The United States should legalize homosexual marriage.

I'd like to start by apologizing to both the voters and my opponent for forfeiting. I'll resume the debate from this point on, and rely on this argument for the remainder of the round. Since this leaves my opponent with nothing to rebut, feel free to defend your constructive or to rebut this series of arguments. To the voters, penalize me as you wish during the voting process. Now, to start the debating. In response to my opponent's points on discrimination, I will have two major responses. First, he overlooks the fact that disallowing homosexual marriage leads to discrimination. Homosexual couples, even in civil unions, are denied rights such as tax deductions, hospital visiting rights, the ability to easily move from one state to another, the ability to relatively easily discontinue the relationship (members of civil unions have no way to "divorce" their partners) and oven 1,100 other rights basic to couples that can be traditionally married. [1] The resolution was carefully chosen, so that we could decide whether to allow homosexuals to partake in marriage, due to the fact that civil unions are not the same as marriage, and still cause homosexuals to be subject of discrimination. My opponent brings up a case by the Colorado Supreme Court from 1910, which is severely outdated. Meanwhile, in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited same-sex marriage, as unconstitutional. [2] Additionally, in late 2014, the Supreme Court refused to hear a gay marriage case, deferring to the lower courts decision, which was that the bans were unconstitutional. [3] When there are more recent court decisions by a higher court, there is no reason we should see my opponent's example as valid. My opponent states the children receive the best upbringing from their own father and mother, yet these children are orphans, being adopted. It's not like the homosexual couples rip the children out of a loving family, but rather attempt to bring them into one when they didn't have one. It's better that the children grow up with some semblance of family rather than growing up in an orphanage or growing up moving from foster home to foster home and never being able to call a place "home." Now for the point regarding Aristotle, this is used completely out of context, and in fact Aristotle had homosexual relations throughout his life. [4] Therefore, using him as a source to oppose gay marriage is a complete misrepresentation! Plato also favored gay relationships, going so far as to say "Homosexuality, is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love-all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce." [5] So when we take the great thinkers of the past into account, both my example and even my opponent's example favor my side of the argument. For the disease and drugs issue I will have two responses. First, the disease point is regarding homosexual relations. These will occur whether or not we allow them to marry. So this is non-unique to allowing marriage. Now the alcohol and drug use issue. The studies conducted on this have admitted that it is likely due to psychological variables related to stress, which is put on them by a society where they are second-class citizens (i.e. not able to legally marry) additionally, the National Library of Medicine found that there is little data regarding the matter, and that the small pool of studies is not entirely reliable. [6] Now for my opponent's conclusion about other non-traditional forms of marriage becoming legal, this is just preposterous. He is using a slippery slope argument, which is a logical fallacy. Rather than engaging the issues at hand, he is instead turning to extreme hypothetical situations. As the debate now stands, I have negated the inherent harms my opponent provided in the disease and addictions point, so with the human rights abuses and the fact that the Supreme Court has both directly and indirectly ruled gay marriage bans unconstitutional, I urge voters to support Pro in today's debate. Thank you! For Source 4 look particularly at the ninth paragraph. [1] http://www.glad.org... [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com... [3] http://www.npr.org... [4] https://bearmarketreview.wordpress.com... [5] http://www.searchquotes.com... [6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...