not some divorse attorney or judge. Anything else would be a violation of your autonomy. 4. Dignity. Having the United States Federal Goverenment only recognize the marriages between same-sex monogamous couples is a violation of the dignity of those whom they declared unfit for state-sponsorship. There is nothing that makes monogamous same sex or opposite sex couples better or worse than persons who define themselves as neither male nor female, polygamous persons, single persons, or all of the other relationships with their own strangeness and wonder. The State isn't a beauty critic--it has no business judging who is attractive enough to be acceptable. By removing marriage, the government would give up its role as critic, legitimizing all forms of consentual relationship expression equally. 5. Perpetuates social inequality. Because the state is often seen as an entity of some authority, society get many of their cues from it. Thus, since the state descriminate a people based on their relationship identity, many Americans likely would too. On the other hand, publicly rejecting all relationship-based discrimination (I.e. Marriage) would effectively model equality to the American people, legitimizing those outside marriage's oppressive norms. -- Thus, even gay marriage is a disguise for all sorts of relationship-based descrimination. The US government works to not descriminate favorably or unfavorably one based on one's religious identity. Why should they descriminate one based on one's relationship identity? -- Here are some more good reasons to reject marriage. The history of marriage was one of families selling young girls to a man in order to acquire good or familial ties. Usually the girl would not have a say in the matter. Worse, it was considered a widely duty to have sex, regardless of her wishes. Meaning that husbands more often than not raped their wives, who were expected to go with it, or "spread your legs and think of England." The current system of marriage is still very bad. Basically, one is forced to both ask the state permission to enter into an to leave a contractual-like relationship. This means that one cannot leave the marriage on a whim--one must secure a divorse. In order to do that effectively without losing much of one's property, one must avoid "cheating" during the waiting period, and had better not have "cheated" before that. The whole marriage system is messed up. There is no reason for a state to call a couple "married" when they do not want to be. There's no reason for a judge to allocate property to person based on who they did not didn't have sex with. This is all personal information. By having a seperated contract for shared wealth that doesn't take into account one's sexual relationship history, one is able to keep the mechanisms of marriage without its chains (forcing people apart or together). -- Furthermore, marriage privileges persons who are from countries that value marriage. Because institutional marriage of the kind currently regulated in the United States comes from a European tradition, obviously not all communities and cultures conceptualize marriage in the way that the United States Federal Government does. This means that the United States Federal government would be privileging persons from cultures that conceptualize marriage similarly (that is, Europeans and Europe-influenced nations). This would bring: 1. Economic inequality (culture-based government funds) 2. Social inequality (establishing preferential status of certain cultures, leading to descrimination and other forms of social inequality). 3. Cultural imperialism. Marriage would be a mechanism whereby the state chooses what is and isn't acceptable from in a culture. It silences expressions of culture and replaces them with so-called "American" culture. --- Everyone deserves the right to be heard and equal treatment under the law. Marriage stops this for persons whose culture does not conceptualize marriage in the same way that the US government has, or whose relationship does not fit "norms" or preferences of the state, or who disagrees with a state's definition of their relationship. My counterplan solves 100% of these problems, whereas Pro's plan not only fails to solve inequality an injustice, but ensures that the same inequality and injustice will last a long, long time. Clearly, dear reader, Con has won this debate. --- For all the many, many reasons listed above, please vote for Con. Thanks for reading!