Homosexual Marriage and the Slippery Slope

The headline in yesterday’s Vancouver Sun says it all: “Polygamy reference case could open door to legalizing multiple marriage”. The short reply is, ‘And why not? If we are happy to redefine marriage out of existence with homosexual marriage, then why not group marriage? Both are based on exactly the same argument.’

Here is how the story begins: “Canada is on the cusp of either legalizing polygamy or strengthening the 120-year prohibition against multiple marriage. That’s what is at stake in the constitutional reference case that will begin Monday in B.C. Supreme Court and is scheduled to last at least until the end of January. The case will weigh whether Canada’s anti-polygamy law is constitutional.”

Homosexual activists will sneer at this, seeking to deny the obvious. In the same way, when marriage was watered down not all that long ago to include de facto couples, pro-marriage people warned that homosexual marriage would be next. They too were sneered at and mocked.

But they were exactly right to raise the slippery slope argument, just as we are today. Indeed, the same arguments used for legalising same-sex marriage could be used to argue for legalising incest, polygamy, and any number of other sexual combinations. If a man wanted to have a long-term sexual relationship with his daughter, or if three women wanted to do the same, how could any society argue against it, if it has already overturned the traditional understanding of marriage?

If marriage is no longer one man, one woman for life, then any number of alternatives seem to be possible. If homosexuals can argue that a loving committed relationship should qualify anyone for the institution of marriage, then other equally binding and loving unions should be recognised.

As Sam Schulman put it, “If we grant rights to one group because they have demanded it – which is, practically, how legalized gay marriage will come to pass – we will find it exceedingly awkward to deny similar rights to others ready with their own dossiers of ‘victimization.’ In time, restricting marriage rights to couples, whether straight or gay, can be made to seem no less arbitrary than the practice of restricting marriage rights to one man and one woman. Ultimately, the same must go for incestuous relationships between consenting adults.”

Logically, one could argue for all sorts of combinations and permutations if we swallow the idea that same-sex couples have a right to marry. What about a bisexual who really does love both a man and a woman? Cannot this threesome qualify?

In fact, polyamory (group marriage) has become a new cause, championed by both grassroots groups and academic supporters. A quick search of the Web will reveal just how popular the idea of polyamory is becoming. Family law reformers for example are increasingly promoting this new sexual cause.

And as one commentator has noted, the “case for polygamy is in some ways stronger than the case for same-sex marriage”. She explains: “In contrast to same-sex marriage, there is historical and cultural precedent for it. Unlike same-sex marriage, polygamy provides a father and a mother (and then some) for children.”

Indeed, there have been plenty of homosexual activists who have long argued for the removal of most, if not all, legal restrictions on sexuality. Way back in 1972 the National Coalition of Gay Organizations in the US demanded the “repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit regardless of sex or numbers.”

Also in this 1972 Gay Rights Platform was the call for the abolition of all age of sexual consent laws. These proposals were endorsed wide and far in the homosexual community. Indeed, lesbian activist Judith Levine argued for all this and more (even pedophilia) in her famous Village Voice article, “Stop the Wedding! Why Gay Marriage Isn’t Radical Enough”.

The truth is, all boundaries are smashed when we redefine marriage. There are even groups arguing for the right to marry one’s pet! Called petrosexuality, this new sexuality insists that a person’s love for his or her pet, including sexual relations, should be made official. Thus one Dutch web site encourages people to marry their pets.

Such proposals are not just being made by the lunatic fringe. Consider a recent article in the Futurist, produced by the World Futurist Society based in America. A cultural historian wrote an article entitled “The Transformation of Marriage”. Stephen Bertman, professor emeritus of languages, literatures, and cultures at Canada’s University of Windsor, argued that marriage may be “a semantic artefact of a lost world”. He argued that it is not just the transience of marriage that is at issue now. “It is the very definition of the term that futurists must now address. A radical redefinition of marriage is now under way that promises to transform its meaning for all future time.”

He gave as his first example same-sex marriage. He did not stop there however. He then went on to speak of other types of marriage. Seemingly with a straight face, he first raised the prospect of “interspecies marriage”. This is the “potential for the sexual union of human beings and aliens”. From there he mentioned the option of marriages to pets. Why couldn’t an “individual choose to affirm the emotional attachment he or she feels for a pet with the formality of a documented ceremony in which the human partner promises to love and honor the animal companion?”

