Posted on 06/28/2015 7:51:40 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
On Friday, shortly after the Gaypocolypse began raining down on the media landscape like an ELE comet strike, I had already begun musing on Twitter about the no longer hypothetical slippery slope which had just opened up. To be sure, we’ve had more than a few discussions of slippery slope items in years past which were little more than hyperbole in the real world. But then, the “real world” has been changing rather rapidly in the past few years and I’ve had to take a fresh look at some items which I’d previously written off as straw men, but have now risen up like all too real zombies. For example, only a few years back I scoffed at the idea that a Christian business person could be forced to participate in a gay wedding ceremony if it violated their 1st Amendment beliefs. And of course I assumed that no preacher could ever be forced to either conduct such a ceremony or be driven out of business. (It didn’t happen with the Hitching Post, but it came close.) And don’t even get me started on the idea of redefining gender in a courtroom setting contra chromosomal arrangements.
One of the benefits of having Fridays off is that Ed is forced to tackle thorny plot twists such as these before me, so he jumped into the whole polygamy angle while the initial fight was still raging. One of the first items he offered (which ran along the same lines as the questions which immediately came to my mind) came directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. While I know that Chief Justice Roberts isn’t particularly popular around the ranch here these days, he brought up an interesting point which Ed highlighted.
Although the majority randomly inserts the adjective “two” in various places, it offers no reason at all why the two-person element of the core definition of marriage may be preserved while the man-woman element may not. Indeed, from the standpoint of history and tradition, a leap from opposite-sex marriage to same-sex marriage is much greater than one from a two-person union to plural unions, which have deep roots in some cultures around the world. If the majority is willing to take the big leap, it is hard to see how it can say no to the shorter one. It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.
Ed raised what he saw as a possible (though significantly improbable) argument against Roberts’ polygamy point, even in the brave new world of collisions between government and marriage.
Dignity and self-determination are the cornerstones of Kennedy’s championing of gay rights throughout his many landmark opinions on the subject. You could argue, when the time comes, that polygamist marriages are inherently undignified because they place women in a position of de facto subservience to men, but that’ll be a hard argument to make when you have sister-wives in front of TV cameras swearing up and down that their relationships with their husband are 100 percent equal and that they’ve never felt exploited even for a moment.
This doesn’t work for me because I never thought that the court was going to try to make a case for anything resembling the “dignity and tradition of marriage” angle. Frankly, I’m shocked that Kennedy even went so far as to say that there was any tradition involved, and where he did it looked like 95% window dressing and 5% law, intended to placate the aggrieved masses who he knew would be beating down the gates. In my view, the court was always going to be forced to treat this as some sort of legal pronouncement, void of religious or moral currency, simply saying that it was a thing which was available to some and therefore must be available to all. When you peel all the colorful excuses out of the majority decision on Friday I think that’s what they boiled it down to.
But let’s return to the real meat of this essay, which deals with the other items awaiting us in the ditches of that slippery slope. (I’ll try to keep the jiggery pokery to a minimum.) First, the most extreme examples include conversations about people marrying animals. That line of discussion should be shut down because animals can not give meaningful legal consent for anything and the court has an easy out. But once we leave American Pharoah and his friends out of the discussion, things get a bit more cloudy. I happen to think that the Chief Justice is correct when it comes to polygamy. What is the argument against plural marriage, given its far more substantial historical roots when compared to SSM? Ed’s point of wives being placed in a subservient role to men falls apart as soon as the Strong Independent Woman card is played. Further, who says it’s always multiple wives? If one woman wants to marry five men, are the men being unfairly subsumed? Mind you, I think plural marriage is a terrible idea since I have enough trouble taking care of one wife, but our legal system seems to offer no real impediments at this point.
With that said, let’s dig a little bit deeper into the rabbit hole. What restrictions between humans could the court still argue for in terms of marriage? Certainly a minimum age would be in play since we don’t allow children to provide consent. But that age already varies from state to state and some, such as Mississippi, will let you go below it if both sets of parents sign off on the deal. Will those barriers stand?
