Gay marriage should be illegal

Judge: Bifurcations
Win awarded to: Tejretics
Reasoning:
Pro's main argument was that homosexuality is a mental disorder because it was once considered so. The problem is your own analysis says that this was changed with empirical data alongside public pressure and is therefore no longer considered a mental disorder. If you are going to stick with that argument (I suggest you should not) then you need to prove why you think it should still be considered a mental disorder given that science is generally in agreement that it is not.

I think what you set up is that there is not much public acceptance of gay or lesbian people but I am a bit confused by your analysis for this (they would hold handle marches but would stay away from the culture). I think it is far to say that homosexuality is not yet fully accepted by the public but when you go on to talk about homosexuality as a mental illness you state that changing social norms and public pressure were used to remove homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses. This leaves me confused in your speech about whether you can prove that homosexuality is not accepted by the majority of people.
You try and prove that people currently distancing themselves from homosexuality is the reason why same-sex marriage should be illegal by saying it is a mental illness however as I said this point is never proven and is undermined by your own analysis.

Con points this out at the end of their and does a good job setting up a framework by which all governmental policies should be judged: Happiness outcomes. I think writing that all marriages lead to happiness probably ignores the divorce rates so be careful with this type of framework because you may bet challenged on it. I think before you prove your happiness framework you can set up the option of marriage as a human right and flag that clearly. So you have room to add more complexities to your framing which deal with the divorce rates.
You then go on to provide good analysis on where discrimination of non heteronormative couples comes from, the harms of that and how that can be lessened by allowing them to marry which supports your framing nicely.

Overall it was unclear from Pro what the specific harms of allowing same-sex marriages would be given that the main justification was undermined and Con provided some excellent analysis on why governments should make policies and how to deal with discrimination therefore it is a win for Con.

Feedback:
Alok Kumar: I recognise this was your first debate on here and my first bit of advice would bent to give up on a debate even if you feel like you can't win. My second bit of advice would be to get more involved in the site there are lots of friendly people on here who can give you advice and even coaching.
Anyway back to the debate. I think what you need to do is a bit more research on what homosexuality is and the reasons that people might be opposed to the legalisation of gay marriage (Religion might be one of those reasons). Also from a debates point of view it is easier to set up the debate as "That Same-sex Marriage should be legalised" and then take the opposition. For your debate you have to prove why places like the UK and the US would be able to make it illegal after they have only just legalised it. With the debate I suggested you can use specific examples from countries which are yet to legalise it. In your posts be clear about what you are trying to prove at all points i.e. how does the thing you are writing help you win the debate. Use more sources if you want to help you illustrate your argument with examples. Well done for a first attempt on here and I hope you take up more debates.

Tejretics: Your analysis was good and the points you were making showed clearly large harms however on first read I was confused at some points about what you were trying to prove. I think this can be easily solved by using headlines and maybe a sentence at the start to outline what you want to discuss and why. Like I said above you can add in a few complexities to your framing to make it wrong enough to deal with an attack on marriage causing happiness. You had loads of character space left to really dive into the points you were making and elaborate on them mostly for my benefit because I enjoyed your material but again giving more detail at each stage can make it clearer what the aim of your analysis is.

Hope all that makes sense and I am happy to answer any questions.

---

4 users rated this judgement as constructive

Judge: sf_skier9
Win awarded to: Tejretics
Reasoning:
Agreed with the previous judges remarks. The pro made a very weak case based on the fact that homosexuality used to be considered a mental disorder. The negative gave sufficient arguments to refute this and demonstrate that making gay marriage illegal would be discriminatory.

---

3 users rated this judgement as good

Judge: Jurisprudence
Win awarded to: Tejretics
Reasoning:
An easy win here for tejretics. One side argued with reason and logic, the other did not.

---

4 users rated this judgement as biased

Judge: Rose
Win awarded to: Tejretics
Reasoning:
You bring up excellent points, and i do believe that if people like the same sex that it should be their right to be with them.

---

3 users rated this judgement as a vote bomb
1 user rated this judgement as biased

Judge: Ab_M
Win awarded to: Tejretics
Reasoning:
Pro argued that homosexuality is a mental disorder because it was removed from the mental disorder list. This evidence did not support this conclusion. This was Pro's only argument, so Pro did not prove the resolution true. Con provided many arguments against the resolution, which were all dropped by Pro.

Feedback:
Pro, I would have liked to see some arguments about how homosexuality can be harmful for society in the long run, how it messes up family roles, how children need a father AND a mother, etc...

Con, I really liked your reasoning! Your framework was sound and it made a lot of sense. The equality argument was good, but the comparison of marriage laws to racist and sexist policies is not a sound one. If gay marriage was not recognized as marriage, everyone would have equality before the law: Everyone can marry, no one can marry a member of their own sex. There is no discrimination here. Racist and sexist policies that used to exist were inherently discriminant and did not provide everyone with equality before the law: Africans could be held as slaves, but whites could not. Men could vote, but women could not. Instead of arguing that this law is discriminating against gays, say that it doesn't provide benefits for certain actions that warrant benefits. If a lesbian couple decides to live a married life, and one of them already has a child that they raise together, why shouldn't they be allowed to adopt? Doesn't the action of raising a child warrant parental benefits? That would be a stronger argument.

---

1 user rated this judgement as exceptional

Judge: gavstone21
Win awarded to: Tejretics
Reasoning:
Alok kumar used the argument that homosexuality is a mental disorder. According to science homosexuality is no longer a mental disorder. Like what Bifurcations said if you are going to stick with that argument you need to argue why it should be labeled a mental disorder. Tejretics made the argument that making gay marriage illegal is a form of discrimination and backed his answer with very good supporting details based on his valid definition of discrimination.

---

1 user rated this judgement as good

Judge: Bi0Hazard    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: Tejretics
Reasoning:
PRO: Gay marriage should be illegal because it is a mental disorder and it should not plague society.
CON: Gay marriage should be legal because the government should legislate based on maximizing positive mental states and Gay marriage is a positive mental state, and gay marriage being illegal is discrimination.
CON rebuts PRO argument by saying homosexuality is not considered a mental disorder anymore.
It is a win for the CON side.

Feedback:
Alok Kumar, you had the potential to do better. You just used an invalid argument. I suggest you should have researched the topic more and you could have used more convincing arguments.
Tejretics, your argument about the discrimination is invalid, since homosexuals would still have equality with others under the law and homosexuals would actually be discriminating against traditional marriage.
It would be better if you would have explained your case more, but as I see it, you didn't need to because of your opponents case.

---