Ignorance in high places

[Cole Parker]

In another thread, I was just commenting on ignorance. Here's a perfect example of that, voiced by a governor, of all people:

MARK SCOLFORO 59 minutes ago

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican Gov. Tom Corbett compared the marriage of same-sex couples to the marriage of a brother and sister during an appearance on a Friday morning TV news show.

The Pennsylvania governor was on WHP-TV in Harrisburg speaking about gay marriage when an anchor asked about a statement his lawyers made in a recent court filing, comparing the marriage of gay couples to the marriage of children because neither can legally wed in the state.

"It was an inappropriate analogy, you know," Corbett said. "I think a much better analogy would have been brother and sister, don't you?"

Mark Aronchick, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in that case, called Corbett's remarks "insensitive, insulting and plainly wrong."

"In other words, some kind of incestuous relationship," Aronchick said. "He's just out of touch on this one. Gay people marry for the same reasons straight people do — to express their love and to declare their commitment before friends and family."

[JamesSavik]

All sorts of churches have been preaching this sort of crap for decades... maybe even centuries.

If it is mere ignorance, it is a sort of ignorance that a great many people are working hard to spread around.

[The Pecman]

The guy's an asshole. I can remember when they proposed dropping the drinking age to 18, with the understanding that if you're old enough to vote and old enough to be drafted into the Army, then you should be allowed to drinking. Some pundits objected, saying if we now drop it to 18, who's to say it wouldn't be 17 or even 16 a few years from now?

The "slippery slope" argument is a common fallacy and a trick these morons always try to use. Saying that if two men or two women choose to marry, then the next thing you know, we could have three people... or one man and a dog! There's a huge leap between normal marriage and polygamy and bestiality. Two consenting adults... that sounds very simple to me. Stick with that.

[EleCivil]

Saying that if two men or two women choose to marry, then the next thing you know, we could have three people... or one man and a dog!

Nah, there's nothing wrong about the love between a man and his dog.

Unless it's a MALE dog. That'd just be unnatural.

[JamesSavik]

The slippery slope argument is how lawyers and judges do their thing. They think that way because it is so much a part of law and its application.

. Saying that if two men or two women choose to marry, then the next thing you know, we could have three people... or one man and a dog! There's a huge leap between normal marriage and polygamy and bestiality.

< Fluffy is not impressed with that logic.

[Cole Parker]

Nah, there's nothing wrong about the love between a man and his dog.

Unless it's a MALE dog. That'd just be unnatural.

Why in the world would a dog consent to such a marriage? He can already lick himself.

Oops! Bad Cole. Bad Cole. Bad Cole.

[Steven Adamson]

Have you guys ever TRIED sliding down a slippery slope. It's tons of fun. We should do it more often as a society.

I accept that the slippery slope is a fallacy in that what could come after gay marriage isn't relevant to whether gay marriage should be legal.

But you know what? The slippery slope is real. I do in fact think that polygamy and incest marriages will get more serious consideration for legalization because of gay marriage becoming legal.

This means that the merits of polygamy and incest will have to be decided in and of themselves, of course, but that public hearing will be possible because of gay marriage.

As a fan of the weird social structures in science fiction like Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' which features polygamous 'line' marriages and Silverberg's 'triad' breeding families etc I'm actually curious as to what's been holding us to boring two-person pairs for so long.

[The Pecman]

Nah, there's nothing wrong about the love between a man and his dog.

Unless it's a MALE dog. That'd just be unnatural.

Radio comedian Howard Stern always asks about that when his show does a news story on some guy arrested for having sex with an animal. He'll say, "oh, as long as it wasn't a male, at least we know the guy's not weird or anything...", usually followed by a lot of laughter.

Howard has been tireless advocating gay marriage for at least 20 years that I know of. He does poke fun at straights and gays, and is constantly asking celebrities how "big they are in bed," but actually is for gay rights.

[Cole Parker]

I would guess polygamous and incestuous marriages are illegal because of their very real potential to hurt people. Think as I can, I cannot see where gay marriages hurt anyone.

C

[DesDownunder]

"... I'm actually curious as to what's been holding us to boring two-person pairs for so long.

Historically, I'd put the blame on the Abrahamic religious writings, and those of their derived cults. But then as an atheist I would say that, wouldn't I?

Before the distribution of those writings, and from anthropological studies, there seems to be some evidence of tribal community with a village mentality for raising children. If community and tribal adoption of orphans hadn't happened, I doubt that our numbers would have been sufficient to survive. The whole "boring two-person pairs," is much more cultural than simple tribal empathy for orphans. It does appear to be related to narcissistic desire for 'ownership' of the partner...jealousy, that one's partner belongs to the other person, and this was incorporated into our civilisations from around the time of ancient Eqypt to varying degrees. So much for traditional family values, which are much more recent concepts.

Interestingly, our own more recent history reveals that aristocratic families have always dallied in sexual liaisons outside the immediate family pairing. The serfs and workers however,were not granted the same freedom to satisfy their lusts until the early part of the twentieth century. By the 1960s, communes shared partners and meals, reminiscent of Roman orgies.

The attitudes of my grandparents were very much of the restrictive Victorian era, and they would have stared blankly at the idea of more than one partner.

The freedom of sexual expression is an important new area of human rights liberation for which, the LGBTQ right to marry is merely the beginning. Given the proliferation and stranglehold of extremist religious belief, the human race may well find itself in severe disputes before it manges to divorce itself from these limiting concepts of pairing..

[Cole Parker]

Methinks you're forgetting such human sentiments as love and jealousy and envy and security, Des. Each of these have an effect on multi-partnered societies.

C

[Steven Adamson]

But, Abraham had two wives...

Or was the handmaiden who bore Ishmael not an official wife?

Man, I the Sunday school teacher who has to deal with this passage must have brain seizures trying to dance around the marriage/sex issue.