Slippery Slopes Do Exist

In the recent Headquarters Piece I wrote for Salvo about gay 'marriage,' I referred to a consultation document that the UK Government issued on the topic of gay 'marriage.' In this post I would like to make a point that I didn't make in the Salvo article, and one which relates to the whole notion of slippery slopes.

Whenever I debate anyone on the topic of gay 'marriage', as soon as my opponent can identify my argument as a 'slippery slope argument', it is assumed that they have scored a point against me, as if it is now universally accepted that slippery slope arguments are logically invalid.

But slippery slopes do exist, and if we are considering the issue of gay 'marriage', slippery slopes have already been realized in those nations that have introduced same-sex 'marriages.' I'll mention about that momentarily, but first I'll share the slippery slope argument. Here's how I developed the slippery slope argument when I was campaigning against same-sex marriage in Britain:

The Government’s consultation paper continually presented the issue of same-sex ‘marriage’ in terms of ‘equal access.’ In their simplistic and philosophically unsophisticated way, the issue becomes a straightforward question of fairness. However, if we accept that the principle of equality means that same-sex couples should be entitled to the same rights as married couples (including the right to call their union a ‘marriage’), then in order to be logically consistent we would also have to say that a definition of marriage which includes both heterosexual and same-sex unions, yet excludes unions with animals or multiple partners, is also failing to provide equal protection under the law to someone or other.

Indeed, if someone is bisexual, then in order for their sexuality to be fully expressed, their ‘marriage’ must include a minimum of at least one person from each sex. Thus, the argument that we should not discriminate based on sexual orientation, if carried to its logical conclusion, necessitates ‘threesomes’ at least.

In reality, any new definition of marriage that Government may wish to impose on the public opens the door to an endless series of redefinitions in years to come. This is because what is true of the word marriage is true of any noun: to define a word as one thing is necessarily to exclude that word as being some other thing. A noun that can mean anything is a noun that means nothing. Unless the term ‘marriage’ is to collapse into complete vacuity, it must necessarily exclude certain types of unions.

OK, that's the slippery slope argument. Now if the champions of same-sex 'marriage' are to be believed, this is a fanciful act of imagination to try to create a scare about gay 'marriage' even though there is no evidence that introducing gay 'marriage' would invite any of these conditions.

Once again, slippery slopes DO exist, and we are now in a position to verify this by considering those nations that have already legalized same-sex ‘marriage.’ Indeed, in allowing for homosexual ‘marriages’, certain nations have inadvertently and inevitably opened the door to additional redefinitions. Consider only a few examples.

After the Netherlands legalized same-sex ‘marriage,’ they began giving legal recognition to threesomes.

After Spain did the same they began changing birth certificates so as to refer to ‘Progenitor A’ and ‘Progenitor B’ rather than ‘mother’ and ‘father’.

In Mexico City, proposals were subsequently introduced to allow for fixed-term marriages.

Canada introduced ‘gay marriage’ and there are now credible and logical attempts to use the measure as a precedent for legalising polygamy.

As more nations jump on the gay 'marriage' bandwagon, we should expect to see many other perversions introduced. Gay 'marriage' is only the beginning.

In short, slippery slopes do exist and that is why both America and Britain ought to oppose same-sex 'marriage.'

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