Okay to Defend Same-Sex “Marriage” in Debate?

You could first ask to be provided a conscience exemption, given your objections on natural-law and religious grounds. And you may want to push your appeal to the level of the dean at your school.

However, since school officials might respond that this is a legitimate academic exercise testing one’s ability to argue vs. a strict infringement on your religious liberties protected by the First Amendment—because you’re not being coerced to formally speak and act against your conscience in particular and religious beliefs in general—we have another suggestion.

You could defend the proposition but do so by showing the absurdity of moral relativism, which is what a pro-same-sex-“marriage” position necessarily espouses.

That is, you can recognize the reality of genuine marriages. And then you could say but what really matters is how two people feel, not the logic—or lack thereof—of their choices. In that regard, you can demonstrate in delicate terms that it’s evident that the human body is not naturally equipped to accommodate sodomy, nor is there is any discernible purpose to sodomy aside from subjective human pleasure, as there is—in stark contrast to the marital act—no complementarity, no genuine giving and receiving, no possibility of fruitfulness, etc.

For example, outside agents are needed to make sodomy possible without doing physical harm to another person’s body, whereas a wife’s normally-functioning body emits natural agents that make the marital act possible and pleasurable for both husband and wife as the two spouses organically become one.

Indeed, the marital act is what distinguishes a relationship a man has with his wife vs. friendships with other women, and sodomy distinguishes same-sex “marriage” vs. friendships a man has with other men.

And yet, you could argue that none of that matters because we’re now in an “enlightened” age where personal autonomy is paramount, and thus where the morality of a relationship, or specific moral behavior, or whether one identifies as a man, woman or something else is up to the individual, and to heck with everything and everyone who disagrees.

In proceeding in such a way, the judges may not be amused and your grade may suffer. But there will be no doubt that you are showing the absurdity of moral relativism in general and same-sex “marriage” in particular. And thus you will be giving witness to the truth in a creative way (Matt. 10:16), and perhaps in a more convincing way than your opponents who are assigned to defend authentic marriage and oppose same-sex “marriage.”