Slippery Slope Predicted?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
101

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:
Before we get our magic underwear in a bunch, the court did not rule that Polygamy is unconstitutional. In fact, he says that the states ban on polygamy is permissible. What he found unconstitutional is a Utah law forbidding cohabitation between a married person and someone other than their spouse. The state admitted they only went after Mormon cohabitors, so the judge found the law unconstitutional in practice.

According to the reports I’ve read (I haven’t read the entire ruling) the judge doesn’t even site the USSC case striking down the Defense of Marriage Act. He also states that there is no fundamental right to polygamy.

So, no slippery slope here.

The Utah law in question states: “A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.”[/quote]

Do other states have laws on this? If Utah is just getting its law changed to align with other states then this is a non-issue.

Also, for this to be a slippery slope wouldn’t the state in question first have to legalize gay marriage? [/quote]

Other states do not have the prohibition against cohabitation. The judge said the part prohibiting cohabitation needed to be struck for the law to be constitutional.

102

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

Alcohol is a drug and is legal. Therefore heroin will be legal because you can logically argue along the same lines. Well sure you can argue that, but heroin isn’t legal.[/quote]

Not to speak for UtahLama, but that’s not the argument. The argument is;

Alcohol and tobacco are legal so pot should be legal; and once pot is legalized harder drugs will or should soon follow.

Pointing to the top and the bottom and saying they are separate does nothing to disprove the slope between them.
[/quote]

treating a medical problem (ADDICTION) with the Judicial system is stupidity

103

[quote]Dr. Pangloss wrote:

I have no idea what you’re talking about, literally or metaphorically.

The reason article you linked to doesn’t contradict anything I said (although I did go back and edit my first sentence for clarity).

If you have a point to make, please make it.
[/quote]

Say the judge was a raving lunatic in favor of plural marriage; what more could he have done that wouldn’t be overturned on appeal? He pretty much took the fullest unquestionable action within his purview and he cited the landmark gay rights case, Lawrence v. Texas as precedence. And we all know that case had no bearing on marriage equality, right?

Saying ‘Nah, I don’t see any slippery slope.’ is like finding another man’s shoes under your bed and saying your wife can’t possibly be cheating because you didn’t catch her naked and in bed with someone else.

Scalia has said in several of these cases, that when the court should be making strictly legal and procedural rulings it, instead, chooses to make moral or cultural decisions, such as telling people who hold strongly religious beliefs that homosexuals shouldn’t marry that they are enemies of humanity.

104

What are a liberals arguments against polygamy anyway? Saying something is a slippery slope from x to y is only worth mentioning if you want x but not y.

106

[quote]sufiandy wrote:
What are a liberals arguments against polygamy anyway? Saying something is a slippery slope from x to y is only worth mentioning if you want x but not y.[/quote]

As a marginally conservative heterosexual, who routinely advocates consensual plural marriage (because it makes more sense to me than gay marriage by itself), I routinely get, “It’s too complicated.” and “The negative consequences are unimaginable.” Which, given the thousands of pages of tax code and the entire field of Corporate Law leads me to believe that these people are using the same excuse that was used against homosexual marriage in the early/mid 90s.

What’s worse is that many of the issues associated with homosexuals amount not to anti-homosexual sentiment but to completely innocent heterosexism. Gay marriage does little to address heterosexism but plural marriage would entirely obviate it.

107

The problem here is not that there is a brand new argument in favor of polygamy.
The problem is that we don’t have anything against it anymore.

We used what we had against gay marriage, and it failed.

We lost the war, our army is weakened, our guns are broken, our last ammos have been used.
It’s not a slippery slope fallacy to predict we will be shattered by the next battle.

It’s common sense.

108

[quote]sufiandy wrote:
What are a liberals arguments against polygamy anyway? Saying something is a slippery slope from x to y is only worth mentioning if you want x but not y.[/quote]

Non that I can think of so long as it is consenting ADULTS. Anyone that wants more than one wife has been punished enough IMO.

109

[quote]kamui wrote:
The problem here is not that there is a brand new argument in favor of polygamy.
The problem is that we don’t have anything against it anymore.

We used what we had against gay marriage, and it failed.

We lost the war, our army is weakened, our guns are broken, our last ammos have been used.
It’s not a slippery slope fallacy to predict we will be shattered by the next battle.

It’s common sense. [/quote]

You know kamui, I’m continually impressed to see how concisely and clearly you can articulate things that I have immense trouble with in 5 times the space.

