That's a red herring, almost concern troll-esque, argument. This ruling isn't a slippery slope towards moral depravity and chaos, no matter how much religious authorities will attempt to paint it as such. We can definitely know that civilization as we know it will not collapse because two guys/girls are allowed to kiss, hold hands once in a while, and receive acknowledgment from civil authorities that they share tax returns.
An important distinction between gay marriage and other human taboos that I'm guessing you're referring to (pedophilia, cannibalism, etc.) is the presence of mutual consent and respect. The ability to consent derives from the uniquely (adult) human ability to reason about the future and one's self-existence to an unusually sophisticated level. Children lack the experience necessary to reason about such things, hence why pedophilia is such a long-standing and widespread taboo.
If two fully consenting adults want to do something that celebrates their shared bond between each other, who or what is anyone else to tell them they shouldn't do that?
You're right, it's not a slippery slope. It's a gate we've opened and said that whatever your sexual compulsion is, no one else has a right to tell you that it's wrong. That is a very dangerous gate to open and you don't get to close it after gay "marriage" is approved - others will want the freedom as well.
It's not a red herring because you already have people on HN, and I'm sure many many other places, asking when polygamy will get to share in the same "civil rights".
And to play devil's advocate (and that language is intentional) who are you to say that a child or an animal can't consent to a sexual relationship or marriage with another child or an adult? How closed-minded of you.
We are already giving children under 18 the right to access birth control (without their parent's consent) and the freedom to decide that they are not the gender that they were "assigned" - so why can't they decide who to "love"? And who are you to say an animal doesn't have the same rights, feelings, and ability to give consent as a human? I think PETA and many others would actively disagree.
If you pay attention, I haven't mentioned religion. What I've mentioned is the reasoning and appeal you gave for allowing what is "natural". Who decides what is "natural" and acceptable for human beings? The animal kingdom? You personally? These are not troll questions, these are important questions and it matters gravely how we answer them.
> You're right, it's not a slippery slope. It's a gate we've opened and said that whatever your [thoughts, feelings and behaviors about X are], no one else has a right to tell you that it's wrong. That is a very dangerous gate to open and you don't get to close it after [X] is approved - others will want the freedom as well.
This isn't an insult, but you're a nitwit? The argument you're making is the prototypical "slippery slope" fallacy.
I'd advise you to actually read the article you are linking to.
> in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any rational argument or demonstrable mechanism for the inevitability of the event in question.
His argument is not a fallacious one. The reasoning used to justify applies to other scenarios. Polygamy is the main one brought up on this thread: Why are we telling adults who and how many people they can marry?
If you legalize [x] because [y] and [y] also applies to [z] then [x] and [z] are equivalent for reasons [y]; therefore [z] should be legalized if [x] is legalized unless [x] and [z] are demonstrably not equivalent for reasons [y].
I'd also like to note that the cutoff for being an adult should be 25, not 18. Therefore people shouldn't be able to be married until they are 25. The age of 18 is arbitrary and in many places that age is 16. In some places that age is 14. When exactly is the cutoff? Well it's based on an individuals mental maturity, which is not equivalent to their age. I've met 12 year olds who are more rational and mature than 30 year olds.
Furthermore:
Hebephilia and pedophilia are often merged concepts when people speak. For the people speaking on this subject, can you clarify which you're talking about? It's difficult to tell which people mean, but it usually gets clarified to the 13-16 year old ranges. At that age, I'd argue most children understand marriage, can be educated on the government-related issues to marriage, and understand sexual relations and pregnancy. The idea that they can consent to sexual relations of other minors, but not of adults, is some form of double-think. Note that in this context it doesn't seem marriage is what is being brought into question: just sexuality.
Note that I'm not defending it: I think people shouldn't be able to have sex or get married until at least age 25 unless they can demonstrate the ability to proper care and provide for a child with a stable income.
Can you name one other kind of marriage that will necessarily get legalized because we legalized same-sex marriage?
Can you name one other kind of marriage that is demonstrably more likely to get legalized because we legalized same-sex marriage?
If there's any kind of slippery slope, it's the slippery slope from man-woman marriage to adult-adult marriage. Well, we've slid down it, and now we're at the bottom.
