gay marriage

Thanks Scarlet Ghost for participating in my debate. Also, I'm not homophobic at all. It is just easier to make a personal case rather than embrace how others may feel. Moving on now:Burden of proof in the concluding round? My opponent has tried to establish what the burden of proof is, and who has it. I don't like the way she worded it so I will rephrase it as such:The aim of the government is to recognize real marriages. It is evident with all the types and forms of relationships out there, the government is going to have to bar some of them from entering the institution. I argue that procreation has the greatest social value, and should be the choice of how one defines marriage. So my opponent is arguing why we should make an exception for homosexual couples. She has to do this in a way to prevent other non-marital relationships from entering the institution. (More on the slippery slope later)Spiegel My opponent sets up a strawman, or poorly words her arguments. Nowhere did I argue that "homosexual unions destroy the inherent value of marriage". I argued that by recognizing homosexual unions on par with heterosexual unions, we are deminishing the value of marriage, and denying the extrinsic value that heterosexual couples deserve recognition for, by means of obscuring marriage's fundamental purpose. She also accusses the argument of interchanging the words "union" and "marriage" too casually. But this is irrelevent; marriage is indeed the means by which society confers the social recognition that heterosexual couples deserve. If we simply toss marriage out the window, we would need another institution in which to confer the recognition, where homosexual couples would be excluded anyways. Follwing those arguments, she misunderstands the first premise. She states "If you ask me, it's ensuring that procreation still remains so that the human race can live on (which gay marriage does not affect) in contrast to what my opponent is saying, where's he's just trying to protect the perception of "special value" of it. " But the argument does not state that the purpose of marriage is to maintain nor encourage procreation. It is to establish that the base of our society is indeed socially important, and because it is the foundation for collective practices, we should collectively recognize it as socially valuable. No encouraging nor ensuring involved. Overpopulation is irrelevent, and another issue altogether. Infertility My opponent wrongly asserts that infertile heterosexual couples and homosexual couples are fundamentally the same, and therefore my contention fails. This is utterly false. The infertile, as I argued, do not disrupt what marriage is about in principle. Homosexuals, by contrast, do. Allen Keyes corrects such a misconception in the two minute video presented above. Contention 1 My opponent has failed to respond to my main points. Why should society provide affirmative action to a group? Surely it is unreasonable to recognize pedophilia or bestiality in society to erase social stigma's and intolerance regarding those actions. What makes homosexuality different? My opponent seems to be begging the question. My next point was that Scarlet has failed to demonstrate exactly how recognizing homosexual marriages will curb intolerance. Her opening argument states "The supplement to tolerance of the homosexual community as a result of legalization of gay marriage has helped [the homosexual community]" She does not demonstrate this at all. Even if their are empirical examples of this occuring, correlation does not imply causation. Simply asserting that the result follows the action does not follow logically, and is entirely unconvincing. Plus, her link doesn't go to the right page. Even if my opponents objection does stand, it will in result change what marriage is fundamentally about. As I have demonstrated, by changing what marriage is about, the value of the institution will be incredibly damaged, and will remove the purpose of the institution alltogether. Equality I have already dealt with the antimiscegation analogy. By allowing interacial marriages, the purpose of marriage still remains undisrupted. Such laws can be, and should be universally perceived as unjust. However, infering that there are no differences between race and sexual orientation is obviously flawed (White or black, heterosexuals can still procreate), and my position is immune to such an approach. Civil Unions Civil unions should be understood as a less than to marriage. Heterosexual marriage is capable of more than homosexual marriage (procreation), so why should we recognize them as equals? Slippery slope As I stated in my R2, purposeless marriage should be considered a less able alternative to one with a superb purpose. If we were indeed to let men marry frogs, what purpose would this serve? Actually, by limiting marriage strictly between heterosexual couples, we can derive incredible extrinsic social value from the institution. My opponent then challenges me to find a reason not to bar interacial couples from entering the institution. This is absurd. The extrinsic value of any heterosexual couple is the same in principle. Whatever intrinsic value is associated with different races is highly irrelevent to government purposes, and racist, and a real violation of social equality. Perhaps polygamy is a sole alternative, but polygamy is next in line to monogamous marriage. (Imagine a society where there are 20 men and 150 women. Obviously polygamy would derive more social value than in a society where it is a 50/50 man to woman ratio. ) IN CONCLUSION I have mainly argued two things: That a marriage institution revolving around procreation has more social value than any other viable concept, and there is nothing wrong with such an assertion (the infertility argument fails). My opponent, by contrast, argues that we should provide affirmative action to homosexuals, because by understanding marriage as a logical and purposeful institution, a group feels less-than. But, remember, I have demonstrated that by advancing such affirmative action, we are deminishing the value of marriage, and opening doors to a slippery slope that will make marriage seem like it has no essential nature, and is indeed a purposeless social construct.