Considerettes

That’s the title of John Stonestree’s article about how the folks pushing for polygamy and polyamory are making the very arguments that conservatives made for decades, right up until very recently.

In a scene from Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm, the mathematician skeptical about whether the park is a good idea, watches the T-Rex burst out of its enclosure and says, "I hate being right all the time."

Princeton Professor Robert George and other defenders of traditional marriage understand these sentiments. For years, they’ve warned that redefining marriage beyond the union of one man and one woman wouldn’t-indeed couldn’t-stop with same-sex unions. The same reasoning that extends marriage to same-sex couples would easily be applied to polygamy and polyamory also.

The standard response to these concerns was scoffing and accusations of fear mongering.

Well, the fences are down and the beast is loose.

He provides 3 examples of recent attempts to argue for them just within the past few months. But these arguments are not new. It’s just who is presenting them that is.

As Dr. George pointed out in "First Things," when Christians pointed out the logical link between same-sex marriage and polygamy, proponents of same-sex marriage rejected the connection. They insisted that "no one is arguing for the legal recognition of polygamous or polyamorous relationships as marriages!"

George writes in response, "That was then; this is now." The "then" he referred to was last week; the now is today.

George predicts that Keenan’s article "will not produce a single serious critique by a major scholar or activist from the same-sex marriage movement."

Now he would love to be wrong. But defenders of traditional marriage know that the enclosures that kept marriage a "monogamous and exclusive union" are being dismantled. And no one should be surprised by what emerges, least of all those doing the dismantling.

If George was right about what would happen, would critics also be right about the predicted results of this breakdown?  Marriage is more "for the children" than any other institution or government program that has had that label slapped on it. The best arrangement for children is to be raised by their loving and committed biological parents.

And yet, we are tinkering and tearing down the one thing that can best protect the next generation. The results have been predicted to be calamitous. If we were right about predicting the slippery slope this far, wouldn’t it be prudent to consider whether we’re right about the rest of the ride?

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The calls for polygamy, especially in the light of changing attitudes on same-sex marriage, are getting louder and more mainstream. Jillian Keenan writing at Slate.com, makes a feminist case for polygamy, as well as demonstrating the slippery slope in action.

The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less “correct” than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting adults.

If you don’t think that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy, you must refute her arguments that make that link. I don’t have to refute them, because a) I don’t think the definition of marriage is plastic, and b) I do think one leads to the other. If you do think marriage should be…whatever, but don’t think it leads to polygamy, you’ve got your work cut out for you. But if you are up to the challenge, let me hear your argument.

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In  my most recent episode of the "Consider This!" podcast, I discussed how polygamy is beginning to get mainstreamed, with major newspapers asking the question; why is 2 some magic number for marriage? Why not "three, four, or 17"?

The website Gawker is now giving press (and rather disturbing press, frankly; the beginning of the article is not for the squeamish) to guys like Dr. Hubert Van Gijseghem (pronounced HI-sheh-hem), who is retired from the University of Montreal, and who testified before the Canadian Parliament’s "Committee on Justice and Human Rights." In part, he said:

[I]t is a fact that real pedophiles account for only 20 percent of sexual abusers. If we know that pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offence from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality, and if we agree on the fact that true pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation, everyone knows that there is no such thing as real therapy. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation.

And if they’re "born this way" (to steal from a Lady Gaga song title), who are we to judge? I’m not saying that some of the things done to pedophiles is justified (the harassment they receive), because we are to love the thief, the murderer and the pedophile as Christ would love them. I completely denounce harassment, but words mean things, and this is a big step in the cultural normalization process.

At the moment, there is still some sanity on the subject. One group in Germany attempting to counsel pedophiles uses the phrase, "You are not guilty because of your sexual desire, but you are responsible for your sexual behavior. There is help." This is true of all of us. We all have our weak points of temptation, but it’s how we act (and, as Jesus pointed out, how we fantasize) that is the problem.

