Posted on 06/28/2015 9:43:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Shortly after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in favor of the right for same-sex couples to marry, conservatives rushed to condemn the ruling by invoking the slippery slope logical fallacy that permitting gay couples to marry opens the door to legalizing polygamy too. Conservative commentator Bill Kristol tweeted “Polygamy here we come”. Fox News host Martha MacCallum queried:
So suppose three people say, we want to be a marriage; we’re three people, and we love each other, and we want to be a marriage. What’s to prevent that, under this?
Even Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts employed the “slippery slope to polygamy” argument in his dissent, arguing:
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. If “[t]here is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices,” why would there be any less dignity in the bond between three people who, in exercising their autonomy, seek to make the profound choice to marry?
Societies and sub-cultural groups that have practiced plural marriages have been hetero-normative rather than gay friendly. While conservatives enjoy making absurd slippery slope arguments in their feeble attempts to discredit same-sex couples, their arguments are wrapped in emotion rather than logic.
To illustrate the flawed logic of the conservative’s arguments, the slippery slope fallacy can be applied with equal silliness to straight marriages. If a man is permitted to have one wife what is to stop him from having two or even three wives? While that argument may seem patently silly, it is parallel to the argument conservatives are making against same-sex marriages. Well, almost parallel. The truth is a man with one wife is one wife closer to having multiple wives than a man who has no wives and a husband is to having multiple wives.
If conservatives want to argue that gay marriage should not be legal, they have every right to make their case. However, if the best they can come up with is the faulty argument that allowing gay marriage opens the door to polygamy then they might as well keep their mouths shut. If that is the only objection they can muster, it fails basic logic and they have no case.
The point this author doesn’t understand is that the principle behind the marriage definition no longer exists. There is no longer any basis for saying the definition is fixed and cannot be changed again. Words now mean whatever those in power want them to mean.
Yes it does, and a whole lot more in coming folks.
I’d like to hear this writer’s explanation of why five brothers couldn’t marry each other under the new rules.
But all sorts of mischief are possible when you base Equal Protection on one's state of mind.
The (valid) civil rights equality struggles of the 60s were at least based on somewhat verifiable criteria: Race -- although nowadays even that question appears to be a state of mind.
This guy needs to argue with Jonathan Turley, not Martha Mccallum.
In no time at all. Just to set a precedent.
I disagree with you on that one. The slippery slope can be traced back to the elimination of any cultural or legal barriers against contraception. Once you separate the institution of marriage from the rearing of children, there's no logical reason to limit it to heterosexual relationships at all.
In the top ten things I hate about liberals is how condescending they are when they lie.
Stupid homos. Just because YOU don’t want polygamy doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t want it. They can make up euphemisms like “marriage equality” and #lovewins and #loveislove and all the same crap.
Since there is a biological reason for polygamy (as opposed to gay marriage), it makes sense that it should be legalized because it has more reasons to exist than gay marriage.
He’s right. Pedophilia is next.
The author of this article is obviously someone in no position to lecture others about logical fallacies.
Actually, Keith, the slippery slope is implicit both in the argument that marriage is anything anyone wants it to be and in the failure to recognize the biological basis of the legal framework surrounding marriage.
Gays have wanted to share in what they perceive as the financial benefits of marriage (also, without recognizing that those financial benefits are meant to offset the costs of raising the offspring that marriages are supposed to produce). As a vehicle for gaining financial benefits, why shouldn’t any two people be allowed to marry? Why shouldn’t someone with terminal cancer be allowed to “marry” his business partner to avoid death taxes his business partner would otherwise have to pay upon his death? Why not polygamy? Why not have a big huge marriage of all of the board of directors of a large corporation so they can all share the tax benefits?
As long as the Supreme Court has decreed that marriage is no more than a vehicle for legally avoiding or decreasing certain taxes, then what *are* the limits on who can get “married”?
>> If that is the only objection they can muster, it fails basic logic and they have no case.
So now the people who have butt sex are going to teach us logic??
Polygamy is VASTLY more natural than homosexuality. Also accepted in the Bible.
If thats the summary of his argument, he seems to take for granted that there would never be same sex polygamy. I could through that right back at him....a guy with a homo husband is closer to all male polygamy than a hetero couple.
He's probably not old enough to remember communes or various cults like the Mansons.
The misconception with the homosexuals being the useful tools, useful idiots, or the sheepled is false.
They are at the forefront , the spearhead of the leftist movement , anti-Christ, anti-America, fill in the blanks.
They will never be satisfied because it’s demonic in nature.
The things of what they want will only get more vial, violent, dark, nafarious.
The liberals said, “Accepting of homosexuals does not mean gay marriage!”
Charlie Brown, meet Lucie and her football.
Yep,and gaze just wanted to be left alone.
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