110

[quote]Testy1 wrote:

[quote]sufiandy wrote:
What are a liberals arguments against polygamy anyway? Saying something is a slippery slope from x to y is only worth mentioning if you want x but not y.[/quote]

Non that I can think of so long as it is consenting ADULTS. Anyone that wants more than one wife has been punished enough IMO.
[/quote]

Masochism is apparently thriving. Just sayin’

111

[quote]Testy1 wrote:

Anyone that wants more than one wife has been punished enough IMO.
[/quote]

I would even say that compelling someone to go through multiple wives serially rather than in parallel is a far greater crime against humanity than taxing married homosexuals as individuals.

112

[quote]lucasa wrote:

[quote]Testy1 wrote:

Anyone that wants more than one wife has been punished enough IMO.
[/quote]

I would even say that compelling someone to go through multiple wives serially rather than in parallel is a far greater crime against humanity than taxing married homosexuals as individuals. [/quote]

False dichotomy. One can go through multiple wives serially AND in parallel.

And, as everyone should know, compelling people is evil. Period.

113

[quote]kamui wrote:
The problem here is not that there is a brand new argument in favor of polygamy.
The problem is that we don’t have anything against it anymore.

We used what we had against gay marriage, and it failed.

We lost the war, our army is weakened, our guns are broken, our last ammos have been used.
It’s not a slippery slope fallacy to predict we will be shattered by the next battle.

It’s common sense. [/quote]

It is a slippery slope argument not featuring necessary logical implication and/or verifiable probabilistic prognostication, and a slippery slope argument not featuring necessary logical implication and/or verifiable probabilistic prognostication is fallacious; so it is in fact a slippery slope fallacy, and exactly that.

115

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
The problem here is not that there is a brand new argument in favor of polygamy.
The problem is that we don’t have anything against it anymore.

We used what we had against gay marriage, and it failed.

We lost the war, our army is weakened, our guns are broken, our last ammos have been used.
It’s not a slippery slope fallacy to predict we will be shattered by the next battle.

It’s common sense. [/quote]

It is a slippery slope argument not featuring necessary logical implication and/or verifiable probabilistic prognostication, and a slippery slope argument not featuring necessary logical implication and/or verifiable probabilistic prognostication is fallacious; so it is in fact a slippery slope fallacy, and exactly that.[/quote]

Ummm…no, I don’t think so.
[/quote]

Which part?

None of the steps in the argument are logically necessary, therefore it is fallacious.

Gay marriage could lead to polygamy or bestiality in the same way that raising the drinking age from 18 to 21 could have led to a further raise from 21 to 22 and from 22 to 23 and from 23 to 24 and from 24 to 100. Arbitrariness is an ineradicable feature of law and thus slippery slopes that are not logically necessary are formally fallacious.

116

And tight regulation of automatic weapons in the United States could have led to a ban on the private ownership of your regular 'ole pistol, and the repeal of the ban on the production, transport, and sale of alcohol in 1933 could have led to the decriminalization of cocaine, and setting the Obamacare subsidies up to X income level could have led to their being set up to X+1 income level, and then (X+1)+1, and soon you’d have Mark Zuckerberg getting his check-ups on the federal dime.

117

The argument this not that “gay marriage will lead to polygamy or bestiality”
Rephrased like this, it is actually fallacious.
but… sine gloria vincit qui sine periculo vincitur.

The argument is this :
Marriage was a societal model and a privilege.
Marriage is now an individual right
So we will have a substantially harder time to deprive other people (like polygamists or furry freaks) of this right.

In other words : polygamists now have a good legal argument for their case.

And actually, some answers in this thread sound very much like “don’t worry, we can still oppress them because…”

118

[quote]kamui wrote:

Marriage was a societal model and a privilege.

[/quote]

Perhaps not by you, but the argument I reproduced has been made more times than I could count on this board.

But this portion I quoted here.

The logical implication is that by allowing gays to marry each other, marriage is no longer a societal model and a privilege.

Which of the two do gays dethrone, and how.

119

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

Marriage was a societal model and a privilege.

[/quote]

Perhaps not by you, but the argument I reproduced has been made more times than I could count on this board.

But this portion I quoted here.

The logical implication is that by allowing gays to marry each other, marriage is no longer a societal model and a privilege.

Which of the two do gays dethrone, and how.[/quote]

First, it’s not gays, it’s us, really.

For years, the debate went like this :

-Gay marriage is forbidden
-It’s unfair, they love each other and they don’t harm anyone
-Maybe, but marriage is not a right, it’s a privilege, a way to promote the model of the nuclear heterosexual family. They simply aren’t entitled to it.
-We don’t care about that anymore, give them their right !

And we did.

Now :
-Plural marriage is forbidden
-It’s unfair, they love each other and they don’t harm anyone

And we have nothing left to answer.
Besides half-assed and ultimately unfair arguments.

Not because gay marriage was allowed, per se, but because the very idea of an (heterosexual) model is now condemned as intrinsically oppressive.

Polygamists weren’t entitled to a privilege, they are now deprived of a right.
De facto.