Gay Marriage should Not be Permitted

Thank you, bsh1. I will now defend my own case. A1. Marriage is Oriented Naturally My opponent essentially fails to address the meaning involved with intrinsic procreation and how it relates to marriage, hence the dropping of my 6 point syllogism and no reference to ‘intrinsic procreation’. A government has very good reason to regulate such a valuable union (the intrinsic ability to procreate is what allows societies to exist), but has no reason to regulate homosexual unions in the same way. As homosexual and heterosexual unions are fundamentally different, it would therefore be entirely unjust to treat them as the same. 1. No logical fallacy is committed here. In form: 1) Marriage can be linked to intrinsic procreation 2) Intrinsic procreation is special and of value, therefore it is good C) Marriage is good when it is intrinsically linked to procreation, therefore it ought to stay that way. *If* I had stated merely that "marriage is about intrinsic procreation, and you cannot defy definition", then that would be the is-ought fallacy. However, this is evidently not the case. 2. I need not do such a thing. As I pre-emptively argued, I made the clear distinction between *extrinsic procreation* (i.e. giving birth to children in reality) and *intrinsic procreation* (i.e. having a man and woman in a relationship). The end of childbirth (i.e. extrinsic procreation) need not be present in order to fulfil the requirements of marriage, thus my opponent’s demand is that only of extrinsic procreation, rather than the intrinsic procreation I argued. 3. To argue that procreation is not the most important part of marriage is nonsense. After all, all those that “gaining wealth and keeping goods” would not be possible to humans if they were never born! Besides, this debate does not hinge upon what people have seen marriage as in the past, and in all honestly, their position is not of consequence. I have given a systemic line of reasoning for what marriage is right now and why it should remain that way, of which pertains to the resolution. This tangent into debating historical customs does not. 4. Again, my opponent falters in coming to terms with the concept of *intrinsic* procreation, as opposed to his faulty interpretation of extrinsic procreation. No matter what kind of spin my opponent will impart, homosexual *couples* will never have the intrinsic capacity to procreate. 5. Yes, but again, my opponent fails to understand the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic procreation. My argument under this title explains the difference between the two types of procreation, not whether gay couples [should] participate in child-rearing. 6. There can be more to marriage than [extrinsic] procreation, but marriage cannot exist without *intrinsic procreation*, of which homosexual couples lack. 7. If the real standards for marriage are ignored (i.e. intrinsic procreation), then degeneracy begins. My opponent’s counter-argument here judges marriage by nothing of real value, and thus it can be reduced to mush via argument ad absurdum. Why stop a five year old couple from getting married? Why not a man, a spider and a snake? Why not a man and his faeces? Finally, after anyone and everyone can get married because it brings about “happiness”, marriage will essentially mean nothing, because a real standard in which it should be held was neglected. A2: Homosexuals Make for Poor Parents To parody my opponent’s overview: [Murder] will happen in either world, so this point is non-unique, meaning that these harms will occur whether or not [murder] is permitted. Should we then remove sanctions against murder? 1. Non-biological Parents 1. My opponent confuses conscious choice with subconscious tendencies. Much like breathing, you can manually stop breathing if you want to, but it will occur naturally as soon as you stop manually controlling it (which will eventually happen). Similarly, via the same evolutionary psychology, there will be tendencies towards neglecting or harming non-biological children, as they are, in an evolutionary sense, competing for resources and do not further biological lineage [5]. You risk serious harms by allowing homosexuals to parent non-biological children. “Gay parents are highly motivated [and] work very hard” is vague, unfalsifiable subjectivity that is fanciful abstraction compared to my figures and data. 2. I am not defending “the status quo” (i.e. divorce and re-marriage). I am defending the idea that homosexual marriage ought not to be permitted (i.e. the resolution). I kindly ask my opponent to please avoid moving the goalposts (since it is a logical fallacy). 