Mary started it all

[DKW 86 7,899]

This is the slippery slope fallacy.

for some of us, it's not a fallacy.

Well, then, to quell your little fears, we have laws prohibiting incest and we have laws prohibiting polygamy. Is everything better now?

Nambla.org

We had laws forbidding Gay Marriage too.

Remember, EVERY argument for accepting homosexual behavior also is valid for pedophilia, beastiality, incest, etc.

Afterall:

They are all found in all cultures. Many cultures acknowledge them as valid.

They are in ancient literature. Many are practiced in other countries.

Many are involved anyway, but must hide in the closet.

A certain % of the population is that way.

God "made" them that way.

Yada, yada, yada.

[Tiger Al 0]

TA: my "little fears" happened to be based on my "little belief system", and i am a "little disappointed" that you chose to dismiss them so quickly as being unfounded...especially with so little of a response.

CT, if tomorrow it were decreed that in every state, county, city and municipality homosexual marriage was lawful, how does that change your life? In what way are you and/or your marriage affected? What is the threat to you?

i guess i should just sit here and be quiet as things i believe in are disregarded as being wrong.

What is it that you believe in that is disregarded as being 'wrong?' That homosexuality is wrong? Then don't engage in homosexual acts. That homosexual marriage is wrong? Then don't marry a man. If you don't do things that you believe are wrong, then you'll emerge victorious every time.

it seems like i'm always the one that's being told 'you're wrong'. when is 'enough' enough? when no standards remain?

IMO, you're only wrong when you start trying to hoist your 'standards' onto other people in the name of religious morality.

Remember, EVERY argument for accepting homosexual behavior also is valid for pedophilia, beastiality, incest, etc.

Yeah, and it can also be used to validate dating, sports and just about anything else that humans do. David, the difference between your examples and homosexuality is that with pedophilia, beastiality and incest some unwilling party is being victimized. If you can't see the difference then it's because you don't want to.

[Weagle98 119]

If tomorrow they allowed sister and sister to marry, Mother and daughter (over 18), Man and two women, man and 50 women, woman and 50 men.

"how does that change your life? In what way are you and/or your marriage affected? What is the threat to you?"

These would be all consenting adults. Don't be a bigot and deny them of their love.

Just because they don't have a loud enough voice "yet" doesn't mean that they should be denied their emotions.

Insert any argument you want here that relates to gay marriage "rights"

Who closed minded people came up with the number 2?

[japantiger 4,116]

I love the replies that say just because the case is on the fringe (re: beastiality, pedophilia, etc.), it won't happen. 30 years ago, if I had told you guys that gay marriage would be allowed under the equal protection clause; you would have told me "I was nuts; evereyone knows that marriage is between a man and a woman". Just because it defies common sense; doesn't mean it won't happen; liberals will just try to redefine common sense (that is what judges do every day).

I have two problems with liberals on most topics:

1 - no standards; everything is OK; it's all relative; no right/wrong; if it feels good; argument to almost everything

2 - either liberals are completely naive and ingorant of history (which is hard to believe given that most of the liberal intelligencia have liberals arts degrees); or they are disengenuous in their agruments andn the real issue is point 1 above.

Either way; it is a bankrupt frame of reference.

[Tiger Al 0]

"how does that change your life? In what way are you and/or your marriage affected? What is the threat to you?"

OK, you raised the questions...answer them.

[TitanTiger 21,241]

This is the slippery slope fallacy.

You're saying that if homosexuals are allowed to marry that it will necessarily cause the desire for marriage between family members and/or three or more people. That's a leap down a slippery slope because one circumstance doesn't have anything to do with the other.

It's a very strange thought and, as such, I really don't think the idea is going to sweep across the country any time in the forseeable future. 

You're using a very broad definition of the slippery slope fallacy here. I'm not saying that all of these things "necessarily" will happen. I'm saying that the same kind of logic being used to justify homosexual marriage is perfectly suited to justify any of the situations I mentioned. I mean, you tell me Al, if marriage is not a concept rooted in an eternal standard, but is subject to redefinition by mandate of culture, are you certain that some future generation, perhaps your grandchildren's or great-grandchildren's will not take the next leap and decide that the laws against multiple partners all marrying each other are "discriminatory", "a forcing of religious standards on others", and a "government invasion into decisions between consenting adults"?

