Homosexual Marriage

Rebuttals:Point One:"The church is guaranteed the pursuit of their religious freedom by the First Amendment of the Unites States. Considering this, we must consider all the rights of the church regarding the question of homosexual marriage... However, we have seen repeatedly that religious individuals and organizations alike are not free to practice their religion... Forcing a church to perform a gay marriage, something directly contrary to its doctrine, is discriminating against the religious freedoms and pursuits of the church." Con is asserting that, because the church does not accept homosexual marriage, all Americans must recognize homosexual marriage as being "immoral," and therefore prohibit homosexual marriage, claiming that homosexuality conflicts with religion. However, according to the American Constutition, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances," (S1). This puts a check on how extensive religion is as a poltiical influence, so the argument of how the Constitution guarantees religious freedom is countered by the separation of church and State. Point Two:"But if a marriage is to exist without children what business is it of the state? Do you see a major problem here? Homosexual couples are simply incapable of having their own children. For men adoption is always a possibility, but with this you lose the hormonal changes both a mother and a father gain from having a biological child which better equip them to be loving parents. While this holds true against gay male couples, lesbians can receive sperm donations and therefore this argument holds no weight against them." I find this argument fairly odd. My opponent discusses that homosexual marriage is ridiculous because homosexuals cannot conceive children. A fair amount of married couples don't have children, either because the partners decide not to, or because the woman cannot physically conceive one. To suggest that homosexual couples cannot be married because they cannot conceive babies is as rational as stating that women with infertility cannot marry either. However, my opponent seems to counter his own argument (at least to lesbian marriage) by discussing sperm donations. This suggestion makes the entire claim bogus.Point Three:"The Family Research Council has found that children raised by non-biological homosexual couples have a lot of issues. Homosexual couples are 400% more likely to receive welfare, and their children are less likely receive higher education, or in some cases even a high school diploma. Depression and Drug Abuse have strong correlation to children with homosexual parents as well. Research shows that children in homosexual families are less likely to get jobs in their teenage years, and are more prone to a stagnant lifestyle characterized by addiction, bullying, and eventually suicide. Children raised in homosexual families often have emotional issues." My opponent uses "research" by the Family Research Council, or the FRC, to support his arguments. I would like to raise a concern regarding the validity of his source: The FRC.The Family Research Council is an organization that "researches" and publishes compositions of certain issues regarding life, marriage and family, and religious liberties. However, the FRC is biased. Each article, including its short page on abortion, gives readers the FRC's personal opinion. They fail to provide both sides of an issue, secluding their readers to a rightist perspective. Specifically, on the topic of homosexuality, the first thing the FRC says is "Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed (S2). It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects." From this statement alone, we can determine that the FRC is biased, taking the side against homosexuality. They criticize it for being "unnatural," and calls it "destructive behavior," (S3).Furthermore, I can come to the conclusion that the FRC provides unreasonable, and untrue data because the FRC fails to provide any details on its "research" regarding homosexuality, only giving vague statements such as "Pro-family organizations (like Family Research Council) assert, 'Social science research shows that children do best when raised by their own biological mother and father who are committed to one another in a life-long marriage.' This statement is true, and rests on a large and robust collection of studies," (S4). Yet, they failed even one example to support this claim. "Evidence" based on bogus statistics is not evidence.Unless my opponent can provide information from a reliable source, or an article discussing a specific study on this topic, I daresay that this "evidence" which my opponent has presented is null and void on the grounds that no studies have supported these claims, and the data comes from a biased source. Sources:S1) https://www.constituteproject.org...S2) http://www.frc.org...S3) http://www.frc.org...S4) http://www.frc.org...