There Are Good Secular Reasons to Disallow Same-Sex Marriage

However, his perspective does not hold up to scrutiny. There is much to go over in Pro's response, many misunderstandings and numerous instances where he waivers from the resolution. Before I take on some of the deeper and more nuanced points, I will run over the recap that my opponent provided in to rebut the basis for his arguments. "If the state is going to be involved in the business of regulating marriage, then it has an obligation to get marriage right. To get marriage right, we first need to know what marriage is and why it is subject to legal recognition in the first place. " This assumes that marriage is an objective entity, an unchanging transcendent constant to which we must honor if we are to use it. There is no secular reason to hold institutions as objective constructs. This is especially true given history, which shows marriage to be a constantly evolving construct utilized by the culture and time period it existed in for whatever purpose that culture needed it to be [6]. We don't get marriage "right or wrong", but the question is how best to utilize the construct to give the greatest benefit to society. Marriage isn't "supposed to be" anything other than what we as a society choose to make it, at least from a secular point of view. "I've argued that it's a comprehensive union with a special link to children. " My opponent uses this definition selectively. When we are talking about a heterosexual couple, this definition suffices. Pro is happy to point out how important child development is under this context, even going so far to say the State can incentivize marriage for the purpose of child-rearing (as opposed to child procreation). The moment we are talking about a homosexual couple this definition is dropped in lieu of defining marriage as a special link to procreation. My opponent states that a homosexual relationship cannot be intrinsically ordered to child-rearing because homosexual couples cannot procreate. This does not follow as childbearing has nothing to do with parenting. Very fertile people (or couples) can be terrible parents and vice-versa. In addition, what determines how a relationship is ordered, intrinsically or extrinsically, is not biology or physical ability but whether the couple choose to orient their relationship around building a family. Intrinsic simply means "belonging to a thing by its very nature" [1], and relationship is " a connection, association, or involvement" [2]. The nature of one's involvement with another is voluntary, not innate in biology. By my opponent's own admission, the government should incentivize family units for the purposes of child-development. By my opponent's own admission, marriage is an excellent institution for child-development. My opponent did not clarify during these admissions that the benefits only apply to those capable of procreation, that is only something he added on later when I called him out on it. Even so, if a couple wants to start a family, they and the children are better off if the caretakers are married, again by my opponent's own admission. Are we to tell little Johnny and Kimmy: "Sorry, you don't get these benefits. Your development doesn't get incentivized. You should remain in foster care or an orphanage. " Shall we tell them this, and then add "because the people who want to love you can't make MORE babies"? This exposes my opponent's argument as not being truly based in children or procreation. From a secular cost\benefit standpoint, gay marriage clearly fulfills one role he claims marriage is for, yet he denies this for reasons that have no bearing on child-development, or else he would have argued children are better off in orphanages than with a gay couple. Instead, it is about a particular sex act, heterosexual sex. Therefore my opponents view (if we are only to allow secular arguments) boils down to the claim that heterosexuals should be the only ones allowed to marry because they're heterosexuals. I challenge my opponent to give an example of a societal harm that comes with gay marriage. I should like to note that in two full responses, my opponent has not been able to outline a single harm to society. He may have argued that marriage will be harmed, but the State is not in the business of protecting marriage for marriage's sake. The State uses the institution of marriage to promote societal good, a good that following my opponent's own reasoning would easily come to pass with gay marriage's adoption. I argue that without an actual societal harm, my opponent cannot make a secular case against gay marriage. I will briefly respond to Pro's comments that gays don't have a right to marriage. Well nothing in the Constitution or in any respectable secular political theory does it say that the State must regulate marriage. The State also does not only act through fulfilling rights. The good people of Baltimore do not have a right to free public transportation, yet it is still offered to promote the public good, and allowing gay marriage does enhance the public good, which I can defend using my opponent's own reasoning. That's the thrust of my opponent's argument, but there are still plenty of misunderstandings to go around, so I'll address those now. Insofar as whether a couple has "gender complimentarity" (GC), my opponent severely confuses gender with physical sex. A person with a physically male body can actually be gendered female or vice versa [3]. We do not give gender tests when we give out marriage licenses, and to my knowledge no significant voice has called for that to be a part of the marriage process. Perhaps my opponent's mistake was to use the word gender when he meant physical sex, e. g. genitalia. Even if I were to admit that GC in this regard is beneficial to child development, it is not so vital to disqualify gay couples as unworthy of being incentivized to form family units. "But in order to know whether any given institution is public or private, we first need to know what kind of thing it is and what its purposes are. " This is what Pro argues as to why there must be an intrinsic purpose for the State to have a vested interest in something. This is demonstrably false. First, it confuses the intentional purpose of a thing for the purpose a separate entity might have for the same thing. The purpose of marriage is what the society wants to get out of it. Why should the society not want at least one of the purposes of marriage to be to incentivize child-rearing in a same-sex couple? My opponent can attempt to argue that heterosexual couplings are superior in this respect, and while I'd vehemently disagree on that notion his argument would be irrelevant as to whether it would still be good to incentivize that relationship. This is why I brought up all of the non-child related benefits to marriage. Despite what my opponent says, there are numerous other reasons the government appropriates marriage [4]. "Hence, the state's interest in children does indeed extend to child development, but only in connection with a type of union apt for producing them. It is a mistake to separate the two. " This is nothing more than an assertion. Child development and procreation are not intrinsically linked. What makes a person or couple an effective procreator has nothing to do with what makes them a good child-rearer. Also, we incentivize single parent families to adopt [5]. Clearly a single parent by themselves is not "ordered towards procreation". Without demonstrating societal harm, my opponent's arguments do not address this secular issue at all, let alone adequately. The resolution does not stand affirmed. [1] . http://tinyurl.com... [2] . http://tinyurl.com... [3] . http://tinyurl.com... [4] . http://tinyurl.com... [5] . http://tinyurl.com... [6] . http://tinyurl.com...