And finally, presumably still with the utmost seriousness, he speaks of the “theoretical possibility” of “the marriage of human beings to inanimate objects”. He speaks of how many men love their cars, or how many people have formed an intimate relationship with their computer. “Why should not this bond of tactile intimacy be validated by more than an owner’s manual?” he asks, seemingly in complete sincerity.

As William Bennett writes, “once marriage has been detached from the natural, complementary teleology of the sexes, it becomes nothing more than what each of us makes of it”. Or as another commentator says, “What we are doing by creating this institution to be called ‘gay marriage’ is smashing marriage and replacing it with a whole new set of arrangements that apply to everybody, not just homosexuals, everybody, in which marriage is a unique contract between any two or more adults who want to enter into it and set by any rules. It makes marriage impermanent, and it turns children into commodities.”

That the legalisation of SSM would radically alter and redefine the institution of marriage is of course widely acknowledged by homosexual activists. I have already cited some of them. Here let me offer just one more representative quote. Tom Stoddard is a leading homosexual activist in the US. He has been quite willing to admit that “enlarging the concept [of heterosexual marriage] to embrace same-sex couples would necessarily transform it into something new” (emphasis added).

Exactly so. We eagerly await the decision of the Supreme Court in British Columbia.

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/LANDMARK+POLYGAMY+RULING+AWAITED/3860926/story.html

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25 Replies to “Homosexual Marriage and the Slippery Slope”

  1. .
    Yes, and what about those individuals afflicted by objectum sexuality as in the case of Swedish Eija-Ritta Elkof Berliner-Mauer, who is married to the Berlin Wall? Or Erika Eiffel who is married to the Eiffel Tower? Such individuals believe in animism, or the belief that objects have souls, intelligence, feelings and are able to communicate.

    What are we to make of TRisexuals in which a women will partner two men, or a man two women? Their organisation ‘Tripod’, downplays they are former transsexuals and are concerned about the bullying of trisexual children in schools. They believe they were born that way and resent they are excluded from the LGBT sphere of influence. They also seek the right to holy matrimony and adoption.

    Harry Templeton

    .

  2. Harry, presumably you mean Eija-Ritta Elkof etc. was married to the Berlin Wall (a marriage now much fragmented, as there are bits of it everywhere)? No, really I think Eija and Erika’s situations should be taken quite seriously; once you abandon marriage as meaning one man and one woman you can’t logically or rationally have any objection to anything. You don’t need to reduce everything to the absurd; it’s been done already.
    John Thomas, UK

  3. Hi Bill,

    Thank you for bringing all of these consequential “off-shoot” issues of SSM to our attention. One of the biggest arguments raised from those who will happily name me an “outdated bigot” for opposing SSM is that there will be no consequences of SSM legalisation to the average person. Obviously if I agreed, I wouldn’t oppose it either. But clearly once we say “OK” to these things, we are forced to OK everything else that becomes a matter of urgency (or so we are told by the minority who consider it urgent).
    As a 24yr old without children, it honestly concerns me what will be considered normal in primary and secondary schools when my children are going through the education system. It concerns me that the curriculum will have to include these unnatural concepts of family and community. I pray that Christians will stand up and speak!

    Jess Hagen

  4. There was a really bizarre article posted on On Line Opinion by James Mangisi. In it he says:

    “Blast democracy if it undermines the integrity of our freedom! In Australia, we are nothing if we are not free, first and foremost, and where democracy threatens this, it too must be set aside in aid of a higher authority. This is precisely why I care about gay marriage.”

    “Any notions of Catholic morality died with the revelation that women who attempt to become priests face excommunication, but male priests who rape and torture children do not. Thinkers of this kind have no place in the Australian moral discourse. So, Tony Abbott can keep his arbitrary moral values (and I use the term “moral” in its loosest possible sense) to himself.”

    Such blatant hostility to those holding other views is very backwards for someone who would no doubt claim to be progressive.

    Check out his full article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11267&page=2

    It is very off-putting.

    Regards,

    Cameron Spink

  5. What a bankrupt article you refer us to Cam,

    Filled with outright lies and hypocrisy. He quotes the Kinsley figure of 10% which is based off very poor research from a character with no moral credibility. The actual figure is from about 1 to 4 percent.

    The deception continues with the comparison between them and the civil rights movement. Which in itself is a poor analogy as race is inbuilt, passive and immutable, whereas sexual orientation is different on all counts. It is also ironic as the greatest opponents to racial oppression were a baptist minister M Luther King and a Christian politician in Wilberforce. Therefore to attack the voices of churches would be to stand alongside the voices that told Wilberforce to leave his religion out of politics.