And finally, how about incest laws? Does the state and / or federal government have a vested interest in preventing siblings from marrying? In terms of protecting the next generation from genetic pitfalls, that should be possible. But once you go beyond siblings, where does that gray line get drawn? Some states will allow first cousins to marry. Once you get to second cousins it’s pretty much a free-for-all. And what will the court say to siblings who are sterile under this new set of rules? I don’t even want to venture a call on that one.
In short, the entire playing field just changed as I see it. If you remove any and all moral barriers (which is obviously possible, if not already a done deal) then where do the interests of the state begin? As I said, I’ve run around the hamster wheel in my mind for a while now, and not only do I think plural marriage is on the way, I honestly can’t come up with a legal argument against it which looks like it would hold water.
I bet there will he a lawsuit within months, designed to push the issue all the way to SCOTUS. And if the court comes up with a reason to allow polygamy bans, they will be exposed as making the rules up along the way.
You are probably right....they just won’t hear the case....but in around 20 years they will relent.
“If you had to choose one as being more natural, polygamy is more natural than homosexual “marriage.””
That is exactly what I was thinking and goes back thousands of years. As far a queers getting married I can’t think of any culture in the past that supported it.
Funny how the homosexuals think that marriage between them is beautiful but any other form is bad.
Don’t they know it’s all about love? That’s all we’ve been hearing about this week.
So why not love between one man and many women? Or love between and adult and a child? Or love between brother and sister.
Why should they be denied the same love?
We will get polygamy and what happens when the first Muslim American citizen sues to marry the 8 year old girl. Voila! Adult-child marriage.
The term marriage has been obliterated as stated in the thread. We have Justice Kennedy to thank for this atrocity but also the other 4 brain dead nihilists who in their wisdom, have become fools.
I didn’t know the LGBT community could be queasy about anything other than something that was normal, moral and right.
Orgies married for the night.. or even a week.. any gender, species or mechanical design..
I always take the position that holiness is about activities and attitudes that contribute to a longer lifespan without taking advantage of another person. I find that it’s a position hard to argue against.
>>even the LGBT community is queasy about the whole idea<<
If I may, that’s the entire Point. Why are they queasy?
They must be either be Haters (their word) or Bigots (their word again) against other People who just want to Love who they Love, right? Isn’t that their argument, love conquers all?
Looks like the Gays that got the Supreme Court to invalidate the 10th Amendment think that everything is A-OK, so they can become what they accused us of being. Typical Alinsky Tactics...
Gays hate Incestuous and Polygamous Marriage because, well just because they think it’s icky. Well, some People think what they do is icky too. That makes those People Haters.
Makes perfect sense to me.
If polygamy is legalized, I could marry my grandchild when he or she turns 18. After a certain period of marriage, he or she can begin collecting on my social security as a spouse. My husband could do the same, and this could be continued into perpetuity. No more losing your benefits to the State if you die after a few years of SS eligibility. Instead, your family can share in your bounty. Another unintended consequence of the USSC’s social experiment.
“Robert Heinlein called group marriages an “S” group”
Yes, but his idea was considerably different from what’s happening now.
Child rearing as the benchmark reason for marriage is no longer considered an acceptable premise for upholding the, “tradition”.
In the world of single parent, “families” to which we have devolved, it is obvious that the Mom and Dad model which served so well for thousands of years is an anachronism.
The government will fund the child in the, “It takes a village” model through taxation and both marriage and parenting will be relegated to the past.
The slope is much more slippery than the USSC has considered.
The health argument is also compelling. The average male active homosexual has a 40 year lifespan- much shorter than the average smoker. And yet our public school children have been lectured about the dangers of smoking for years.
If the DoE got serious about health education, they would teach children gun safety, and at a certain age, how to defend themselves from violent attacks. They would also teach about the importance of male headed households, going to church, praying regularly and avoiding all sex until marriage. All these are correlated with longer life, and yet, they are anathema in our public schools. They don’t care about health. They care about pushing their own agenda.
It has been said lately that our SCOTUS is no longer a judicial arm, but has become a political arm. Well, our public schools have also become a political are. And watch for our private schools to be squeezed out of existence when they loose tax exempt status.
And how many of your group wives are eligible for your social security survivor benefits?
The SCOTUS basically confirmed one thing and that is popular opinion will override the Constitution. As soon as opinion polls show acceptance for whatever perversion you can imagine the Constitution can be twisted just enough to find the right to do it
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