You keep saying that it's not likely. I'm not asking you for Vegas odds. I'm asking you on what basis, if the current logic being employed in the homosexual marriage debate is to be taken as true, would you argue against a father marrying his grown, adult daughter (and not having children), or 3 men and 2 women deciding to have a group marriage?

[Tiger Al 0]

I love the replies that say just because the case is on the fringe (re: beastiality, pedophilia, etc.), it won't happen.  30 years ago, if I had told you guys that gay marriage would be allowed under the equal protection clause; you would have told me "I was nuts; evereyone knows that marriage is between a man and a woman".  Just because it defies common sense; doesn't mean it won't happen; liberals will just try to redefine common sense (that is what judges do every day).

Either way; it is a bankrupt frame of reference.

You're still missing my point. It isn't that beastiality, pedophilia, etc. are on the fringe so I think that legal acceptance will never happen or I've just forgotten to think about it. These acts are crimes not necessarily because they are morally wrong (I think they are), but because they exploit a helpless, unwilling and unconsenting victim. If that never changes, then why would society be compelled to change? A consensual adult homosexual relationship is in no way comparable to an adult stalking, kidnapping and raping a child and I think that most people of reason can make that distinction.

I have two problems with liberals on most topics:

1 - no standards; everything is OK; it's all relative; no right/wrong; if it feels good; argument to almost everything

How is it my right to tell two consenting adults what they can and cannot do as long as they aren't hurting anybody else? It isn't a question of having no moral compass or 'everything is OK.' As an American citizen, it isn't my right, it isn't your right and it isn't the gov't's. right to dictate the kinds of consensual relationships other American citizens are allowed to have. Now, if you don't want them in your country club, fine. If you don't want them in your church, fine. If you don't want to invite them over for a barbecue, fine. You are well within your rights to behave that way.

2 - either liberals are completely naive and ingorant of history (which is hard to believe given that most of the liberal intelligencia have liberals arts degrees); or they are disengenuous in their agruments andn the real issue is point 1 above.

There MUST be more options than that!

[DKW 86 7,899]

DKW said:

Remember, EVERY argument for accepting homosexual behavior also is valid for pedophilia, beastiality, incest, etc.

Tiger AL said:

Yeah, and it can also be used to validate dating, sports and just about anything else that humans do. David, the difference between your examples and homosexuality is that with pedophilia, beastiality and incest some unwilling party is being victimized. If you can't see the difference then it's because you don't want to.

So, if the underage "Boy" is willing then you are okay with it? Is polygamy Okay because everyone is "Okay" with it? I mean, isnt it a Mormon religious belief? No victims here Al. So is everything that doesn't have a Victim okay? The father and dauhter in another thread are okay with incest, according to you that must be alright then?

Why dont we legalize Prostitution, no victims there either Al. Legalize Drugs, Hey, it's their bodies. Think of all the money we would save on jails and the legal system. Its just Victimless crime. We could legalize speeding too, afterall it's a ictimless crime.

If in a contract, both parties break the contract, do they both get "freebies"? Afterall, no blood no foul?

If everyone sins, and we all sin, then why should anyone worry about what might be the better choice. I mean why bother with all these bothersome standards anyway...

[Weagle98 119]

"how does that change your life? In what way are you and/or your marriage affected? What is the threat to you?"

OK, you raised the questions...answer them.

Actually tiger al this was a quote from you. So you raised the questions.

[Tiger Al 0]

You're using a very broad definition of the slippery slope fallacy here.  I'm not saying that all of these things "necessarily" will happen.  I'm saying that the same kind of logic being used to justify homosexual marriage is perfectly suited to justify any of the situations I mentioned.  I mean, you tell me Al, if marriage is not a concept rooted in an eternal standard, but is subject to redefinition by mandate of culture, are you certain that some future generation, perhaps your grandchildren's or great-grandchildren's will not take the next leap and decide that the laws against multiple partners all marrying each other are "discriminatory", "a forcing of religious standards on others", and a "government invasion into decisions between consenting adults"?

You keep saying that it's not likely.  I'm not asking you for Vegas odds.  I'm asking you on what basis, if the current logic being employed in the homosexual marriage debate is to be taken as true, would you argue against a father marrying his grown, adult daughter (and not having children), or 3 men and 2 women deciding to have a group marriage?

No, it's not broad. The reasoning you've given for incest, pedophilia, beastiality, etc. happening follows the slippery slope fallacy perfectly.