We haven't slid to "adult-adult marriage" yet until the above are legalized across the board. So please don't misrepresent man-man and woman-woman as being adult-adult (or adult - n adult)
Since marriage does not imply reproduction, an incestual couple can refrain from having kids, adopt, use a surrogate/donor, etc. so there is no "but imbreeding" argument. Which is an argument about genetics... Isn't choosing who can reproduce a form of eugenics? We don't stop people with known hereditary complications from choosing to have kids, why should we stop siblings? If they choose to accept the risks, why should society have any say in the matter?
It's a social taboo and imbreeding are the only given reasons of why it is "bad".
Some could argue a failed relationship can lead to issues in a family household but I don't think that has any real merit. Dating a family member's best friend and it going sour can have similar consequences.
>You're right, it's not a slippery slope. It's a gate we've opened and said that whatever your sexual compulsion is, no one else has a right to tell you that it's wrong. That is a very dangerous gate to open and you don't get to close it after gay "marriage" is approved - others will want the freedom as well.
Call it what you will, a gate or a slope: we are describing the same phenomenon: "Things will get worse now that we have allowed this one thing." Answer me this: why is it [a] dangerous [gate] for two people of the same sex to commit to one another (mainly financially) under the eyes of the government? "Others" might want the freedom, but social mores at large will dictate what becomes legal practice and what doesn't. (P.S.: You've yet to explicitly define "others". What exactly do you have in mind?) As I've stated above, the ability to consent is what separates out what should remain illegal and what should not remain illegal.
>And to play devil's advocate (and that language is intentional) who are you to say that a child or an animal can't consent to a sexual relationship or marriage with another child or an adult? How closed-minded of you.
Bitter and unfortunate irony aside, "consent" isn't some ill-defined term that I'm pulling out of left field. College campuses across the United States are developing programs for 18-year old freshmen so that they understand what consent entails, so as to encourage the formation of psychologically, socially and physically healthy (sexual) relationships. For the most part, these programs are geared towards alcohol awareness and the new found freedom of dorm life, but the concepts remain the same. Can a child fully understand the implications of "touch me here"? Can an animal? Can a person blowing a 0.30 BAC? Also, I am not deciding that a child can't consent, I am merely describing social issues that are studied by people who know more than I do.
> We are already giving children under 18 the right to access birth control (without their parent's consent) and the freedom to decide that they are not the gender that they were "assigned" - so why can't they decide who to "love"?
Oh the humanity! Birth control for post-pubescent girls! Birth control and gender assignment are issues of a different nature than gay marriage or pedophilia. Firstly, birth control has medically useful applications outside of pregnancy prevention. Regardless, both birth control and gender assignment are things that only impact the "self", so the comparison falls flat. What does birth control have to do with harm or damage to anyone else? What can gender reassignment do to harm anyone besides the individual in question? It is a well-known phenomenon that victims of child abuse and sexual abuse have issues that last into adulthood. [1] Neither birth control nor gender reassignment surgery promote poor mental or physical health.
> And who are you to say an animal doesn't have the same rights, feelings, and ability to give consent as a human? I think PETA and many others would actively disagree.
I don't have a quote from PETA (I will leave it up to you to flesh out that argument, and find evidence that they actively support sexual relations between man and animal.), but I have found a quote from another ethical promotion society. "As animals do not have the same capacity for thinking as humans, they are unable to give full consent. The HSUS takes the position that all sexual activity between humans and animals is abusive, whether it involves physical injury or not." [2]
> If you pay attention, I haven't mentioned religion. What I've mentioned is the reasoning and appeal you gave for allowing what is "natural". Who decides what is "natural" and acceptable for human beings? The animal kingdom? You personally? These are not troll questions, these are important questions and it matters gravely how we answer them.
Whether or not you've explicitly mentioned religion, reading between the lines of your post suggests that your version of "natural" is based on what comes from the Abrahamic religions. What is "artificial" about letting people feel more comfortable in their body? (Gender reassignment) My personal definition of "right" (and to a lesser extent, "natural") revolves around minimizing harm (physical, emotional, social) done to others. Without getting into an argument about natural rights and the purpose of government... The government disallowing two consenting adults of the same gender from sharing certain financial rights promotes undue harm and hardship. Why should they suffer because they are attracted to the same gender rather than the other? Conversely, the government disallowing an adult from having a sexual relationship with a minor prevents undue harm to a defenseless child.
