Tag Archives: Family Research Council

This is the slippery slope we were talking about

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has identified the cause of the recent scandal involving the Secret Service, prostitutes, and discounts.  It turns out that this is the causal or logical result of the breakdown of the moral order.  This breakdown in the moral order was caused by the repeal of "Don't ask don't tell" among other things.

Perkins: Yeah, you know that’s a great point. Just for a moment step back and look at the implications of this, over the weekend we saw the news of the President’s Secret Service detail in Colombia and the issue of them hiring prostitutes and now the White House is outraged about that. Actually in a meeting this morning my staff asked, ‘why should the President be upset’? It was actually legal; it was legal there to do that, so why should we be upset? Well, the fact is we intuitively know it’s wrong, there’s a moral law against that.

The same is true for what the President has done to the military enforcing open homosexuality in our military. You can change the law but you can’t change the moral law that’s behind it. You can change the positive law, the law that is created by man, but you can’t change the moral law, it’s wrong. So what you have is you have a total breakdown and you can’t pick and choose. Morality is not a smorgasbord; you can’t pick what you want. I think you’re absolutely right, this is a fundamental issue going forward because if we say ‘let them do what we want,’ what’s next? You cannot maintain moral order if you are willing to allow a few things to slide.

I'd say this is maximally dubious.  Among other things, as far as I know, heterosexual men do not look to homosexual men for moral or sexual guidance.  Unless they're really gay.  I guess that makes the Secret Service agents gay.

Term complements

Figuring out of what's the opposite of what is one of those Sesame Street skills that doesn't often get practiced in a critical thinking or logic course.  You get a little of this in the logic of terms if you cover obversion or contraposition.  It's a useful skill, I think, just ask Tony Perkins.  Speaking of the Federal judge who decided the recent Proposition 8 case in California, he says:

"Had this guy been … an evangelical preacher in his past there would have been cries for him to step down from this case," he added. "So I do think [his homosexuality] has a bearing on the case. But this is not without precedent."

The logical complement of "homosexual" is not "evangelical preacher."

Besides, on this argument,  a married or marriable straight person would stand in the same allegedly biased relation to the outcome as a single gay person.  Who does that leave?