Also Known as: The Camel's Nose.

Description of Slippery Slope

The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This "argument" has the following form:

1. Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).

2. Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim. This is especially clear in cases in which there is a significant number of steps or gradations between one event and another.

The arguments used to justify homosexual marriage can be used to describe any person or groups who are marginalized by the law. As I said before, there is nothing that I can see in the forseeable future that would make child molesters fit into the 'marginalized' category. They are criminals because they prey on helpless children. Adult homosexuals engaged in a consensual relationship are not criminals.

TT, if the definition of marriage were expanded to include trees and rocks, how would that possibly impact on the marriage between you and your wife? Is there any likelihood that either one of you will become a tree or rock any time soon? Would it 'invalidate' your marriage? Why do you feel so compelled to have the definition of the word 'marriage' become an amendment to the constitution?

[Tiger Al 0]

So, if the underage "Boy" is willing then you are okay with it?

If the boy, or girl, is underage then they cannot legally consent and is, therefore, a crime. You knew that, though.

Is polygamy Okay because everyone is "Okay" with it? I mean, isnt it a Mormon religious belief? No victims here Al.

Well, perhaps we should investigate why it is against the law. If you wanted to have more than one wife, then why not? If she wants an extra husband, why not? I know the religious reasons given (although polygamy was Biblically acceptable) to oppose it, so your church may not like it, but that is its' prerogative.

Why dont we legalize Prostitution, no victims there either Al.

We should.

Legalize Drugs, Hey, it's their bodies. Think of all the money we would save on jails and the legal system. Its just Victimless crime.

I'm right there with you concerning some drugs like hashish and marijuana, although I would prefer de-criminalization vs. legalization. Others, though, are too great a threat to public safety.

We could legalize speeding too, afterall it's a ictimless crime.

Then it wouldn't be speeding, would it? Actually, some states such as Montana don't have speed limits except at night and inclimate weather. I'm all for it where possible.

If in a contract, both parties break the contract, do they both get "freebies"? Afterall, no blood no foul?

I guess that depends on the parties involved.

If everyone sins, and we all sin, then why should anyone worry about what might be the better choice. I mean why bother with all these bothersome standards anyway...

David, many of the examples you've given have nothing to do with 'sin'. If you're looking to the laws of a free society to be your moral compass then I really think you're making a mistake. If you think it's sinful for YOU to drive faster than XXX mph given no limits, then for God's sake, don't do it!!!

[DKW 86 7,899]

So, if the underage "Boy" is willing then you are okay with it?

If the boy, or girl, is underage then they cannot legally consent and is, therefore, a crime. You knew that, though.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently gave a speech in which she promoted the idea that the age of consent should be lowered to 12. Pretty much legalizes pedophilia. You see Al, if you just change any law a little bit, there are no victims anywhere.

Al, you have to stand for something.

Written as she was working for.......the ACLU!

Academics say we should normalize Pedophilia

And of course, you see nothing wrong with this, huh Al? Or are you going to tell us that you are some kind of Right Wing narrow minded nut case that thinks the Left is sssooo open minded their collective brains have fallen out?

[Tiger Al 0]

Yes, there's that slippery slope again, huh David?

[DKW 86 7,899]

Yes, there's that slippery slope again, huh David?

Apparently you dont think so huh?

[Weagle98 119]

David, when you have a very low moral standard there is not much of a slope.

[Tiger Al 0]

David, when you have a very low moral standard there is not much of a slope.

You don't know me so don't presume to know what my moral standards are.

[CarolinaTiger 0]

David, when you have a very low moral standard there is not much of a slope.

You don't know me so don't presume to know what my moral standards are.

i think we're getting a pretty good idea, TA.

if it doesn't affect me directly, and no one gets harmed, then it's ok...is that a good start to establishing your moral stances?

[TitanTiger 21,241]

You're right Al, you don't have a broad definition. You apparently suffer from a narrow one that you've managed to contort what I'm saying into. Here's a more detailed explanation of the slippery slope fallacy, with highlights to show you how you're twisting my argument:

Slippery Slope

AKA:

Argument of the Beard

Fallacy of the Beard

Types:

Vagueness (Semantic Version)

Non Causa Pro Causa (Causal Version)

Example:

If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church.  At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers.  Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men.  If you can do one you can do the other.  Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding.  Always it is feeding and gloating for more.  Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private.  The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers.  After while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. 

