Instigator / Con
14
1614
rating
17
debates
85.29%
won
Topic
#904

Is homosexuality evil?

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
3
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

Pinkfreud08
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
11
1481
rating
11
debates
40.91%
won
Description

Before we begin let's clarify a couple of rules and definitions.

Evil: Harmful to society

Homosexuality: Attaining sexual pleasure from members of the same sex.

Rules:

- Religious arguments aren't allowed on account of them being arbitrary.

- Prefer not to have this debate centered around semantics however a little won't hurt.

- The burden of proof will be 90 % on Pro however I will provide a few reasons as to why it isn't evil.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

To start with, this debate is very hard to judge as it’s not entirely clear what the intent of resolution actually is.

While the definitions clearly state that “evil = harmful to society”, cons opening round includes some more typically moral arguments.

There’s no end of permutations here; does this mean “more harmful than heterosexuality?” Or “on balance harmful?” Its unclear

So on it’s face - pro offers an example of STDs: while this is well sourced; he doesn’t contrast this with benefits and explain how homosexuality is on balance harmful. Worse, pro appears to come within a hairs breadth of conceding - acknowledging that it may not be blackness that causes the crimes/murders but other factors that correlate. In a similar vein, it’s not clear how the harms are related specifically to homosexuality, rather than being “culture”.

My issue with pros round 2, however extends beyond this. Pro states implies that on balance white people aren’t harmful - implying that the balance is important, and pointing out that part of what is being assessed relates to deviation from a monogamous standard: which encompasses more than simply homosexuality.

Both these undermine pros position by highlighting that he hasn’t contrasted, and highlighting the role of non-monogamy, rather than homosexuality.

Con highlights a set of health benefits - which appear to lay unrefuted by pro throughout. However, con misses his burden by failing to do more to counter the point that STDs are inherently related to homosexuality. This was one sentence buried in the sea.

Cons argument, also, that white people would be harmful to society, or black people appears beside the point. Whether or not pro accepts that wouldn’t necessarily refute the resolution.

The suicide point, while factually valid in my opinions isn’t clear where the harm to society comes in - definitely harmful to the individuals, but not necessarily to society as a whole - and the detail is a bit sketchy on how this ties in.

All in all, there were a lot of mistakes here: I feel that pro set up all the pins for con to be able to land a knock out, but really did not do enough to dispatch it.

Neither one really hammered a good value framework. Pro argues one side, con another, both sides don’t appear to spell out a system.

As a result, I’m sitting here flummoxed. I can take pros value and pro wins, I can take cons value and con wins - bother under mine the values and neither values seem specifically tied to how I viewed the resolution.

Because of this, I kind of have to award a tie - both sides proves their case, but didn’t prove their value.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Reason here:

https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/1850