Boilerplate preface: Convincingly arguing for a view you oppose can be a way to demonstrate how well you understand the other side's arguments, and therefore is a good suggestion of how credible your own arguments are. Hopefully this thread (and
the other one I made) will inspire other people to start similar threads on different political issues.
One more thing...I cannot guarantee that any of my factual claims below are absolutely true, only that they are true to the best of my current knowledge. Or I might be bluffing.
OK, here I go:
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Legalizing and officially recognizing gay marriage was the right thing for states, and eventually for the Federal government, to do. It should never be overturned.
The fundamental truth is very simple: having atypical sexual preferences does not and should not render any person less deserving of basic rights. This implies two points I will argue below: 1) that homosexuality is natural, benign, and not a choice, and 2) that marriage is a basic right which must be extended to all people.
Homosexuality is actually a very common pattern, readily observed and well-documented in hundreds of other animal species including the primates biologically closest to us. And not just homosexual acts, but long-term homosexual couplings similar to heterosexual ones! There are many speculative theories about homosexuality's evolutionary purpose and why it has been preserved by evolution, since homosexual couples obviously cannot naturally reproduce, but the continued existence of homosexuality suggests it serves a positive social function.
While some people have been known to experience a change their sexual orientation over their lifetimes, research clearly shows this is not a voluntary process. The underlying mechanisms are not yet well understood, but it is basically impossible to "decide" to become gay, as it is impossible to "turn" someone gay. For the most part, homosexuality describes the characteristic a person was born with or else experienced involuntarily, something which should
never be used as the basis to deprive an individual of rights.
Gay couples have by now been openly living together as married couples, adopting children, etc. for many years, and the outcomes are clear: they are just as functional, happy, healthy, and "normal" as straight couples. The long-term impact on their children is indistinguishable from that of straight couples. And in fact, homosexual men tend to earn more than straight men on average, and so are likely to be even more able to provide for their children!
Marriage is a lot more than a symbol of commitment between two individuals. It signifies belonging in a community, and a stake in the future. Even more importantly, legally sanctioned marriage exclusively provides couples with over a hundred legal and financial rights and benefits, many of which play a significant role in the long-term health of the relationship and ability to start a family. Plus there are "basic decency" factors such as being able to visit a loved one in the hospital or take paid time off to care for a sick spouse. These rights and benefits are associated with marriage for good reason, and there is absolutely no reason to deny them to same sex couples.
Some of the more articulate criticisms of gay marriage have focused on creating a "slippery slope," the idea that legalizing gay marriage will open the door to polygamy, sibling marriage, underage marriage, and bestiality. These concerns are ridiculous on their face, even if we take for granted the closed-minded notion that these other forms of marriage should be illegal:
First of all, gay marriage has been legal in other parts of the world for a long time, yet no slipping down any slope has been observed. Second, same-sex marriage merely involves a binary difference in the sex of one half of a couple, while polygamy, sibling marriage, and underage marriage are dependent upon wider social cooperation. Underage marriage and bestiality also call consent issues into question. These problems necessarily limit our society's ability to quickly adopt other forms of marriage beyond same-sex.
Persecution of homosexuals in this country is well known, and is a blight on our history. Worse yet, it continues to proliferate through ignorance, lack of consideration, institutional backwardness, and even violence. With the stroke of a pen, we have at least taken a major chunk out of the problem by giving homosexual couples the right to marry. Literally nobody is harmed by same-sex marriage, and as a first-world country in 2017 we have absolutely no reason not to sanction it.
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Note: Please respond by arguing for the opposite of view you'd normally be arguing.