I don't get to decide what is ultimately right, so the above postulation is just one of many that gets thrown in to the pot of "democracy". Independent of who gets to decide for society, what matters in this forum is strength of argument and logic. Frankly, you've haven't made an argument (that I can see) as to why allowing gay marriage will inevitably lead to the legalization of pedophilia/bestiality/taboo de jour. With that, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt in taking your implication at face value: that gay marriage, in and of itself isn't bad, but since gay marriage might lead to "bad" things, it becomes a "bad" thing too. (Which I believe is specious at best.)
>Neither birth control nor gender reassignment surgery promote poor mental or physical health.
I'd argue this study [0] shows that gender reassignment surgeries increase risk of suicide compared to transexuals pre-surgery with a strong confidence rate. Whether this is due to the surgery or due to increased harassment for their transexuality post-surgery is to be debated (doesn't seem to be mentioned)
There are further studies that show that reassignment does not typically improve one's self-image or happiness. In fact, the countless amount of data has led me to not go through with GR as it seems both expensive and studies show it doesn't really help one become happier with themselves: it can make it worse.
Note that the study was conducted in Sweden - the social stigma is far less than here in America.
> I am not deciding that a child can't consent, I am merely describing social issues that are studied by people who know more than I do.
So the people "who know more than you do" get to decide if a child can consent to have sex with an adult? And what if they change their mind, does that then make it acceptable and healthy?
My point is that when we say that there is no objective standard of right and wrong then we don't get to arbitrarily stop the sexual "civil rights" train after we get what we individually want or what we find acceptable.
There are plenty more people who have not yet been granted the freedom to express their desires by marrying the individual(s) they "love". And who are you to say that their desires aren't valid and healthy? And by what standard?
I don't think the issues are that closely related.
You don't have to be married to have sex, and practicing pedophilia is already illegal.
Pedophilia is categorically different from homosexuality. Children don't generally seek out sexual relationships with adults, making it intrinsically one-sided, and it involves other inherent asymmetries of experience and personal liberty. It's illegal for much the same reason that children can't sign legally binding contracts with adults. (Which also, by the way, makes pedo-marriages illegal as marriage is a contract.)
The zoophilia thing is kind of a red herring for its sheer bizarreness. I mean it does exist, but so do people want to have sex with cheese. Do we deny rights to a huge number of voluntary loving relationships because of bizarre edge cases that occur in minute fractions of the population?
Slippery slope arguments are not always invalid, but they only apply when the slope is actually slippery.
This isn't "moral anarchy." It's a debate between two theories of morality: religious-traditionalist vs. utilitarian-humanist. Both are theories in that they take coherent positions. Neither position is anarchy. If you want to debate, why not debate the real metaphysical and epistemological issues instead of these surface proxy ones?
Now you seem to be arguing about the integrity of the entire fields of psychology and sociology? When I say those "who know more than I do," I am simply deferring to scientists that have studied observable phenomenon and concluded certain things. Science is an ever-evolving field: if scientific consensus was reached that gay marriages, say, encouraged criminal behavior as an adult, then I would reconsider my beliefs.
You are right that we don't get to stop the "civil rights train" (S.B.: what a horrible phrase) when one of us individually gets what we want, but we also don't get to stop the "science train" from telling us cold hard facts about life. (Get over it: gay people can love and raise kids just as well as a heterosexual couple. [1])
What "plenty more people" do you have in mind? Then, tell me how those cases aren't covered by my discussion of consent and we might get somewhere. Those "other people's" freedom to express their desires ends where the harm of another begins.
> Now you seem to be arguing about the integrity of the entire fields of psychology and sociology?
Yes, I am. Because opinions change, scientific or otherwise. Recently opinions changed from calling homosexual marriage an absurdity to a civil right. They also changed from saying that a parent should teach their child about what it means to be male or female into saying that a child can choose his own gender.
> What "plenty more people" do you have in mind? ... tell me how those cases aren't covered by my discussion of consent and we might get somewhere.
Polygamy/Polyandry:
Three consenting adults all love each other and are currently being denied the right to be married. Why should they be deprived of this "basic civil right"?
And if a person loves 20 other people and wants to marry them, then why should they be deprived? Because you don't personally feel that way? Because it's too much paperwork?