However, consider how homosexuality was viewed just a generation ago and how it’s been so normalized that some states allow same-sex marriage. The biggest argument that the homosexual crowd put forth was that this was something in their genes, and therefore was nothing more than being left-handed or blue-eyed. If we consider pedophilia just another sexual orientation, then, while the act may still be frowned upon for the moment, the foundation has already been laid to normalize pedophilia.

Now, I know slippery slope arguments can be…well, slippery. They involve a bit of prediction. If A happens, B will happen next. It’s easy to dismiss these sorts of arguments are mere guesses. However, when initial predictions become true, and when you have so much history to look at and see that it has been indeed happening, it’s time to take the arguments more seriously. I am very supportive of efforts to counsel pedophiles before they act on their thoughts. However, the change in terminology can and does change the culture and the views. Whether or not Dr. Van Gijseghem means it to, this change can easily be taken up by others to slip us further down the slope to … well, who knows where.

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Flashback to 2004, when there was still a show called "Crossfire" on CNN, and when the President of the Human Right Campaign (which advocates for, among other things, same-sex marriage) was still Cheryl Jacques.

Pro-family supporters fear legalizing same-sex marriage will open doors for polygamy to continue breaking down the sanctity of marriage. The issue of polygamy, presented by many pro-family groups, is showing itself more and more as a dead end for pro-gay activists in their push for homosexual marriage to be legalized.

Tucker Carlson, host of CNN’s "Crossfire", debated with Human Rights Campaign President Cheryl Jacques on the polygamy issue. Carlson asked her why shouldn’t polygamists be able to marry and all she could say was, "I don’t approve of that."

When conservatives say that about same-sex marriage, they’re called Puritanical, or shoving their views down others’ throats, etc., etc. But it was all the willfully ignorant Jacques could come up with at the time. She couldn’t fathom the idea that by changing the definition of marriage once, others would take that and run with it for other definitions.

Willfully ignorant. And now we have this.

Kody Brown is a proud polygamist, and a relatively famous one. Now Mr. Brown, his four wives and 16 children and stepchildren are going to court to keep from being punished for it.

The family is the focus of a reality TV show, “Sister Wives,” that first appeared in 2010. Law enforcement officials in the Browns’ home state, Utah, announced soon after the show began that the family was under investigation for violating the state law prohibiting polygamy.

On Wednesday, the Browns are expected to file a lawsuit to challenge the polygamy law.

The lawsuit is not demanding that states recognize polygamous marriage. Instead, the lawsuit builds on a 2003 United States Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state sodomy laws as unconstitutional intrusions on the “intimate conduct” of consenting adults. It will ask the federal courts to tell states that they cannot punish polygamists for their own “intimate conduct” so long as they are not breaking other laws, like those regarding child abuse, incest or seeking multiple marriage licenses.

The same-sex-marriage-to-polygamy link was understood by the dissenting conservatives on the court in the Lawrence case.

The connection with Lawrence v. Texas, a case that broadened legal rights for gay people, is sensitive for those who have sought the right of same-sex marriage. Opponents of such unions often refer to polygamy as one of the all-but-inevitable outcomes of allowing same-sex marriage. In his dissenting opinion in the Lawrence case, Justice Antonin Scalia cited a threat to state laws “based on moral choices” against “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity.”

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in New York, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, made a similar comparison on his blog on Thursday in an essay criticizing the state’s legalization of same-sex marriage and the possible “next step,” which could be “another redefinition to justify multiple partners and infidelity.”

This linkage, hand-waved away by same-sex marriage advocates at the time, is nothing less than willful ignorance. Each step was a clear slip down a slope they denied existed. Further predictions of what will happen should not be taken lightly at all. But they will. Case in point:

Such arguments, often referred to as the “parade of horribles,” are logically flawed, said Jennifer C. Pizer, a professor at the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, and legal director for the school’s Williams Institute, which focuses on sexual orientation law.

