Gays

I'm going to respond to my opponent's claims in the next round, and use this round to present my own arguments in favor of the gay community. I would like to remind the audience that my opponent has the burden of proof in this debate. C1) Egalitarianism Richard Arneson defines this as the following [1. http://tinyurl.com...]"People should be treated as equals, should treat one another as equals, should relate as equals, or enjoy an equality of social status of some sort. Egalitarian doctrines tend to rest on a background idea that all human persons are equal in fundamental worth or moral status."The crux of egalitarianism is that any person, irrespective of their race, gender identity, sex, background, sexual orientation, etc. is of equal moral worth: that we aren't in a position, nor should we be, to deem someone as inferior or to caste them off to the fringes of society simply by virtue of a prejudice. It is a longstanding American principle that all people are equal in the eyes of the law, which is why women, African Americans, etc. have made great strides toward greater equality. It is enshrined in the United States Constitution that people are to be treated equally. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment states the following [2. http://tinyurl.com...]:"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."Therefore, my argument with regard to egalitarianism is this. P1) If all people are created equal, it is simply morally wrong to discriminate against, cast aspersions against, or suggest that any person or group of people is inferior based on a generalization as to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.P2) All people are created equal.C1) Therefore, it is morally wrong to discriminate against, cast aspersions against, or suggest that any person or group of people is inferior based on a generalization as to race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. The word prejudice is also quite critical, and this is my second contention. C2) Prejudice is a form of generalization, which is ipso facto illogical Prejudice is defined as "an unfavoracle opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason." [3. http://tinyurl.com...]Generalization is defined as "a statement about a group of people or things that is based on only a few people or things in that group." [4. http://tinyurl.com...]I'd like to note at this point that I am not attacking my opponent or insinuating that he or she is prejudiced. Instead, I am attacking his arguments and the basis for the Pro side of this resolution. By addressing "gays," my opponent is making a general statement, which isn't based on evidence, about an entire group of people and suggesting that they all must fit X, Y, and Z criteria which is, hence, harmful to society. His argument is essentially the following:P1) Gay people possess X, Y, and Z criteria. P2) Gay people are causing A, B, and C effect to society. C1) X, Y, and Z lead to A, B, and C. P1) Because X, Y and Z lead to A, B, and C, gay people are have A, B, and C effect on society.P2) A, B, and C effect are harmful to society.C2) Therefore, gay people are harmful to society. This is wrong not only because Con does not know every gay person and cannot prove that they all possess such criteria, or that they are all causing these effects to society. Let's add some numbers to this. In 2012, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the population of the U.S. was 312,780,968 [4. http://tinyurl.com...]. Gallop estimated that, in that year, about 3.5 percent of the country identified as LGBT, and let's also bear in mind that many quite likely did not identify themselves as such due to fear, societal pressures, etc. [5. http://tinyurl.com...]. Some quick math brings us to the fact that, in 2012, approximately 10,947,334 people were LGBT. Can Con honestly tell us that he knows certain characteristics about all of these people? If there is a single person who does not meet this criterion, his arguments fall apart. The fact of the matter is, he cannot prove that every gay person meets this criterion, and therefore, he cannot possibly meet his burden of proof. At the same time, he cannot demonstrate causation. The reason he cannot demonstrate causation -- and, by extension, the reason he cannot win this debate -- is because correlation and causation are not one in the same. Even if he could find a correlation between having (x) characteristic and being (y), he cannot demonstrates that this means either that (x) or (y) leads to (z) outcome.Because of this, Con cannot make a causal link between being gay and harming society, and therefore he cannot fulfill his burden of proof. C3) Homosexuality is natural in nature The assumption implicit in Con's argument is that homosexuality is in some way unnatural or deviant. However, this is simply not true. In fact, homosexuality has been practiced for a very long time, whether it was in ancient Greece or Rome [6. http://tinyurl.com...] or by animals. In fact, about 1,500 animal species practice homosexuality. [7. http://tinyurl.com...] It is simply inaccurate to aruge that it is in some way unnatural.At the same time, we must ask ourselves the following question: if homosexuality has been around for quite some time and is quite widespread, we should know whether or not it is harmful to society. That is, we would be able to see the negative impacts if there were any.However, Con cannot provide any, nor has he provided any in his opening contentions. C4) Condemning Homosexuals Leads to Violence and Hatred Toward the LGBT Community This, unfortunately, the most depressing component of my arguments. These will boil down to statistics, for the most part. First, the American Association of Suicidology reports that LGB high school students in 1999 are 3.4 times more likely than their straight peers to commit suicide, and that, as the Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2006 shows, teenagers who identified as LBG or reported any time of having participated in any same-sex contact were more than three times likely than those who didn't to report seriously having considered suicide [8. http://tinyurl.com...].Second, the FBI 2011 hate crime statistics show that there were about 1,562 victims who were targeted because of their sexual orientation [9. http://tinyurl.com...], and that 20.8% of hate crimes are due to sexual orientation. [10. http://tinyurl.com...] This leads us to the conclusion that there are about 52,000 sexual-orientation-based hate crimes per year, and these numbers are increasing [11. http://tinyurl.com...].ConclusionI have thoroughly demonstrated not only that homosexuality is natural and that gay people deserve respect, but that an argument against the gay community is an appeal to a generalization, which cannot possibly hold. At the same time, an appeal to causation bears a very high burden of proof, which Con must be able to demonstrate to us conclusively.