Marriage should be legal for any two consenting adults, and carry the same legal and civil standing. Religious organizations can continue to restrict marraige services they perfom to opposite sex couples.

• Against: The purpose of marriage is to create children - and the same-sex partnership is inherently sterile.
  • Counterargument: Straight married couples are not required to raise children, and many do not.
• For: Marriage is an evolving institution

Not too long ago in North America, the legal definition of marriage was that wives became the property? of their husbands! Our definition of marriage has always been evolving, and changing with our perception of human rights, and gender equality?. The time has come to recognize homosexual marriage.

• Against: Marriage is not broken. Don't fix it.
  • Counter: Gay marriage is legal now. Marriage is still not broken; don't fix it.

Society has not found a need for same sex marriage in the last 10000 years, why change now? There is no reason to alter their society or government's traditional attitudes towards marriage and family. This could be considered an application of the precautionary principle.

• Counterargument: This objection may have applied a few years ago, but not any more. Several countries and provinces have had same sex marriage for some time now, and nothing bad has happened. The precautionary principle no longer applies.
• For: If two men get married in the forest, does anybody care?

Really, what harm is done to anyone by allowing gays to marry?

• Argument: Gays don't tell straight people how they should live.

• For: It will make gays happy.
• For: It results in more equal treatment of individuals in our society.
• For: The opposite-gender criteria for marriages is arbitrary and unfair, and serves no purpose in our society.
• For: Governments should aim to maximize each person's freedom as long as it does not infringe on anyone else's freedom. Removing the opposite-gender barrier to marriage results in an increase in freedoms for homosexuals without infringing on anyone else's.

Marriage should be legal for any two consenting adults, and carry the same legal and civil standing. Religious orgainzations should not be allowed to discriminate.

• Against: Religions can make whatever rules for themselves that they like, as long as they don't push it on anyone else. Governments should not attempt to control what priests bless, or what prayers they make, or what kind of marriages they consider "holy".

The term "marriage" should be reserved for opposite sex couples, but civil unions should be legal for any two consenting adults, and carry the same legal and civil standing. Religious groups can choose not to perfom civil unions.

• Against: the legalization of same-sex marriage will lead to a direct attack via lawsuits against churches to force them to perform marriage ceremonies of which they do not approve, and additionally that of established churches could be bankrupted by these types of lawsuits.
  • Counter: Churches were afraid of the same thing when divorces and remarriages were made legally easier. Churches that did not want to perform second-marriage ceremonies were worried about lawsuits. Those churches are still alive and well today.

Gay marriage should be recognized only in the same way that common law marriage is recognized - for taxation and legal purposes.

• Argument: There are more important issues to deal with.

Canada should stick with the status quo on gay marriage, too much time has been wasted already for something that only affects a small percentage of the population.

• Counterargument: The "let's move on" position actually is now an argument in favour of same sex marriage, since that is now the status quo since the passing of bill C-38.

The state should not recognize any form or marriage except between a man and a woman.

• Argument: Sanctioning gay marriage in any way condones homosexuality. Extending marriage to same-sex couples undercuts the conventional meaning of marriage in various traditions or goes against the word of God. Gays and lesbians are sinners who are undeserving of certain rights including legal recognition of their unions
  • Against: Atheists are allowed to marry. Convicted criminals are allowed to marry. If these "sinners" are all allowed to marry, then there is no reason for gay Christians to not be allowed to marry for "being sinners".
  • Against: Only very narrow interpretations of one particular religious text leads to homosexuality being considered sinful. Other religions and worldviews see gays as merely being other people, most of whom are rather nice, and are deserving of equal rights.
• Argument: same-sex marriage is the first step to polygamy or incest.
  • Against: There are countries where gay marriage is legal, and polygamy is not. There are also countries where polygamy is legal, and gay marriage is not. Gay marriage and polygamy are two distinct issues that do not seem to correlate with each other at all.

Allowing same-sex marriage will blur other legal precedents and lead to the legalization of polygamy, or to marriage between family members (incest), marriages of convenience contracted for tax or other reasons, or marriages between humans and non-humans.

• Argument: Same sex couples should not be allowed to adopt.

Since most nations have monogamous marriages only, some opponents also claim that Some object on the grounds that same-sex couples should not be allowed to adopt or raise children or to have access to reproductive technologies, and that same-sex marriage would make such adoptions easier.

Same-sex marriage is not acceptable for those people believe in the Bible or Roman catholic religion, some countries are not allowing that thing because they beleive that it is against God's commandments and some questioning about this thing but in our society some of the countries in this world are allowing that thing, maybe they dont care or they want it to but the question is, why should this thing happen?????