Yes, We’ve Opened The Door
To Polygamy And Incest: We Just Didn’t Want To Admit It Before
Conservatives have been laughed at for claiming that the
homosexual “marriage” pretense will open the door to a host of horrors. On
March 20, 2012, Kent Greenfield, a law professor at Boston College,
participated in this mockery by his review of amicus briefs
that were given to the Supreme Court to defend the traditional (i.e.
heterosexual) definition of marriage. He wrote in
part:
“Then there’s the fixation on how a ruling in favor of gay marriage
will start the nation down a slippery slope toward polygamy and incest.
Adam and Steve today; tomorrow Adam, Steve, with Cain and Abel along for the
ride as well. But no one seems to notice that the slippery slope worries are as
great with heterosexual marriage as same-sex marriage. The slope between gay
marriage and polygamous or incestuous gay marriage is no steeper and no slicker
than between heterosexual marriage and polygamous or incestuous heterosexual
marriage. So how would this “slippery slope” danger play out? Is the worry that
recognizing marriage equality for gays and lesbians will drive straight men
into the arms of their sisters? Well, now you’ve lost me.”
That was written before the Supreme Court’s decision. Now that the
decision has been made, Greenfield is suddenly changing message:
“It’s been a few weeks since the victories in the marriage cases at the Supreme Court, and maybe it’s time for the political left to own up to something. You know those opponents of marriage equality who said government approval of same-sex marriage might erode bans on polygamous and incestuous marriages? They’re right. As a matter of constitutional rationale, there is indeed a slippery slope between recognizing same-sex marriages and allowing marriages among more than two people and between consenting adults who are related. If we don’t want to go there, we need to come up with distinctions that we have not yet articulated well.”
What
follows is an examination of several attempts to stave off incestuous and
polyamorous marriages. They all plainly fail. Most telling is this one:
“arguments
for marriage equality do not really depend
on the claim that people have no choice about who they are. Rather, the
argument that resonates most with Americans is that LGBTQ people have the same
right to make choices about their families as straight people. Let’s be honest:
If science revealed tomorrow that sexual orientation is fluid and changeable,
the arguments in favor of marriage equality would essentially be the same,
wouldn’t they? Just like our arguments for religious liberty do not depend on
whether people are destined by biology to be a Methodist, our arguments about
the liberty to marry need not depend on science. In any event, if we throw all
our eggs in the ‘it’s about the hardwiring’ basket, are we sure we have made
the distinction we want? Are we confident that science will show that people
who are polyamorous or who are attracted to a cousin are not hardwired that
way?”
The
whole article is good (and by good, I mean it exposes evil), but one other
observation is especially important. The author asked homosexual “marriage”
advocates about the distinction:
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