    Despite how disgraceful the pedophile priests actions were it is quite strange how gay activism picks up on this. Given the level of support the gay community has shown to groups that suggest the dropping of the age of consent and the harboring of man-boy groups. It is unlikely that they would advocate being disallowed to deliver views on morality themselves.

    The biggest hypocrisy though, is that he attacks democracy and then turns around and calls for the people to march and calls on the authority of public polling. Disgusting.

    Regards,

    Jonathan Bertuch

  6. I have a saying (may not be a verbatim quotation, but is close enough) stuck to the top of my computer, as follows” when commonsense ceases to be common, a society is in terminal decay”. I have been told it is one of G.K. Chesterton’s gems, but it may not be.
    However, it sadly reflects today’s “Western” Society. The age-old institution of marriage is being rapidly undermined by those that seem to be completely lacking in common sense.
    Jerome Gonzalez

  7. Bill,

    Should we Christians, as an oppressed minority, not demand our own special rights? If homosexual marriage is forced upon us, let’s “give up our marriages” and invent a new concept. Let’s call it “Christian marriage” defined as one man, one woman as a separate legal concept to “marriage” however the state wants to define that concept. I was told that something similar called “covenant marriage” with stricter laws on divorce, was brought into legal force about 10 years ago in some states of the USA. Prior to marriage, a couple could nominate under what marriage laws they wished to be married.

    Just wondering what you think of that … ?

    Graeme Cumming

  8. Thanks Graeme

    Yes I am aware of that US movement. I tend to be wary of it, since it just seems to further fragment marriage. Thus we have now a two-tier system in some US states, and that seems to further water down what marriage is all about. It is a real important problem that you are raising, but what the best solution to it is, is a debatable point.

    Partly this solution is playing into the homosexual activists’ hands. It seems to unnecessarily concede ground to them. But it is an important debate – well worth asking about and well worth discussing further.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  9. Thanks again Graeme

    I just sniffed around and found something I wrote about this back in 1997:

    The American state of Louisiana has recently introduced a new “covenant marriage” law which aims to restore the dignity and stability of marriage by making divorce more difficult. The new law, which came into effect in August, allows couples a choice: they can either get a conventional marriage (which retains the easy, no-fault divorce option), or they can opt for a covenant marriage license. This requires premarital counseling and brings fault back into divorce.

    Today both marriage and divorce are easy to obtain. This new option makes both more difficult. Those who think of getting married will have to choose their life partner wisely and carefully. And divorce will only be obtainable under certain conditions, such as adultery, abuse or long-term abandonment. Moreover, the contract stipulates that if the marriage appears in trouble, both parties will seek counseling.

    No-fault divorce has become the norm in America and most Western nations for the past 25 years. As a result, divorce rates have soared, family breakdown has sky-rocketed, and social problems have been compounded. In Australia some 1 million children now go home each night to single parent families. This new law is a welcome response to the tragedies unleashed by easy, no-fault divorce laws. As one of the instigators of the new Louisiana law put it: “We’re trying to slow down the haemorrhaging of the American family through the no-fault divorce system. . . . When a man says he wants a no-fault marriage and a woman says she wants a covenant marriage, that’s going to raise some red flags. She’s going to say, ‘What? You’re not willing to have a lifelong commitment to me?’”

    But as I say, having a two-tier system may do more harm than good. But it is part of the overall discussion on how we can save marriage, so thanks for raising it.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  10. Cameron, referring to your quote from James Mangisi, surely the pearl of great price, buried within its guts is this, “democracy … must be set aside in aid of a higher authority.” Jonathan Bertuch highlights this when he says “The biggest hypocrisy though, is that he attacks democracy and then turns around and calls for the people to march and calls on the authority of public polling.”

    What is this revisionist’s democracy, higher criticism and higher authority? It certainly is not our God given conscience that resides in the hearts of all men, but that of the state and particularly that of the tyranny of homosexual elites who presently legislate for every thought, breath and emotion.