(Clarence Darrow, The Scopes Trial, Day 2)

Analysis

Exposition:

There are two types of fallacy referred to as "slippery slopes": 

Causal Version: 

Form:  If A happens, then by a gradual series of small steps through B, C,...,  X, Y, eventually Z will happen, too.  

Z should not happen.

Therefore, A should not happen, either.

This type is based upon the claim that a controversial type of action will lead inevitably to some admittedly bad type of action.  It is the slide from A to Z via the intermediate steps B through Y that is the "slope", and the smallness of each step that makes it "slippery". 

This type of argument is by no means invariably fallacious, but the strength of the argument is inversely proportional to the number of steps between A and Z, and directly proportional to the causal strength of the connections between adjacent steps.  If there are many intervening steps, and the causal connections between them are weak, or even unknown, then the resulting argument will be very weak, if not downright fallacious... 

The three problems I have with you dismissing my argument with this "slippery slope" charge is that I have never once said that any of other redefinitions of marriage I proposed were "inevitable". They were simply examples of redefinitions that could be argued with PRECISELY the same line of logic that people are using to justify homosexual marriage now.

Secondly, the type of argument I'm making is not "invariably fallacious" just because I show a causal relationship between things that, to your mind, don't seem connected or the result doesn't seem likely.

Third, the "slippery slope" charge gains validity with the number of intervening steps between A and Z as well as the relative weakness of the steps themselves. My list wasn't a continuum. It was a list of options, any of which could be logically argued with homosexual marriage logic and they weren't weak. I didn't propose that pedophilia would be legalized by this same logic because the causal relationship is troublesome. It doesn't involve two consenting adults. All of the things in my list did. There is no reasonable distinction that you could make between any of the possibilities I listed and homosexual marriage. If there were, you would have done so by now.

[channonc 466]

I really do not connect the dots from gay marriage to incest. That seems like such a leap to me.

And in today's NYT, a columnist actually addresses this situation.

Here's the link.Gay Marriage

[TitanTiger 21,241]

I really do not connect the dots from gay marriage to incest. That seems like such a leap to me.

And in today's NYT, a columnist actually addresses this situation.

Here's the link.Gay Marriage

And neither do I. You would have to supplement the argument currently being wielded for homosexual marriage with one for lowering or eliminating age of consent laws. This would better fit the slippery slope fallacy that Al's been talking about.

[Tigermike 3,717]

I really do not connect the dots from gay marriage to incest. That seems like such a leap to me.

And in today's NYT, a columnist actually addresses this situation.

Here's the link.Gay Marriage

channonc, your link goes to a NYT signup page, could/would you post some or all of the article?

[channonc 466]

Stolen Kisses

By BOB HERBERT

Published: March 1, 2004

Columnist Page: Bob Herbert

Forum: Discuss This Column

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

In the film "Cinema Paradiso" a priest previews each movie that is to be shown in a small Italian town and orders the removal of all kissing scenes. Near the end of the film, the main character, a man named Salvatore who had been a small boy at the time the priest exercised his powers of censorship, is given a film reel in which all the deleted kisses have been restored. He watches, profoundly moved, as one couple after another gives physical expression to their mutual love.

In the magic of movie-making we can sometimes recapture the intimacy that is lost to misguided and intolerant customs and policies. Real life is another matter.

In the United States, many people are still uncomfortable with the idea of two men holding hands (unless it's in a football huddle) or two women kissing. Sex between people of the same gender remains a major taboo. And the notion of gay marriage, viewed as an abomination by a huge swath of the electorate, is threatening to become a decisive element in the presidential campaign.

In a country that is quick to celebrate the rights of the individual and the ideals of freedom, real tolerance is often hard to come by.

One of the particularly absurd arguments against allowing gays to marry is that such a lapse would send us skidding down that dreadful slope to legalization of incest, polygamy, bestiality and so forth.

In an interview last spring with The Associated Press, Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, said we'll be on that slope if the courts even tolerate homosexual acts. Referring to the U.S. Supreme Court's consideration of a challenge to a Texas anti-sodomy law, the senator said, "And if the Supreme Court says that you have a right to [gay] consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

That line of thinking reminded me of a passage in Randall Kennedy's book, "Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption." In a 19th-century miscegenation case, a black man in Tennessee was charged with criminal fornication. The man's defense was that the woman, who was white, was his wife. They had been married lawfully in another state.

