Lapsus Matrimonii

The favorite rhetorical trick of the anti-gay marriage crowd is the slippery slope: if we allow gays to marry, then there is no reason three people can’t marry, and so forth and so on. Every sane reasoner knows that such arguments are ridiculous. But that doesn’t mean people don’t make them. The latest iteration of the slippery trope goes something like this:

>Activists are deployed across the country challenging traditional marriage, and it is more than likely that some additional judges will compound the Massachusetts mistake. This increased judicial approval of same-sex marriage will metastasize into the larger culture. Indeed, an insidious, but less recognized, consequence will be a push to demonize–and then punish–faith communities that refuse to bless homosexual unions.

So argues Douglas Kmiec, professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University. To lubricate the slope, Professor Kmiec draws an extended analogy with the Boy Scouts:

>While it may be inconceivable for many to imagine America treating churches that oppose gay marriage the same as racists who opposed interracial marriage in the 1960s, just consider the fate of the Boy Scouts. The Scouts have paid dearly for asserting their 1st Amendment right not to be forced to accept gay scoutmasters. In retaliation, the Scouts have been denied access to public parks and boat slips, charitable donation campaigns and other government benefits. The endgame of gay activists is to strip the Boy Scouts (and by extension, any other organization that morally opposes gay marriage) of its tax-exempt status under both federal and state law.

In the first place, it should be noted that there is a fundamental difference between the Boy Scouts use of public funds and property to discriminate against individuals and any church’s right to bless what it wants. No one doubts Bob Jones University’s right to prohibit interracial dating among those who subscribe to its version of Christianity, but hardly anyone could argue that the university should receive public funds to further that policy.

Since the analogy fails, it’s hardly likely that churches will be punished in any other than the usual way–losing members and earning the moral disapproval of those who disagree with their view.

Besides this, what’s really confused about Kmiec’s argument is that he thinks churches will have to make the affirmative step of “blessing homosexual unions.” Conservative churches maintain all sorts of discriminatory belief systems (women can’t be priests, nor can married people, nor can, get this, open homosexuals) and they continue to exist. They even receive rich federal grants for charitable work not associated with proselytizing.

There is one positive thing about slippery slope arguments: they slide both ways. The person who claims outrageous conclusions will follow opens himself to criticism about what justifies his affirmation. So, one wonders, what justifies this:

>Many share the view, as I do, that marriage is a moral reality incapable of redefinition by court edict.

Just because many share the view that it’s a moral reality, doesn’t mean it is. If such things were determined by popular vote, all sorts of craziness would follow, wouldn’t it?

8 thoughts on “Lapsus Matrimonii”

  1. I hope I’m back and out from under that dreaded spam filter.

    I don’t like spam.

    Spamalot is playing just a few hundred yards from where I sit here at Ground Zero in Wash DC, tho.

    Not that that’s relevant.

    I look at this site because whether or not logic applies ultimately to more than itself, it comprises a set of manners by which to guide reasoned discussion.

    All that we lack is a common commitment to eschew deliberate fallacy and to atone for falling into inadvertent error.

    I encourage folks from this blog, equipped as they are with uncommon stores of sound reasoning techniques, to frequent and correct what they see on the new Unity08 third party website. They need the help.

  2. Sorry about the spam filter. It is a little aggresive sometimes. Thanks for the comment.

  3. I think I got the problem solved. When it rejected my post above I finally got a clue.

  4. [[ I realized after I wrote this that it’s not so much a reply to Mr. Kmiec’s new slopey argument, but perhaps a defense of the validity of the old one. Anyhow, since only one person’s replied so far, and I spent all that time typing it, I may as well post anyway. I promise to be on topic next time–heterosexual scout’s honor. ]]

    Yes, the argument by itself fails a logical breakdown, but I think there’s a reason why it’s so effective. The context of the issue is, you have crazy liberals like me who want to view (the government’s role in) marriage as nothing more than contract law: a quick and tidy, socially understood combination of a financial merger along with hospital and prison visitation rights, psychiatric facility committal rights, insurance and inheritance rights, et cetera.

    When this is the basis for your argument for supporting the rights of same-sex couples to marry, then the slope does indeed exist. And slippery nothing, this slope’s a straight drop. By this purely legal understanding of marriage, there’s no problem in marrying any rational entity, be the union man to man, man to man to woman, or man to man to woman to hermaphroditic Martian.

    The present social impasse seems like the obvious result of government’s historical sponsorship of marriage and it’s confounding duality: a religious sacrament and a legal contract. I think that the conservatives are afraid that once we stray from defining marriage by the (sort of) traditional religious definition, the whole concept of the “sacrament” is exposed for the legal contract it really is. (I say that it’s the “sort of traditional” definition because marriage certainly predates Christianity, and I believe Roman marriage was free of any religious aspects whatsoever–though I warmly welcome a history lesson here).

    I only hope that the conservatives are right and we start straying soon. I got me a hot Martian that I want to jointly file some tax returns with.

  5. i think this best demonstrates the strength of the right-wing, would-be theocracy–they find a talking point and stay on it, regardless of the logical implications of their stance. this isn’t about marriage, or morality, or whatever the kids are baptizing their phony arguments as nowdays–it’s about an upcoming election where the majority party has fallen out of favor with the public and wishes to maintain their feeble grasp on the legislature. what to do, what to do?! let’s find some tangential, unuimportant issue that will raise the neo-religious hackles of our fanbase, squeeze onto the ballots in some borderline states and giggle while they parade to the polls like sheep. even entering into the debate over this issue lends it creedence.

  6. i think this best demonstrates the strength of the right-wing, would-be theocracy–they find a talking point and stay on it, regardless of the logical implications of their stance. this isn’t about marriage, or morality, or whatever the kids are baptizing their phony arguments as nowdays–it’s about an upcoming election where the majority party has fallen out of favor with the public and wishes to maintain their feeble grasp on the legislature. what to do, what to do?! let’s find some tangential, unuimportant issue that will raise the neo-religious hackles of our fanbase, squeeze onto the ballots in some borderline states and giggle while they parade to the polls like sheep.

  7. don’t know why that posted twice…and, mr. dolan, you can love your martians, you just can’t LOVE your martians…

Comments are closed.