    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6417.html
    http://www.pinknews.co.uk:80/news/articles/2005-11490.html
    http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:-dQCt2DKuj8J:www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-pink-list-2007-the-iiosi-annual-celebration-of-the-great-and-the-gay-447627.html+robert+neil+mcgregor+stonewall&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

    But perhaps most powerful of all tyrants are the silent elites who are never seen or heard by the public but who work without ceasing, drawing up legislation that promotes homosexuality and criminalize Christianity. Just look at this Marxist lesbian’s single handed achievements in the UK that included the setting up of the Sexual Orientations Regulations whilst she was head of the Women’s Equality Unit, in 2006.

    http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Society/Pix/pictures/2007/11/13/2angelamason.jpg
    http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/our-job/who-we-are/the-commissioners/angela-mason/

    David Skinner, UK

  11. The denial of the fundamental, relational purpose of sex, which is to harness its power in order to perpetuate the human race, is all part of gay, liberation ideology. For them the sex act is simply an extra curriculum, recreational drug, performed in a meaningless game of life, and which has to be made more and more perverse in order to make life that little bit more interesting.

    It results not only in unwanted pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases but the very destruction of constituent parts of the family, where words denoting personal and human relationships, such as mother father disappear for ever.

    National Health Service staff are being told to stop calling parents ‘mother’ or ‘father’ to avoid offending homosexual patients:
    http://catholicactionuk.blogspot.com/2007/02/nhs-bans-words-mother-father-husband.html

    EU leaders have been banned from using the terms ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ for fear of causing offence:
    http://www.christian.org.uk/news/20090316/anger-as-eu-forbids-use-of-miss-and-mrs/

    We are banned from using these relational words because of the offence this causes to those who see humans simply as lumps of meet, or puddles of water. And of course in a brave new world, where anything is possible, incest, bestiality, necrophilia and even procreation with oneself, without the need of another agent, are all being pioneered in the laboratory. Women will give birth to aunts and uncles or great grand sons will procreate with their great grand mothers.
    http://www.christianconcern.com/our-concerns/bioethics/older-my-parents-donated-embryos-kept-55-years
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7662232/Grandmother-and-grandson-to-have-child-together.html
    http://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/downloads/the-human-fertilisation-and-embryology-bill-briefing-12-2007.pdf

    In 2007, a poll conducted by the HFEA found that 61% of the public supported the research after having the process and goals explained to them, while a quarter was opposed to the research. If the public does not mind this happening in the laboratory it will have no objection to it happening outside of it
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbP3l3Oj6Qk
    http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5734056.ece

    David Skinner, UK

  12. Satan is having a field day…distortion and confusion reigns…a beautiful and sacred and sacramental marriage has been twisted and turned upside down and inside out… what more can we expect from the evil one!He has no future…he will denigrate everything and everyone in his path! After all he is the wicked one who created… and …is ruthlessly encouraging the “Culture of Death!”
    Jane Byrne

  13. Cameron, referring again to your quote from James Mangisi, “democracy … must be set aside in aid of a higher authority.” get a load of this:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM2Ql3wOGcU

    Bukovsky however, says that unlike the Soviet Union the European Union does not use tanks and military force to subdue the people. Well, he might need to think again with this:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1331654/March-Euro-police-The-shocking-powers-prosecution-EU-us.html

    David Skinner, UK

  14. I am currently discussing on facebook the stance which author Anne Rice takes with regards to same-sex marriages, and also some of her other opinions launched against Christians. She of course speaks her mind as a representative of Christianity while at the same time standing firm against biblical principles.

    I am thankful for the resources and opinions shared on this site. This thing could get really ugly as more and more of the supposed custodians of marriage, as an institution, do not even stand to defend it any longer.

    Servaas Hofmeyr

  15. A quick Amazon search pulled up five books written for 5-7 year olds about having two dads or two mums. I fear this literature will become standard reading in our prep classrooms.
    Kylie Anderson

  16. Thanks Bill, I really meant it, I clicked on all of the links in this article and read them and I was so repulsed by some of it, I just stopped reading it. This is truly horrible stuff. What Kylie said is even worse, kindergarten kids being taught this filth. Thank God only one of my sons is still at school and I am always looking and watching what goes on at his school by reading all of the newsletters he brings home and occasionally looking at what he is doing in some of his subjects.
    Steve Davis

  17. Recently on the BBC Internet News I read that a man, in Germany I think, ‘married’ his cat. And a woman in Taiwan ‘married’ herself!
    Where will it stop!
    Dunstan Hartley

  18. Many thanks indeed Nathan for alerting us to this most important – and worrying – link. I have been saying for years now that when we legalise SSM, polyamory will be next. Thanks again. But I guess that means I will now have to write another article!

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  19. The author of the article Nathan refers to is a PhD candidate in Health Science at the La Trobe Rural Health School in Bendigo! Why bother? Can’t she just buy a worthless Ph D. from the internet?
    Graeme Cumming

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