"That argument," wrote Mr. Kennedy, "was rejected by the Tennessee Supreme Court, which maintained that its acceptance would necessarily lead to condoning `the father living with his daughter . . . in lawful wedlock,' " and "the Turk being allowed to `establish his harem at the doors of the capitol.' " We have a tendency to prohibit things simply because we don't like them. Because they don't appeal to us. They don't feel quite right. Or we've never done it that way before. And when things don't feel quite right, when they make us uncomfortable, we often leap, with no basis in fact, to the conclusion that they are unnatural, immoral, degenerate, against the will of God.

And then the persecution begins.

I find a special irony in the high level of opposition among blacks to gay marriage.

When the U.S. Supreme Court, in the deliciously titled Loving v. Virginia case, finally ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional, 16 states, including Virginia, still had such laws on the books. That was in 1967, at the height of the war in Vietnam and three years after the Beatles had launched their spectacular assault on American-style rock 'n' roll.

In the Loving case a mixed-race married couple was charged with violating Virginia's Racial Integrity Act. The judge who sentenced the couple wrote:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangements there would be no cause for [interracial] marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

Now we're told that he doesn't want gays to marry. That there is something unnatural about the whole idea of men marrying men and women marrying women. That it's abhorrent to much of the population, just as interracial marriages were (and to many, still are) abhorrent.

We need to get a grip. 

[Tigermike 3,717]

If the gay rights people do not endorse nor want to be perceived as condoning pedophilia, why do they all march together? It would seem that if they march down the street arm in arm & sign along side sign that they in effect support each other. For example if we were to see TigerAl (not that he would) marching with the KKK in Montgomery we would assume that he endorsed what they did. No matter what he said to the contrary. It seems logical to assume that since the gay rights folks and NAMBLA folks all march together and protest together that they support, endorse and want equal rights and representation for each other.

[Tiger Al 0]

David, when you have a very low moral standard there is not much of a slope.

You don't know me so don't presume to know what my moral standards are.

i think we're getting a pretty good idea, TA.

if it doesn't affect me directly, and no one gets harmed, then it's ok...is that a good start to establishing your moral stances?

CT, my positions concerning an issue (this one, for example) don't necessarily represent my 'moral standards' in how I conduct myself personally. For example, I think cheating on your spouse is wrong. It destroys an intimate bond with, in my case, my wife that, even if it goes unknown to her, is still degraded. I have made a commitment to her, and she to me, for our lives. It is also a covenant we made with God. Jesus' first miracle was performed at the wedding in Cana to signify the sacramental relationship God has in a marriage.

Having said that, which barely scratches the surface of how I feel about marriage, I would never support any legislation that made adultery a crime in the US. My views on marriage are my own and may pale in comparison to yours. Maybe not. My point is that morality cannot be forced or enforced through laws of a free society. If so, who's version of morality do you use? Yours? Mine? Jerry Falwell's? Howard Stern's? Whose?

If we use mine there will be a lot of unhappy people on this board alone. My opinion of remarriage after divorce is that it is commiting adultery. So, in my country with laws based on my moral compass, anyone who remarries after divorce not in accordance with my views of Biblical scripture is a criminal.

But, not everyone has that same opinion and since this country's laws aren't pulled from the Bible, I would never support a law that made remarriage after divorce illegal. I still think it's wrong, but I don't get to sit in judgement of others. That's God's job, not mine.

So, the issue of gay marriage is in that same category. I am not gay nor do I want to be. I don't hate them, though. And, as they are citizens of this mostly free society, I don't see a reason to marginalize them by law any more than a wife with a boyfriend on the side. And, I certainly don't think that we are in danger of legalizing pedophilia by recognizing same-sex marriages.

[channonc 466]

But, not everyone has that same opinion and since this country's laws aren't pulled from the Bible...

... but I don't get to sit in judgement of others. That's God's job, not mine.

Al, I think you and I are on the same page. That's the way I see things. If you are using the government as a moral compass, then you will have trouble in life. There is no law that says if its legal, you must participate.

There are many people who believe that drinking alcohol isn't right, but it is legal and you can choose whether or not to participate.

Some of you are making a non-issue a huge one. Whether or not 2 men or 2 women get married will not affect you, your family, or your own moral standards.