The questions surrounding whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry are significantly different from those involved in criminal prosecution of multiple marriages, Ms. Pizer noted. Same-sex couples are seeking merely to participate in the existing system of family law for married couples, she said, while “you’d have to restructure the family law system in a pretty fundamental way” to recognize polygamy.

Professor Turley called the one-thing-leads-to-another arguments “a bit of a constitutional canard,” and argued that removing criminal penalties for polygamy “will take society nowhere in particular.”

Except that it is happening as we speak. This is not the first attempt at the polygamy issue, and if it fails it’s certain to not be the last. Marriage has always been defined as:

A) Two people
B) Different genders

When B has fallen, A cannot be very far behind. Beyond that, marriage will be whatever anyone wants it to mean, and thus will cease to have meaning. The social engineers will have won, but society will have lost.

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I recently was a part of a rather lengthy blog comment discussion about same-sex marriage on the site of a liberal Christian. I noted that Genesis 2:24 was pretty clear what marriage was defined as, and that when the Bible mentioned marriage, it was always heterosexual. (Another commenter picked up on the idea that, even when polygamy is mentioned, it is one-man-many-women.; each of the women were married to the man, not to each other.) Every mention in history, in a parable, or even just talking about a particular married couple, it was heterosexual. There’s even a whole book (Song of Solomon) devoted to heterosexual marriage and the sexuality within it. But nothing–no press at all–on same-sex marriage.

And the mentions of homosexuality in general? Again, 100% negative. You can argue the contexts, I suppose, but ever time homosexuality is mentioned, whatever the context, it is sin. I’m willing to listen to arguments as to where homosexuality is mentioned positively, or even neutrally, but I don’t recall ever hearing it.

I find this significant. The Bible talks about marriage quite a bit, and yet nothing at all about same-sex marriage. Now, the arguments against me included the idea that, while Genesis 2:24 says what marriage is, it doesn’t say what marriage isn’t. I found this laughable, and surprisingly legalistic for someone who, I’m pretty sure, did not appreciate legalists. In this particular case, it sounded like this person required that the commandment must include fine print and enough provisos worth of a car commercial. "This command should not be construed to permit situations such as, but not limited to, marriages of minors (under the age of 18), animals, toasters (including other mechanical and/or electrical objects), and/or siblings. Tax, tag, title and dealer prep extra."

Another objection was that the Bible didn’t mention nuclear power, either, but we don’t take it as a handbook on that. Indeed,the Bible says nothing about all things nuclear, nor energy sources in general. But it does talk about marriage, a lot, and when it does, it’s all about the man and the woman.

I was also told that there were so very few verses at al that even talked about homosexuality that it wasn’t enough to really draw any concrete conclusions. This from guys who were literally ridiculing my point about 100% of the Bible talking exclusively about heterosexual marriage. Amounts only matter, it seems, in certain cases.

Anyway, that’s what the Bible has to say. Over the millennia, a lot of smart guys have looked at the issue and have come to the same conclusion.

Church history is crystal clear: Homosexual practice has been affirmed nowhere, never, by no one in the history of Christianity. . . .

Christianity is a tradition; it is a faith with a particular ethos, set of beliefs and practices handed on from generation to generation. The Christian tradition may be understood as the history of what God’s people have believed and how they have lived based upon the Word of God. This tradition is not only a collection of accepted doctrines but also a set of lifestyle expectations for a follower of Christ. One of the primary things handed down in the Christian church over the centuries is a consistent set of lifestyle ethics including specific directives about sexual behavior. The church of every generation from the time of the apostles has condemned sexual sin as unbecoming a disciple of Christ. At no point have any orthodox Christian teachers ever suggested that one’s sexual practices may deviate from biblical standards.

