Good arguments against gay marriage (I'm impartial but this is for a class)?

Question

Tomorrow for an English class i have to debate about gay marriage. Personally I am impartial, but my teacher is having me be on the side arguing that gay marriage should not be allowed. I need a strong argument agaisnt gay marriage, besides religous reasons. Like I said i am impartial but i got screwed over and was assigned a side.

Answer 1

You should memorize this and say it like it is your own. I don't take credit for it, I just did a knowledgeable search.

"Marriage law isn't designed for the private benefit of any person; it's for the benefit of society. When we pass a law, we pass a law because that law will benefit society as a whole. Society as a whole is befitted from the union of a male and a female in ways that are not valid for unions of two persons of the same sex.

Society's interest in safe sex, for both physical and emotional health, support heterosexual marriage alone. Only heterosexual unions are capable of procreation. Heterosexual unions provide the optimal environment for nurturing and raising children.

Even if the homosexual couple makes more money, has better education, and provides better opportunities, they do not provide for children what a heterosexual union does. Children need to grow up knowing how to relate to both men and women. They need to see two people of the opposite sex relating to each other and getting along.

Heterosexual marriage is the oldest equal rights law in the country. It is the oldest integrationist union. Homosexual marriage is a classic example of gender segregation, at a time when we ought to be concerned with cross-gender cooperation and integration."

Answer 2

The biggest argument IS religious... It comes back to your definition of marriage.

What constitutes a marriage? Biblically, it's for procreation purposes--a man is to marry a woman solely for the purpose of having children.

I bet if you dig a little you could find something in terms of bureaucracy issues. Does our current system make it easier/less easier/the same to incorporate the a new "same-sex" definition into already established marriage legislation?

Answer 3

I don't envy you that position. The fact is, there aren't any strong arguments against. These are the ones typically used:

- If you allow gays to marry, the next thing you know men will marry their dogs

- If they can marry, they'll spread more disease

- If you allow gays to marry, it will damage the institution of marriage, and bring down our society

- If you allow gays to marry, it will increase our medical insurance premiums

- If you allow gays to marry, they'll be able to adopt, and then the children will be ruined for life.

- marriage is for procreation and they can't procreate

Unfortunately for you, every one of these arguments is easily dismissed with basic reasoning and current medical/scientific research. All the research done (and there has been a lot) for example shows that the sexual orientation of children raised by gay parents doesn't differ from the orientation of those raised in straight households - about 10% of both groups turn out to be gay. With regards to procreation - well, if we make that part of the law, all the childless couples - those that decided not to have children, those that married too late in life to have children, those that are infertile - they'll all have to get divorced!

Finally, those that hate homesexuals (for that is what this debate is really about) fall back on biblical quotes from Leviticus. If you try and support it on those grounds, be prepared to defend the rest of Leviticus, which also bans such things as:

Cheese Burgers (you must not eat meat and dairy from the same plate)

Polyester-cotton shirts (you must not mix two different cloths in clothing)

Earrings (you must not pierce your flesh)

Hair Dressers (you must not cut your hair or your beard)

And so on.

As I say - I don't envy you!

Answer 4

Wow, I just want to say that I'm impressed by peoples responses. My brother is gay so I have strong feelings about this and it's just good to see people using their brains and realizing that two people loving each other is not a bad thing! Plus its a good thing since the rest of us are polluting the world with too many children. Gays adopting helps. Sorry I didnt answer your question, but good luck tomorrow it should be interesting. Really it all goes back to the bible. So you could pretend to be christian... ''a man shall leave his father and mother and marry a chic er something like that...try to find that verse.

Answer 5

When you cut through the BS, this is not about "equality".

Marriage is not a right of anyone. It is a government created status which carries privileges extended by the government to a limited class of people. If gay marriage is recognized by the federal government, the benefits still won't be given equally, it will only differ in that the class of people who enjoy the inequality will be expanded. It is not "equality" that they seek, the gay marriage crowd simply wants to that inequality available to themselves.

There are reasons for this inequality. It manifests itself in financial breaks for married people, in the income tax code, the inheritance tax code, and in the amount of SS benefits and survivorship of those benefits. There were reasons for these benefits, mostly having to do with not wanting to make formerly self-sufficient widows into wards of the state.

The federal government has already decided to extend these privileges to married people, but decided that when "married" meant a man and a woman. They did not make that decision in a vacuum, they decided based on what marriage meant. To allow gay marriage is to re-define the term they used to describe who gets the benefit without allowing for re-opening the discussion of whether to extend the benefits on the basis of a word, and give Congress an opportunity to define the word for itself.

While it is none of the federal government's business who one person chooses to live with or for how long, this argument is about money. Tax money. Tax money that in part came from ordinary people in Nebraska, and their money should not be spent by the legislature or courts in the state of New Hampshire deciding to change their definition of the word Marriage.

Congress should revisit this issue and decide once and for all to either define "marriage" in their own words, or to clearly state that each state can define it as they choose. States should be precluded from changing the definition prior to that.

Answer 6

I think the Bible is all they've got to argue against it. I don't understand how your teacher can expect you to come up with an excuse to be against something that you're not.

Answer 7

There is no good arguement. You have your work cut out for you. You will probably have to focus on what is socially acceptable in society and our right to legislate against things that we deem offensive. IE you can't go out and have sex in public. ( wlel you can but you will get in trouble if you are caught! ) It's considered lewd behavior right, so where does our right to legislate this sort of thing end?

Answer 8

how can there ever be a good argument AGAINST
this would be impossible

the only people to whom it matters is the gay people who are considdering mariage ,and they would never be against it if they are considdering it

and the concept is not anybody elses business

what has religion to do with the decision of people to live together and wish to make it a legal situation ,maybe if they want to addopt kids ,or in case of inherritance.

religion is a voluntary concept that people addopt as they chose to come into their lives and effect it

it is not a compulsory phylosiphy that controls society
,not any more ,we left that behind in the middle Ages

it sound as if your teacher is still there .--tell him that .tell him i said so

besides religion has not a very good track record as far as peoples behaviour is concerned in the first place .it is the last institution we should look to as regards human behaviour ,taking into considderation ,the countless Wars,murders, tortures,theft ,mental abuse ,persequetions and destruction that has gone hand in hand with religion.

Answer 9

Think of the kids if there are any envolved in this. How is a boy going to learn to be a boy if he has two mothers, or how is a girl going to learn to be a girl if she has two fathers, and the same can go the other way. I wonder if there has been a study about how many kids become homosexual when living in same sex house hold. that would be interesting. but i think that we are forgetting about the kids that are in this.

Answer 10

Ummm... you roll over and accept defeat. Because there really are no good reasons. Besides the bible, but I seem to remember that the bible has no direct reasons against gay marriage.