Pedophillia:
We are now told that young children have enough understanding and mental faculty to decide that they should be assigned to a different gender and that they should have the ability to control their own sexuality by obtaining birth control with only their individual consent (not their parent's).
If we have come to say that a child can consent and be in control of their own sexuality, then how can we say who they are allowed to have sex with or marry? And by what standard?
If a child is convinced that they are in a mutually consensual, loving relationship with an adult, what right do we have to violate that child's consent?
Zoophillia:
PETA has already shamefully attempted to exploit the pain and persecution of Black Americans (just as the homosexual movement has done) in order to try and say that animal freedom and rights are equivalent to human rights.[1] If animals can feel and think and be happy and give signs of cooperation and acceptance, then who are we to deny their freedom? If an animal wants to marry a human, then how can we deny the two individuals this basic right?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PZBV8O5pfI
And feel free to add on any other combination that an individual decides is their civil right. Because as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, who are we to stand in the way of love? Right?
> Recently opinions changed from calling homosexual marriage an absurdity to a civil right. They also changed from saying that a parent should teach their child about what it means to be male or female into saying that a child can choose his own gender.
You fail to make a convincing argument why this is a bad thing and not a good thing. As you've written it, it's descriptive and not prescriptive. The way I see it, these are great things. Tell me why they are bad things.
> Polygamy/Polyandry: Three consenting adults all love each other and are currently being denied the right to be married. Why should they be deprived of this "basic civil right"
You're trying to paint this argument as a spectrum, and attempting to make it seem like "gay marriage" is violet and "polygamy" is indigo. Polygamy has material differences from gay marriage between two adults, that the government will likely not budge on: namely, two vs. multiple. I don't personally care if twenty people get married to or have sex with one another, and many cultures don't care either. Yet again, my opinion is only one in the melting pot. If it's legalized, what's the harm? You've yet to successfully opine as to what harm will come about if polygamy/polyandry is legalized.
> Pedophillia: We are now told that young children have enough understanding and mental faculty to decide that they should be assigned to a different gender and that they should have the ability to control their own sexuality by obtaining birth control with only their individual consent (not their parent's).
Yet again, you're ignoring the point that deciding what one's own gender identity is, is completely distinct from being sexually involved with an adult third party. This is a clear line, and is well defined legally. Consent isn't the slippery slope that you're making it out to be. A child can't create legally binding contracts in the eyes of the US government. What obligation (and to whom) is engendered by deciding that one wants to switch genders? The standard describing who a child can have sex with is based on existing statute, that modern/current science has revealed to be a pretty good way to continue doing things. That is, "don't let an adult have sex with kids below (age of consent)." The notion of an age of consent is a hot topic for a good reason: age is truly but a number, but science and psychology suggest that very young children shouldn't have sex with people over a decade older than them.
> Zoophillia: PETA has already shamefully attempted to exploit the pain and persecution of Black Americans (just as the homosexual movement has done) in order to try and say that animal freedom and rights are equivalent to human rights.[1] If animals can feel and think and be happy and give signs of cooperation and acceptance, then who are we to deny their freedom? If an animal wants to marry a human, then how can we deny the two individuals this basic right? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PZBV8O5pfI
How has the "homosexual movement" exploited the pain of Black Americans? I wouldn't call it exploitation, I'd call it liberation. Using your logic, we shouldn't have freed slaves either, because the "gays" will soon be able to marry, right?
PETA making the argument that animals are like slaves is a silly one. People with darker skin tone are still people. Animals are not people. People who like members of the same sex are still people. This is simple logic. Genetic makeup is the criteria here, much like age and number are the significant criteria for your previous two examples.
> And feel free to add on any other combination that an individual decides is their civil right. Because as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, who are we to stand in the way of love? Right?
Your bitterness is absurd. Polygamy/polyandry may or may not harm others. Pedophilia and zoophilia do harm others who don't have a voice, hence the clear divide between those two and a type of legal relationship between consenting adults. Have a good day... my patience for ignorance is wearing thin so my input ends here. Thanks for the semi-sincere arguments.
The religious arguments made by opponents to this are disingenuous.