3. For raw numbers and percentages, the Canada study (120 fold, one of the lower estimates) found the rate to be “321.6 deaths per million children… under 5 years of age” [1]. According to the 2011 Canadian Census, ~1.9 million children are in this 4> age category, which could be estimated to be well above 2 million for 5> age [2]. So, for ~643.2 deaths per 2 million in Canada, which is a relatively small country (~35 million [3]), and this, especially if you consider the rate has been found to be more than double this, has plenty of children’s lives absolutely wasted. This does not include the beatings that the children receive, or the murders of older children, either: this is the murder statistic for children <5 years. May I also say that this is all calculated for one stepfather in a child-rearing relationships, rather than two (the latter being the majority of cases for homosexual couples). For the latter of my opponent’s points, my point here was that the absence of biological connection influences a lot of non-biological parents to neglect their children. It has been proven in countless studies, not just the ones that I provided last round, that “every form of abuse [is] perpetrated at massively higher rates by stepparents than by genetic parents” [6]. Again, the phenomena is happening at the subconscious level, so even things like not buckling seatbelts are indicators of biological tendencies, as was the hypothesis confirmed in the research: “any and all sorts of abuse and exploitation would be seen to occur at higher rates in step relationships than in genetic parent-child relationships” [1]. 4. My opponent’s wholly untested hypothesis (according to the source he cites [4], quoting Giles-Sims and Finkelhor, 1984) wilts in comparison to my tested hypothesise that manifest in the research I have cited (which includes the evolutionary psychology sources I linked). Since 1984 (the year in which my opponent’s quote was published), there has been much research (i.e. some of the sources I provided) to give strong evidence for the Cinderella Effect. II. General Problem with Same-Sex Parenting 1. My opponent has committed the appeal to authority fallacy by merely stating that the study is discredited by “researchers”. 1a. In his response to critics, Mr Regnerus explained the usage of random samples, which is actually a strength of the study, since it did not target specific demographics [9]. Walter Schumm, an independent reviewer of the NFSS, found the same conclusion [11]. The fact is that gay couples are inherently, on average, more unstable, EVEN WHEN IN marriages, as was found by the Scandinavian study I cited later (in round 2) which targeted gay marriages [8]. “Positive outcomes” in 2 instances (2 out of the entire, random sample was in a “committed relationship” gives you an idea of the strength in gay relationships) is a small sample size fallacy, especially when compared to the extensive Scandinavian study. 1b. My opponent has committed the Ad Hominem fallacy, whereby he has attacked the person, rather than the argument. 2. I will flip this: if social stigma is a problem, then this is further reason gay couples should not be allowed to parent children. This problem would still be a result of the gay parenting. 3. Of the literature reviewed by Herek (the author of the quote on Wikipedia) to make his conclusion, there were many, many methodological flaws including: “unclear hypotheses and research designs, missing or inadequate comparison groups, samples too small to yield meaningful results etc.” [10]. Allen (2012) found similar problems. Sullins (2014) confirmed the very latter of the problems, saying that the average sample size of pro-gay (including the ones referenced by Herek) studies was 39 [7]. Herek’s conclusions are based on heavily flawed research. Crouch’s survey is dreadful. The study used *non-random* samples of homosexual children versus *random* straight samples. Clearly, the data is not comparable in the way my opponent hopes. Furthermore, my opponent’s claim about being the largest survey is a lie. 512 same-sex couple took part in this [7] study, which unlike my opponent’s study, actually used random data, therefore making it more credible. It found that the biological aspect greatly affected child upbringing (e.g. emotional wellbeing), so much so that when the data was adjusted for the biological difference, there was “little or no difference” in the results. 4. Herek’s review actually uses some of the faulty studies debunked here. A3: Religious Immorality To all of you who are religious, would you rather listen to man’s law, which my opponent has provided, or our Creator’s law, which I have provided? On this point, I need not say any more. References [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] http://tinyurl.com... [7] http://tinyurl.com... [8] http://tinyurl.com... [9] http://tinyurl.com... [10] http://tinyurl.com... [11] Walter R. Schumm, Methodological decisions and the evaluation of possible effects of different family structures on children: The new family structures survey (NFSS), Volume 41, Issue 6, November 2012, Pages 1357–1366