Concerning homosexuality there has been absolute unanimity in church history; sexual intimacy between persons of the same gender has never been recognized as legitimate behavior for a Christian. One finds no examples of orthodox teachers who suggested that homosexual activity could be acceptable in God’s sight under any circumstances. Revisionist biblical interpretations that purport to support homosexual practice are typically rooted in novel hermeneutical principles applied to Scripture, which produce bizarre interpretations of the Bible held nowhere, never, by no one.

This applies to a host of other churches and traditions, not just the orthodox ones. Ignore all of that collected wisdom at your peril. Indeed, sometimes there does need to be an overturning of established understanding (see: Martin Luther), but there had better be an extremely good Biblical foundation and argument accompanying it. The reasons I’ve seen so far trying to establish a Christian imperative for same-sex marriage could just as easily be applied to many other actions that the church considers sinful. Jesus loved the woman caught in adultery, and did not condemn here there, but told her to "go and sin no more". He called it what it was and didn’t affirm her behavior just because it was forgiven.

We should do the same. The  Christian Left will complain, but while they can come up with their own arguments, they have little (if anything) to stand on, biblically speaking. When the Bible speak of homosexuality, it is always negative, and when the Bible speaks of marriage is it always heterosexual. This is significant.

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James Taranto notes that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia basically predicted the ruling against Prop 8 in California.  Judge Walker, in this decision, cited, among other things, Lawrence v. Texas which struck down state laws criminalizing consensual sodomy.  "It’s just personal behavior", was the argument from those trying to get those laws overturned.  The Supreme Court justices themselves, who wrote the opinion in Lawrence successfully overturning the state laws, said that the Lawrence case "does not involve" the issue of same-sex marriage.

Scalia essentially called that disingenuous in his dissent.

Today’s opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct, and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), "[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring," what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution"? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court.

Same-sex marriage is not the first step on some slippery slope.  It is, for some, the destination; the result of supposedly innocuous rulings that have come previously which laid a foundation that backers, including liberals on the Supreme Court, claimed had nothing to do with same-sex marriage. 

This is how they remake society; by lying to you until such time as they’ve built up enough steam, by whatever means necessary, to force through what they ultimately want.  This destination has been predicted for some time; Scalia’s prediction came in 1986.  He (nor I) could believe that the liberals on the bench were that stupid as to not know what they were doing.  It was, and is today, not so much about the law as it is about the politics for them. 

Also, Scalia’s prediction was not "fear mongering"; it was an honest conclusion drawn based on an understanding of the law and its ramifications.  Neither it is "fear mongering" to suggest that this destination is itself not final, but simply a stopping point on the way to who knows where else.  One simply has to look at history, even just recent history, to know that.  After same-sex marriage, the Netherlands began giving civil unions to unions of 3 or more in 2005.  And in 2004:

Tucker Carlson, host of CNN’s "Crossfire", debated with Human Rights Campaign President Cheryl Jacques on the polygamy issue. Carlson asked her why shouldn’t polygamists be able to marry and all she could say was, "I don’t approve of that."

Jacque was pushing for same-sex marriage, but figured it would all just stop in its tracks right there, because she didn’t approve of it.  I’ve got news for you:  jokes about "boogetymen", trying to ignore this history and the considered opinions of law scholars much smarter than they or I, display an ignorance and dismissiveness that belie a facade of thoughtful consideration.

In 1986, few people who argued against sodomy laws thought that it was any more than a privacy matter.  They were naive and/or misguided.  Those who think today that the debate over what is marriage will be done once we have same-sex marriage are equally naive and misguided.  But they will have less of a reason to claim, down the line, that they couldn’t have had an idea what would come of it.  Willful blindness will be the only explanation.

Scalia was right.  Remember that.

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"Slippery Slope" arguments involve a bit of prediction.  If A happens, B will happen next.  It’s easy to dismiss these sorts of arguments are mere guesses.  However, when initial predictions become true, it’s time to take the arguments more seriously.

