The author’s unstated assumption is that children are beneficial to society. However, this assumption is needless since an increase in children is not necessarily positive.  World overpopulation and an overabundance of orphans, for instance, are currently prominent social issues.  Thus, heterosexual couples do not compensate for their union, assuming that they would need to.  On the contrary, homosexual couples often adopt children unless caring for a child from a previous relationship and help to lessen the amount of parentless children in the world. 

The author focuses on having children as opposed to raising children, which is a key factor in producing well-adjusted members of society.  Heterosexual couples may make fine parents, but they are less likely than homosexual couples to adopt since they generally can procreate.  Parents who procreate are not screened or tested for parenting skills. Adoption, on the other hand, requires extensive screening from strict agencies, thus the parents chosen are likely to be good for the child.  Therefore gay couples might be more likely to make better parents if they must work hard to prove their abilities.

On the subject of tax exemptions, there is the unstated assumption that these benefits to married couples are a burden to the state.  The benefits set up for married couples is not a “burden” to the state if it encourages couples to become married before having children, aides them in raising those children and helps them from falling into debt.  Even if it were a burden to the state, this would not be a compelling reason to keep homosexual couples from getting married.  On the assumption that marriage for homosexuals or heterosexuals is a civil right, it being costly is not enough to deny people that right.  

His argument fails to be convincing as he admits that there are situations in which heterosexual couples do not “compensate for the costs” with children, such as if they are infertile, which essentially cancels out his argument against homosexual marriage.  Yet he tries to craft his argument specifically on homosexuals and why change in their benefit is a “burden”, when going by his logic infertile couples and couples with no children are a burden as well.  Yet he eschews this “minor detail” with no valid reason other than they are not homosexual. 

The author creates the necessary condition that children must be raised by two parents of opposite genders, but in fact this condition isn’t necessary.  Many children are raised by single or opposite-sex parents and lead healthy lives.  On the subject of parenting, it is not just the parents that educate children on matter of gender and sex, but schools, relatives and those close to the child as well.  These multi-faceted components of a child’s life will contribute to his education on both sexes.  In contrast to his point, I would argue that it is essential for children to be raised by loving, nurturing people who have the child’s best interest at heart regardless of their gender.      

If homosexual marriage were legalized, homosexual couples would be more likely to adopt children due to the benefits marriage.  Marriage would ensure that both parents had legal commitment to the child and could claim equal guardianship and family status.  Adoption agencies would be more likely to let a married couple adopt, as a child’s legal situations are far more secure if the parents are married.  If gay marriage remains illegal, it would be much more difficult and in some cases impossible for gay parents to gain these rights. 

One fallacy in this argument is the appeal to tradition.  The United States constitution did not evolve out of “laws contained in the Bible”, but rather the desire for everyone to have the freedom to believe what they want.  It is interesting he brings up the legal system in the United States, which was designed to have fundamental freedoms alongside interpretation of and necessary changes to the law.  If laws in this country were never amended or changed as needed, women still couldn’t vote, African Americans would still be slaves with no rights and the president would not be limited to two terms.  As societies change their views on human rights and how to govern over time the traditional law must change in kind. 

The author claims that since major religions do not agree with homosexuality, it would be wrong for anyone else to agree with it.  His misuse of the term “religious freedom” damages his case, which he essentially defines as banning something that offends certain religions. Religious freedom is refraining from creating laws that serve one religious group’s interest over another and allowing citizens to practice or not practice a religion of their choosing.  In the case of gay marriage and views on homosexuality in general, not everyone agrees with the major world religions and just because something is traditionally practiced does not make it right or wrong.  It is in fact morally right for homosexuals to marry, which I will argue in the next section.

The issue of gay marriage is an issue of civil rights.  Whether or not one finds homosexuality moral is beside the point, just as whether one likes religion does not stop people from being free to practice it.  Marriage provides opportunity for partners to better connect psychologically, emotionally and financially.  It provides a stable foundation of legal benefits that civil unions cannot provide and families gain enormously from.  Marital rights include visitation rights to hospitalized and incarcerated spouses, shared finances, mutual legal guardianship of children, joint property fund for children’s benefits and control of a spouse’s affairs if the spouse is incapacitated.  [Religious Tolerance] These important rights cannot be denied of a couple based on their gender.  Using this logic is the same as claiming that Christians or African Americans should not be allowed to marry. One could come up with all kinds of illogical stances on why Christians are immoral or why Asian Americans ruin the fundamentals of society.  Denial of rights based on a person’s private and personal characteristics breeds intolerance.  After all, how someone chooses to lead their sex life is no business of anyone else if it is private and safe. 

Arguments against gay marriage generalize, stereotype and lump people together based on irrelevant and prejudiced factors.  One might in term claim that other types of marriages deemed immoral could use the same arguments as I have, such as marriage in a group or with animals.  However, my argument does not apply to those very specific situations.  Homosexual marriage is not in a group or between a human and an animal. Group marriages, if legalized, would require an extensively new set of rules than couple marriage, and therefore is irrelevant to gay marriage.  And unlike the two people in a homosexual relationship, an animal does not have the same legal rights as a person, nor can it legally sign a marriage license.

Hypothetically, if gay marriage were two close same-sex friends without other family could form a non-romantic “marriage” in order to protect and care for each other.  This would be positive because both friends would share their property, have familial visitation rights and could make medical decisions for one another.  They would have a secure, legal family and could rest assured that someone would care for them and their property in the event of an emergency.  Furthermore, situations such as this would continue to exterminate stereotypes about gay marriage and homosexuals, as people could be close and loving in a same-sex relationship without fear of ignorant assumptions about their sexual orientation.  The institution of marriage exists to benefit individuals of the state, not the view on what marriage should morally “mean”.  Keeping gay marriage illegal is acknowledging that it is okay for a government to deny rights to certain people based on unfair terms.  Legalizing gay marriage would be a positive step forward for our country. Tolerance and acceptance of others regardless of sex, gender, class or creed exists in many facets of United States law for an important reason: to ensure the well-being and coexistence of everyone.