Homosexuality is against many religious beliefs

The argument

Proponents of this position begin from a claim about what marriage is. Marriage, on their account, is a religious institution: it is carried out on religious grounds and solemnised by religious figures, and it derives its meaning from that setting rather than from the civil registration that accompanies it. If that is what marriage is, then the question of who is eligible for it is not a question the state answers on its own terms. Eligibility should instead be guided by the religious teachings that give the institution its content in the first place. The second step is what those teachings are held to say. Proponents point to the dominant religious texts, which they read as containing many passages explicitly prohibiting same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage — the passage in Leviticus condemning sexual relations between men being the most frequently cited. On this reading the prohibition is not a matter of interpretation at the margins or of cultural accretion around the text, but an explicit instruction found in the source that the institution of marriage is drawn from. The conclusion joins the two. A nation founded on Judeo-Christian traditions has inherited its understanding of marriage from those traditions, and proponents argue it cannot coherently retain the institution while permitting what its founding religious teachings directly forbid. The same is said to follow for a nation committed to promoting religious freedom: legal recognition of same-sex marriage would, on this view, require the state to endorse an arrangement that the faiths it protects prohibit. Because homosexuality is against many religious beliefs, and because marriage takes its definition from those beliefs, proponents conclude that gay marriage should be illegal.

Context

Governments should not legislate in a way that makes any religious practices illegal. Many religions are vehemently opposed to homosexuality. To legally acknowledge homosexual relations in any way would be in direct contrast to many religious teachings.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Marriages were never intended to be religious rituals or practices. In ancient Rome, marriage was a civil matter and fell under the jurisdiction of imperial law. Therefore, marriage was a legislative matter long before it was a religious matter. There are also now openly gay Judeo-Christian religious figures. Reform and Conservative Judaism endorse same-sex marriage, as does the United Church of Christ. Any biblical interpretation that asserts that homosexuality is a sin is an outdated interpretation of the Bible. As such, governments are free to allow gay marriage or civil partnerships.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Many religions allow homosexual relationships.