Ok, question for all you guys:
My sister is a sophomore in high school. I live in a somewhat conservative (at least compared to generally liberal Washington) small town. In my sister's English class, they were doing debates. Today, the debate was on gay marriage. The side against gay marriage ended up winning the debate. My sister shared with me some of the arguments used: the all-too-common slippery slope argument (next we'll have bestiality and pedophilia), that we can't let homosexuality become normal because it'll affect the children (?!), it's against tradition, and other arguments, which my sister pointed out, were against homosexuality, not gay marriage, and not even well thought out. Apparently the pro side couldn't come up with good responses. And either side didn't understand marriage. One of the cons was: you can't force churches to marry couples they don't want to marry. Pro said: Nobody would force them to. Con replied: Then no gay people could get married because no church would allow it! (Not understanding that marriage is a legal act, a religious one only by choice/tradition, and also that there very clearly would be at least some churches who would be OK with it.) What bothered me a lot was that this issue is very deeply personal and I'm sure there are people of all sexualities at the school. It seems weird to invite kids to go up and hate on them. But whatever, I love debates. What really, really bothered me was that this debate was held between apparently incompetent debaters, and then the con side won by a vote from the class. Never, at any point, were the abundant and obvious fallacies in their arguments pointed out. I hate the thought that kids in that class may go on thinking there's all these inarguable points against gay marriage because the pro side wasn't aware enough of all the clear and obvious arguments!
I dislike that this happened. Am I overreacting? I have a strong desire to contact the teacher and explain why I think this was inappropriate, but I also don't want to be someone who goes around trying to limit discussions. I just think the discussion/debate should have been better mediated by someone who understands the debate a bit better and can provide points that are skipped over, so the audience isn't entirely misled. But then I worry, is it just because I'm clearly on the pro side that this debate (in which con won) enrages me so thoroughly? What do you think? Should I formally complain about this, or just let it go?