Should Homosexual marriage and rights be legalized? ( Aside from Supreme Court ruling.)

This is what I concluded with in my last post: A summary of my reasoning: 1) Homosexuality is harmful (I have proven this at great length. ) 2) Harmful activities should not be endorsed (I draw this from our discussion of objective morals. ) 3) Marriage is a government-sponsored endorsement (I have just shown that. ) 4) Therefore, legalizing homosexual marriage would be endorsing homosexuality. 5) Therefore, homosexual marriage SHOULD NOT be legalized. Pro must refute either my premises or my reasoning in order to refute my argument. So far he has done neither. Pro begins by saying: I believe that we should as a species try to better ourselves as you have previously said, but we need to adress [sic] on what level we are going to do that. Is discriminating against a group of people a better advancment [sic] in our mental and emotional well being? [sic] I believe that only the strongest survive wether [sic] that be mentally or physically so can i [sic] say that the males that get STD's are the weaker ones? [sic] Also let us not forget our female friends and that they do not contract or have a higher rate of physical illnesses. ” (Note: Pro’s punctuation, grammar, and spelling are rather atrocious. I would request voters to consider this, and I would also request that Pro himself/herself would try to be more coherent and legible. ) Now, I was very careful to note that legislating against homosexuality is not discriminating against PEOPLE; it is discriminating against a BEHAVIOR. An insidious, pernicious, and downright bad behavior, to be more precise. In reference to Pro’s comment/question about males with STD’s being weaker, I must say that STD’s can affect one whether one is strong or weak. Is Pro is implying that such individuals are being weeded out by natural selection? I would state that they are simply suffering the consequences of their alternate lifestyle, which are often not pretty. If anything, this shows that nature conspires against the behavior of homosexuality and that it is singularly “unnatural” since so many of those who practice it die early. (Activities that set the individual against the laws of nature are often harmful. ) Other behaviors, such as hitting oneself repeatedly on the head with a coconut until a concussion is induced, or inhaling narcotics, have a similar effect and are as a result frowned upon. Why not homosexuality? And lesbians – the median age of death for lesbians was 44. I think the STD issue is equally valid here. Need I say more? Yes, the charge that homosexuality is correlated with suicidal tendencies is most prone to accusations of “oppression. ” Maybe that is, in part, the case. Maybe, also, individuals who choose to practice homosexuality are in general more prone to psychological issues. The question is not important. By the way, maybe a gay person will be “comfortable and happy” when they “come out of the closet. ” But what is better? (A) Being comfortable and happy for two decades until you die of some horrible STD; or (B) Being “uncomfortable” and “unhappy,” but living fifty more years? Your defense could be equally applied to drug use. The point is: - being comfortable and happy is useless when you’re dead. I am reminded of Aldous Huxley’s “A Brave New World,” where people imbibe a substance called soma that shortens their lifespans considerably and dulls their senses, but makes them happy while they live. I, contrary to their government, believe distributing such a substance or condoning similar practices is immoral. Safety should come before temporal and fleeting happiness. After all, who knows how happy homosexuals actually are? The suicidal correlation does not contribute to the “happy and comfortable theory. ” “[M]ost homosexuals are not losing intrest [sic] in life or with their partner they are [sic] shunned from having a social life. ” Really? Nowadays homosexuality is becoming more and more accepted, although I believe it shouldn’t as I have already demonstrated at great length. However, at this time more than any other in history homosexuals are “tolerated” and their opponents are not. I don’t think most homosexuals are being “shunned. ” In newspapers and advice columns homosexuality is treated mainly as just another alternative to heterosexuality. One cannot publicly condemn it without being called a hatemonger. Show me someone who calls homosexuals “freaks” and I will show you someone about to get sued for hate speech. Yes, it would help if homosexuals applied “safe sex practices. ” However, homosexuality is inherently dangerous. In fact, homosexuals in “long-term relationships” are more likely to die young because they are more likely to engage in unsafe sexual practices. If you take this into account, the safest thing is to ban same-sex marriage for purely safety reasons. Either way, homosexuality is deadly. Promiscuous: “characterized by or involving indiscriminate mingling or association, especially having sexual relations with a number of partners on a casual basis. ” (1) Promiscuous individuals have sex with hundreds of partners. Rectal sex is dangerous to the rectum; its thin internal wall is easily ruptured, which is why homosexual contact provides an extremely efficient means of transmitting disease. I believe this form of sex is wrong, both morally and practically, and that it should be, maybe not outlawed, but discouraged, especially among minors. The widespread condoning and encouraging of homosexuals to “be what they are” is wrong. But acceptance has become so widespread that many homosexuals do not realize what a risk they’re taking. Discouragement, education, and banning of gay bars would go a long way. I do not know whether a law against this form of intercourse would be a good idea, but I do know our current “tolerance” is immoral and unsafe. Besides, the enforcement of a law has little to do with the moral issue. Laws against suicide are unenforceable, yet they are moral in that they prevent death. Accepting the atheist’s professed moral position leads clearly to this stance. “Now you might say thats [sic] because they're lesser beings but if we look at wolves they will single animals that are harmful to a pack out so they know what harms them and doesn't, so why do they not single out homosexual wolves if it is harmful? ” I do not fully understand Pro’s reasoning here. Animals also kill one another, and we all know about lemmings. Just because wolves do something does not mean it is moral or commendable. I do not believe in evolution, and it is not scientifically proven. Pro should challenge me to a debate about that! Pro claims that homosexuality could be a way to help curb population growth. Whether or not that is the case, his argument is faulty and unfounded. America’s birth rate is around 1.88. (2) Generally, a birth rate of 2.5 is needed to sustain a population. In fact, it is widely known that the earth’s population is about to start shrinking. (3) So you see that we need more babies, not less. And Pro’s argument (could the few deaths in the unsafe sex homosexual community justify a world which [sic] we have a longer survival of the whole population? ) is not very effective for his position either way. According to his stance (the world is overcrowded so it’s okay if some people die) people should be encouraged to kill themselves. In fact, Pro is more a homophobe than I am, as he seems to like the idea of homosexuals dying, and, far from trying to prevent it, just wants to let “nature run its course” and allow homosexuals to foolishly continue down the path to their own early deaths. Such a stand is immoral. I am advocating the more compassionate stance of discouraging such a harmful, deadly practice. “Live and let-die” is not “tolerant”; it is immoral. We have a moral duty to discourage homosexuality due simply to the harm it causes. What society could survive if everyone was a homosexual? What parents hope their children grow up homosexuals? What doctor would recommend homosexuality as preferable to regular, marital sex? Homosexuality is a practice that causes much harm, and it is our moral responsibility to avoid endorsing and normalizing something that causes so many deaths. If you bring natural selection in, you could argue that nature has selected homosexuality to die out, since homosexuals will by definition be unable to reproduce. In fact, homosexuality can hardly be genetic since the homosexual “gene” would have been eliminated by now! A summary of my reasoning from the last round: 1) Homosexuality is harmful (Pro has not succeeded in disproving this. ) 2) Harmful activities should not be endorsed –(no challenge) 3) Marriage is a government-sponsored endorsement –(no challenge. ) 4) Therefore, legalizing homosexual marriage would be endorsing homosexuality. 5) Therefore, homosexual marriage SHOULD NOT be legalized. (1) . http://dictionary.reference.com... (2) . https://www.google.com...'s%20birth%20rate (3) . http://www.slate.com...