Resolved: Same-Sex Marriage ought be legalized in the United States

As my judges will see, my opponent has done a pretty poor job of addressing my case, and instead of actually attacking my evidence, he just fills up the rebuttal with some points additional to the ones that he posted at the bottom that argue against my points, but don't disprove them in any way, shape, or form. My opponent makes a reiteration of my argument when he tries to talk about the negative statistics in the homosexual population. As I stated in my case, the pro affirms the negative conditions of drug and alcohol abuse, high HIV transmission rates, high promiscuity, high suicide rates, and the list just goes on and on. I think that my opponent and I agree that we cannot allow these rates to get any higher because that would be a negative impact on the society. Well good! My opponent recognizes the clear morality and practicality of doing such a thing in order to reduce those rates. However, when it comes to the action for the actual reduction of those rates, that's where our disagreement begins and our agreement ends. What you will notice about my opponent's rebuttal is that it's more of a haphazard leap than a slippery slope in contrast to my argument, which has supplemental information, including a study from Emory University as I cited in my subpoint 1a. What I've argued was that the acceptance of same-sex marriage would actually drive these statistics down, and this is because marriage in general promotes stability, and when we provide this to homosexual couples and not just heterosexual ones, this would drive down the stats. But don't take my word for it; take the word of Francis and Mialon, the two Emory University economists who made the study provided who argue that based on their study, it showed that regions that banned same-sex marriage raised the HIV transmission cases in homosexuals 4 in 100,000 cases whereas tolerance alone drove down the transmission rate by 1 in 100,000 cases. Take the word of Eugene Volokhov, professor of Constitutional Law II in the UCLA School of Law, who argues the following in his report about slippery-slope arguments regarding homosexual marriage and polygamy: " There are some instrumental reasons to prefer heterosexual relationships at least to male homosexual relationships—male homosexual conduct is, at least today, much more medically dangerous than heterosexual conduct. But I suspect any public-health benefit of slight shifts away from male homosexuality would likely be exceeded by the public-health benefits of shifting more male homosexuals into stabler and more monogamous relationships." I've shown you, the judges, my evidence regarding my argument that same-sex marriage can better society, but when we look at my opponent's rebuttal against my own, you notice that his logic has no evidence to supplement it. We cannot support the homosexual lifestyle (even though, we're not. We're promoting homosexuality and the marriage thereof, not a homosexual's individual lifestyle other than the fact that we're bettering it) because it's filled with all of this bad stuff, but as I've shown you with my evidence, the same-sex marriage acceptance does anything BUT promote the lifestyle he talks about. So, when he says that we can't promote this lifestyle, he's actually supplementing my contention. Not to mention his argument about tradition, but there are some considerations in that as well: why should we advocate for tradition? We have advocated for tradition before, yet we still have this 50% divorce rate as my opponent presents to us. We go against tradition, I guess, but how is that bad for society? Is tradition always good? Let's look at some other things that were tradition: sexism, racism, advocacy for the depletion of other religions, and the list just goes on and on about how tradition has been bad. Why should we always uphold tradition then? Why should we uphold the tradition of marriage, but not these other things? Moving on to my subpoint 1b, he does have evidence for this rebuttal, but when we look at his evidence in contrast to the one that I have for my subpoint, you will see, first of all, my evidence outweighs his. My study was done from somebody in a more related field of work: the two sets of research I've shown in my arguments were conducted mainly by Professors Brad Sears (Professor of Law) and MV Badgett (Professor of Economics), whereas his evidence was made by a writer who has no credentials for economics or law as far as we're concerned. Then, second, even if he does have credentials, his evidence talks about the fragmentation of families, not anything about homosexuality or the couples. My opponent will not only have to provide a credited definition as to what the fragmentation of the family is in the context of his evidence, but also prove that same-sex marriage fragments families AND counter the evidence provided in my case. Before moving on to the contention 2 rebuttal, we should look at the contention 3 rebuttal real quick. My opponent states that if the majority of the country really does support same-sex marriage, then why don't we put the whole thing on referrendum? The answer is that elections can go either way. The perfect example is Prop 8, where California is one of the most liberal states in the country and very supportive of same-sex marriage in the long run when it comes to the population there, but Prop 8 was still passed. This was because only 27% of the overall population actually voted in the referrendum and the ones supportive of it won by a narrow majority. There's so much more that goes into elections than just the amount of supporters...there's also the amount of people who will vote, the amount pressure, the availability of election sites, and the list goes on and on as well. This, however, doesn't diminish the fact that the recent polls show us that the majority of the country supports SSM, and my opponent doesn't argue against that at all. He missed the point entirely, so you can extend my C3 across the flow. As for my contention 2 and the rebuttal thereof, I can argue that even though civil unions are an alternative, they're not an equal alternative because they do not have equal recognition under the law and neither do they provide the equal benefits of marriage. My opponent does not argue against that at all, and at the point where we provide an alternative, but it's not as good as a marriage, that's not equality in any way, shape, or form. It's not about how many couples choose civil unions over marriage or about the fact that we have an alternative at all; it's about how we are providing parity with those alternatives (which we're not). He makes this argument about constitutionality, but considering Supreme Courts are the arbiter of the Constitution, their decision outweighs my opponent's, and my opponent does not address the cases whatsoever, so you can extend sub 2b across the flow as well. Now, for a cross-examination of my opponent's case:1. You state that SSM will lead to these effects. What is the probability of that? Where has that happened?2. You argue that the rejection of the opposite sex for members of the same sex is sexist, but what does that have anything to do with the marriage of the people of the same-sex if it's the homosexuality that's sexist? Also, what distinguishes sexism? What is your definition of sexism? And how could we really call it prejudice if it's hard-wired?