Homosexual civil unions and/or domestic partnerships are harmful to society

I accept your definitions of harm, and society and yes we can discuss the US. But here was my definition of harmful: 1. (adj) harmful full of harm; injurious; hurtful; mischievous I am not addressing whether or not civil unions or domestic partnerships have the potential to harm, but whether they in fact, do harm society. "One simple church is proof of this. This church is known as Westboro Baptist Church, which is in state of rage over bans on gay marriage being lifted. Westboro Baptist Church has done many protests, many known to be violent, including a protest upon Heath Ledger's funeral. So, is it Westboro Baptist Church doing the harm? No, it would be the civil unions causing these protests, so called marriages, many would say." So you blame the Westboro Baptist Church's violent protest on gay marriage? This makes no sense. The church can clearly do protests without violence (it's against the law to violently protest anyway) and then there would have been no harm done to anyone or anything. It is not the issue that did the harm, but the protesters making the conscious choice to protest violently instead of peacefully that caused harm. To link it to the ban on gay marriage being lifted is not logical. The only logical conclusion is that people who protest violently (whatever the cause) are causing harm, which has nothing to do with how homosexual civil unions THEMSELVES cause harm. Maybe you did not understand what the argument was, or you distorted it to suit your purposes, because then any issue could be construed as harmful if there happened to be violent protesters. " However, this majority is against gay marriage (2). This is in fact doing damage to the American culture, which has in fact been against it since the first documented poll in 1955 (2). Just to put it in simple terms: Gay Marriages/Civil Unions are causing uproar in the American Community. The Majority does not accept, and yet bills still pass legalizing it. The Society of America has been in fact damaged by an outer source, via going against the majority." Ok, let's play it this way. According to your earlier stats, 57% are against according to the latest poll from your source. So, this means at least 43% are for. So either way that the gov. rules, almost half of the population will be "outraged" and cause some sort of harm. I could equally argue that only allowing traditional marriage between a man and woman would outrage almost as many people which could cause harm. Does this mean the issue itself caused the harm? No, it is the choices the public makes about how to react that cause harm. "First off, your argument appears to have little to do with the topic. You keep speaking of couples, and sexual orientations not being harmful. Though, you might be correct there, this does not have anything to do with the topic you have set. You ask if one's sexual orientation or gender harms society, but is the debate not over whether or not civil unions and/or domestic partnerships. I understand that a domestic partnership does involve a couple, but a couple that lives together, which you have failed to bring up." I am sorry for the ambiguity. I intended for the pro person to come up with arguments about how two men or two women in a married relationship negatively affects families, or children, or how people think of marriage or something. You obviously took a totally different direction . . . and I really don't know what you mean by the last sentence. Isn't it generally known that a domestic partnership involves a couple that lives together who are both either male or female? I ask about gender because civil unions are generally thought to be harmful because it is a union between two people of the same gender. Is this a little more clear? ""If a male/female couple cannot harm society solely based on their combination of gender, than neither can male/male couples or female/female couples." This is also known as a logical fallacy." Is it? I would consider it logical reasoning. Society is not affected by the genders of anyone, whether or not they are in a relationship. Perhaps how people act on that gender, or display that gender could affect society, but gender itself is neutral, just like having brown eyes or red hair. " If you can provide any evidence that the combination of gender shows no effect, then I am all ears" I did not intend to put the word combination in there to mean that the relational dynamics between a male and female do not affect society. I should've written "If a male/female couple cannot harm society solely based on their gender, than neither can male/male couples or female/female couples." Clearly all people have an effect on society in some way, but I was trying to make the claim that gender itself does not, rather it is the things we do and say that have an effect. My conclusions: Homosexual civil unions and domestic partnerships themselves are not the cause of harm to society, but it is society doing itself harm because the way that they insist on dealing with homosexual civil unions, by, as you used earlier, violently protesting, and I'm sure there are other non-constructive ways as well. I would also argue that to deny a certain group of human beings the right to marry is discrimination. Therefore, there is more harm being done BY society to society itself because of the rejection of civil unions/domestic partnerships. Therefore, to accept civil unions/domestic partnerships in all of the US would be to a step towards ending such discrimination (and in turn the harm to society that discrimination causes). For instance, if we allow gays to marry, we are essentially accepting them into society as equals, hopefully reducing the bullying, denigrating, and vilification of gays that resulted from such discrimination. Essentially the US is allowing such discrimination to continue unchecked because even our Constitution does not provide the same basic rights for homosexuals as they provide for heterosexuals. The discrimination of African Americans was much the same issue. At the time of the civil rights movement, many, perhaps even a majority, did not accept African Americans as equals, therefore when the bills were passed in specific states making them equals, there were riots, violent protesting, etc. Does this mean that the civil rights movement was harmful to society? No, people were harmful to people by choice. It is much the same with this issue. Allowing civil unions and domestic partnerships to run their course just like the civil rights movement will allow the American public to adjust and finally accept homosexuals as equals. Then, you will find that there is no more violence associated with civil unions/domestic partnerships and that there is no longer discrimination against homosexuals, making for a society that is even less harmed than it began.