gay marriage

This is the final round of the debate, so what I am going to do is provide my counterarguments and explain why I should be the winner of this debate. Burden of the PRO: My opponent's reasoning for what my burden should be has no sort of reasoning whatsoever. I clearly explained that my burden was to prove that banning gay marriage is not practical considering that my opponent made the opening arguments and his standard is for practicality. My main objective as the contender is to contradict the instigator's main reasoning as well as prove that gay marriage is something that should be legalized considering my position as the PRO. Why do I have to do this in a way that prevents other non-marital relationships from entering the institution? What's my opponent's reasoning for this? He has none, and therefore, such a burden is totally irrelevant to the debate.Spiegel argument: What my opponent is trying to argue is that the entire point of marriage is procreation and creates a specialized function in society, so when I argue on the point that my opponent is saying that homosexual unions would diminish the value of marriage, I mean it in the context of heterosexual unions. That is, even though that in his conclusion, he talks about wanting to protect the social value of marriage. I apologize for any misunderstandings. My opponent stated himself that marriage is not to protect procreation; it is just giving some sort of "special value" to it. At this point, there really is no practicality to anything that my opponent states about procreation because all he does is try to acknowledge that procreation is important rather than protect the actual function of procreation itself, even though he still provides no reasoning whatsoever as to why homosexual unions will somehow deviate the acknowledgement of procreation's importance; if gay marriage is legalized, there will still be procreation, and at the point where this basic institution is not harmed itself, why is it practical to uphold some "special value" to it? Why will it be detrimental to society in any way, shape, or form that this "special value" is not recognized? What is evident here is that my opponent does not uphold his own burden. If my opponent is talking about procreation, the argument about overpopulation is inherently going to come into this debate because at the point where he's making it seem like this big, foundational institution with a special value, we have to understand that this value is limited at the point of maintaining the environment and thus the milieu for human society (the very society my opponent is trying to protect with his standard of practicality). Infertile: My opponent has pretty much gone in circles with this argument. He states that infertile couples do not violate what marriage is about in principle, but when my opponent is arguing that this principle is procreation, that procreation is what legitimizes a relationship, while at the same time not even trying to protect procreation but the idea that it's important, it's evident that my opponent is creating a double-standard because he's giving legitimacy to marital unions that cannot uphold the principle under the idea that they're practicing what kind of union procreates. At the of the day, infertile couples don't reproduce, and granting them marriages when the principle is procreation would be completely contrdictory to my opponent's own reasoning. Contention 1: Judges, please understand that the only thing that I can do is provide evidence. I can in no way make my opponent read my evidence, and it's evident from every single argument he has made that he hasn't. First and foremost, he still doesn't give his reasoning why homosexuality is immoral for society. As I explained earlier, every single one of his arguments about homosexuality being immoral is grounded in his own personal prejudice against homosexuals while providing no evidence to back up this claim, and at the point where my opponent is not only the one who brings up the idea about pedophilia, bestiality, polygamy and whatnot being comparable to homosexuality but the idea that homosexuality shouldn't be promoted in society because it's immoral, it's my opponent's burden to explain why society should not provide affirmative action to these groups. In the context of society and improving it at a personal level, it can only be done one group at a time unless we're talking about economic concerns (which I address my case and my opponent fails to argue against it in any way, so it is completely extended across the flow). Helping homeless people will move them toward becoming established in society and reducing crime. Helping children will move them to become more successful adults. Helping homosexuals through the establishment of laws that do not discriminate them helps in the goals of public health in reducing HIV transmissions as well as suicide and violence in the community, while at the same time providing economic surpluses from the spur of activity in the context of gay marriage. If that's not upholding my opponent's burden better than he himself is, I don't know what it is. I explained to you the causation for the correlation. I explained how government enforcement of tolerance moves people toward becoming a more accepting community, as shown by policies helping African Americans. If you don't believe me, the evidence that my opponent has obviously not read in detail explains the causation.Equality: My opponent completely fails to argue against any of my points. All he does is just iterate his previous rebuttal rather than make arguments against mine. I clearly explained that race does not equal sexuality. I clearly explained that the similarity is the premises at which these bans were enacted, and I explained that the premises were just prejudice rather than morally or pragmatically relevant functions. At that point, extend my entire rebuttal.Civil Unions: Again, if the equality of human beings is what we want to uphold and the prevention of discrimination is the objective that we want to reach, homosexual relationships should be considered equal.Slippery slope: Not only does my opponent fail to provide any reason why these other relationships should be barred from society and are immoral (meaning that he is actually the one begging the question because this is all running under the assumption that these relationships are bad), but he creates a strawman when I'm saying that I'm asking him to give a reason for not barring interracial couples. What I am saying is that these arguments about tolerance, benefitting from marriages, etc. can also be applied to heterosexual unions, interracial couples or marriages between Protestants and Catholics or what have you. My opponent tries to devalue my argument by saying it can be applied to these other relationships, but at the point where it can be applied to heterosexual unions, why are these arguments any less valid? My opponent creates an implicit double-standard. Conclusion: So, reasons for voting PRO: The CON case was full of begging questions, unaddressing points, and double-standards worsened only by paucity of evidence. He made many points about the special value of marriage but doesn't explain why it's practical, and asserts that the purpose of marriage is not to promote procreation, but it holds it as a value, which makes no sense at all. He talks about how homosexual unions harm this value, but he has no reasoning nor evidence why and creates a double-standard in the case of infertile couples. His rebuttals were either misses or they didn't exist at all, especially when it comes to my evidence and arguments about economic benefits of SSM. He obviously fails to read any of my evidence, which had deeper explanations for the points that I was making. I upheld all of my points to my greatest ability and upheld my opponent's burden of practicality better than my opponent himself did, better upholding the idea that SSM should be legalized.I urge a PRO vote.