The Bible and many other traditional religious texts have lots of bad things to say about, say, usury (the charging of interest, or at least excess interest), yet you see nobody protesting outside credit card companies or payday lenders. I don't think I've ever heard a Christian conservative criticize our excessive level of private debt. The Catholic Church today is generally anti-death-penalty and anti-war, yet these Papal opinions do not seem to trickle down to the laity either. Christian conservatives were mostly cheerleading the Iraq invasion, though protestants did so slightly more than Catholics.
That tells me this is a proxy debate, at least for the right, and that the real issue is something else. Proxy debates happen when the real issue being debated is something that is verboten in polite discussion, or is something that's already been put to bed -- e.g. the "evolution" proxy debate which is really over teaching of religion in schools (an already settled issue).
The real reason as near as I can tell boils down to crypto-racism and eugenics concerns. If homosexuality is "okay," then that might negatively impact fertility among more "desirable" urban demographics, etc. Basically the concern is that this will negatively impact white or upper class fertility.
That stuff is verboten to talk about in polite company, thus the proxy debating.
P.S. I don't agree and am pro-equality -- I am just analyzing what I see as the real reason for all the opposition. Delve into the right-o-sphere and you immediately run into a ton of "HBD" (human biodiversity, a modern neo-racialist rebranding) type stuff.
P.P.S. I did give the parents a compensatory up-vote since I don't think down-votes should be done out of disagreement. Down-votes should be for things that are just stupid, effortless, or mean-spirited, not for opinions that are just unpopular.
So, speaking as the thing that goes bump in the night (NRX, HBD, the works), I'd agree that your average anti-gay-marriage person is not reading Leviticus and pulling out political positions based on such. I'd even agree that it's a proxy debate.
But I don't think the real issue is crypto-racism. I mean, for one, I'm what you'd call a "racist" and I don't mention such to my anti-gay marriage family. I mean, hey, if racists and homophobes are all one big happy family, they'd know it, right? All I can say is that I'd advise you to take it in good faith when someone says they're against gay marriage and abhor racism. I'm not one of those people, but I used to be, and there are many of them.
(Another way you can tell: when conservatives parody protected classes by assigning as many statuses as they can think of, often they will come up with the black disabled lesbian with a liberal arts degree. But that would be an object of glee rather than outrage for the person you describe: the suicidal enemy. That conservatives don't like the BDL tells me that they don't really consider the homosexual part (or the degree!) a handicap. That's a victory, of a sort, for someone)
But I do think you're right that it's a proxy debate. I think it's an attempt to re-fight the sexual revolution, and gay marriage is seen as yet more lost ground on that front.
Was this a viable political strategy? Intuitively no, and empirically, definitely no. But voters gonna vote.
Thank you, quite insightful and I agree on all counts. My use of the Bible quote was an attempt to cherry-pick in the same sort of way as the arguments I'm detracting. The selective re-imagining of religious texts to fit the preexisting social and ethical desires of a group of people is probably an issue as old as religion and organized civilization itself.
I strongly suspect that the real historic reason for taboos against homosexuality boiled down to two concerns in roughly this order:
(1) Keeping birth rates up in order to raise armies and work forces. Agrarian civilizations derived power largely from their demographic vitality. There are actual references to this in the Bible if I recall correctly -- about your children being as arrows in a quiver, etc. Opting out of fertility was to those civilizations akin to draft dodging or not paying taxes.
(2) Somewhat legitimate sanitation and health concerns before the advent of antibiotics, condoms, etc. -- since some homosexual behaviors are higher risk in this regard. Keep in mind that what today would be a minor infection might be a death sentence back them.
#1 is obsolete. Industrial and post-industrial civilizations derive power from brains and infrastructure, not raw population.
#2 is obsolete if you have an educated population with access to condoms and health care.
If "dysgenics" ever becomes an actual problem we can just fix it with genetic engineering... which of course would require confronting both the left and the right. The left would oppose it because it's not "natural" (no GMO!), while the right would consider it "playing God."
An important distinction between gay marriage and other human taboos that I'm guessing you're referring to (pedophilia, cannibalism, etc.) is the presence of mutual consent and respect. The ability to consent derives from the uniquely (adult) human ability to reason about the future and one's self-existence to an unusually sophisticated level. Children lack the experience necessary to reason about such things, hence why pedophilia is such a long-standing and widespread taboo.
If two fully consenting adults want to do something that celebrates their shared bond between each other, who or what is anyone else to tell them they shouldn't do that?