by TeaPartyCat ()
Stephanie DotyGay marriage bans continue to be struck down in the courts, and as they move their way up to appeals courts, the arguments are getting pretty strained. In fact North Carolina’s attorney general even said he won’t defend his state’s ban because there are no more legitimate arguments to make.
But even so, that hasn’t stopped people like the Texas GOP, who filed a brief in the state appeal saying:
The lieutenant governor and attorney general candidates have signed on with 61 other Republican lawmakers saying Texas’ desire to ban same-sex marriages is akin to its prohibitions against bigamy and incest.The coalition’s brief in support of the state quoted proponents of the ban during legislative debate on the issue, who said recognition of gay marriages, “could lead to the recognition of bigamy, incest, pedophilia, and group marriage.”The brief asserted that, “restrictions on marriage relating to these moral considerations remain valid. Thus, the goal of actively trying to prevent those practices from becoming valid is entirely rational public policy.”In the brief, the Conservative Coalition argued that Texas leaders did not intend to discriminate against homosexuals with the marriage ban.The brief stated (minus legal citations): “While the laws restrict same-sex marriage, they do so not by declaring that homosexuals cannot marry, but by defining marriage as it will be recognized by the State. The laws apply equally to everyone. They were not enacted to ‘disparage and injure,’ anyone. Nor were they enacted out of ‘animosity against homosexuals.’ To the contrary, the laws were enacted with a desire to elevate the state’s legal recognition of marriage to a level that society has celebrated throughout history.”They say this, I’d point out, without mentioning any proof. That is, their argument is that recognizing gay marriage is a slippery slope to things we all agree are bad, like pedophilia and incest, except that it’s not provable. There has never been gay marriage in the past, and pedophilia and incest of course have always occurred. They also can’t argue based on the places that have recognized gay marriage earlier than in the US, because there are no laws in those places now recognizing incest or pedophilia as rights. So the slippery slope is something that just feels like proof to them.
Usually this slippery slope arguing happens on TV or in front of audiences, and not in a legal brief. That, to my knowledge, is taking the slippery slope into new territory.
And so I’d like to point out a few things about how ridiculous it is to claim that recognizing gay marriage will open the door to other things:
So gay marriage is not a slippery slope to these other things. It is only a slippery slope to gays having the same rights as couples as everyone else already does.
- Gay marriage is based on consent. So allowing it does not open the door to arrangements that don’t involve consent such as pedophilia. Pedophilia is wrong because the child cannot consent. Without both parties’ consent, there is no marriage.
- Gay marriage is expanding the definition from two consenting adults of different genders to any two consenting adults regardless of gender. It does not increase the quantity of people involved like polygamy. And gay marriage was never legal, whereas polygamy used to be, and still is in some places around the world. But polygamy recognition never led to gay marriage recognition, so why should we believe that recognizing gay marriage will lead to polygamy being recognized again?
- Incest is about sex, not marriage. Family members already enjoy many benefits of association for tax, legal, medical, and inheritance purposes that gay couples do not get. Granting gay couples marriage rights doesn’t change the rights and obligations of family members.
And finally they throw in this, as though it is somehow provable, or even likely given what supporters of gay marriage so often get caught saying:
They were not enacted to ‘disparage and injure,’ anyone. Nor were they enacted out of ‘animosity against homosexuals.’Or in other words, See? We’re not bigots because we say we’re not. Sorry, assholes, but you don’t get to be the decider of what your motives are.
Finally, who gets the award today? We don’t give it to groups, so I’m giving it to the highest ranking person signing on, which is lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick. So, for pretending that legalizing gay marriage will somehow lead to legalizing polygamy, incest and pedophilia, without a shred of proof, Dan Patrick is Asshole of the Day.
It is Dan Patrick’s first time as Asshole of the Day.
Full story: Dallas News
Weary of Wonderland
August 7, 2014
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