David Warren charts the course down the slippery slope in Canada.

When same-sex marriage was legalized in 2005, I argued that polygamy would follow. This is now happening.

There is nothing much we can do about it — the Canadian Constitution has "evolved," so that the judges who interpret Pierre Trudeau’s Charter of Rights have the power not only to overturn Acts of Parliament, but to make new law from whole cloth, according to their whims and ideological commitments. "The people" — mere voters — need not be consulted.

A test case is already heading towards the Supreme Court, from Bountiful, B.C. Lawyers for the fundamentalist Mormon, Winston Blackmore, who has long been openly practising polygamy, will invoke the Charter. The old goat has actually boasted of his multiple teenaged brides: estimates run to more than 20 wives in total. (And you thought Brad Pitt was a chick magnet.)

That this test case will not only proceed, but succeed, almost goes without saying. Even the attorney general of British Columbia doubted his chances with the Charter, when he brought polygamy charges in January against Blackmore, and Jim Oler. This was after a delay of about half a century: for the polygamous cult has been established openly in Bountiful since the era of Peyton Place (the late 1950s). The very fact that the authorities had not found the guts to enforce Section 293 of the Criminal Code, in all this time, will now be counted against the law itself.

This is nothing very new, actually.  Here are posts from 2007, 2005, May of 004, and January of 2004, and that’s just my noting of the arguments.  Others have been warning of this for longer than that.  Things have moved (slipped?) faster in Canada, but they have a more liberal mindset.  If you think it can’t happen here, you’re just completely mistaken and/or you haven’t been paying attention. 

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Time magazine reminds us of a little history.

When the Supreme Court struck down Texas’s law against sodomy in the summer of 2003, in the landmark gay rights case of Lawrence v. Texas, critics warned that its sweeping support of a powerful doctrine of privacy could lead to challenges of state laws that forbade such things as gay marriage and bigamy. “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are … called into question by today’s decision,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia, in a withering dissent he read aloud page by page from the bench.

Rick Santorum was one of those critics.

“If the Supreme Court says you have the right to consensual sex within your home,” Santorum said at the time, “then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”

As [Boston Globe columnist Jeff] Jacoby noted, Santorum was given “holy hell” and handed “nail-spitting” by some critics.

Where are the folks now who gave conservatives such a hard time? Given what Time is reporting, they’re probably being very, very quiet.

It turns out the critics were right. Plaintiffs have made the decision the centerpiece of attempts to defeat state bans on the sale of sex toys in Alabama, polygamy in Utah and adoptions by gay couples in Florida. So far the challenges have been unsuccessful. But plaintiffs are still trying, even using Lawrence to challenge laws against incest.

The key phrase is “so far”. I’m glad to hear that lower courts are now expanding the Lawrence decision, but these attempts at overturning state laws (joined by the ACLU, unsurprisingly) are unprecedented, and the outcome is by no means assured.

The issue does not appear to have been challenged in federal court previously, though the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2005 that a Wisconsin law forbidding incest among blood relations (but not including step-relations) did not conflict with Lawrence’s ruling. But in upholding prison sentences for a brother-sister couple in that case, the court acknowledged that the language in Lawrence is all but certain to prompt more challenges to prosecutions for sex-related crimes on privacy grounds.

Hey there, liberals. Pandora left this box for you. Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Rick Santorum, Jeff Jacoby, Supreme Court, Lawrence v Texas

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Behold, the slippery slope in action. (Hat tip to The Brussels Journal.)

The Netherlands and Belgium were the first countries to give full marriage rights to homosexuals. In the United States some politicians propose “civil unions” that give homosexual couples the full benefits and responsibilities of marriage. These civil unions differ from marriage only in name.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands polygamy has been legalised in all but name. Last Friday the first civil union of three partners was registered. Victor de Bruijn (46) from Roosendaal “married” both Bianca (31) and Mirjam (35) in a ceremony before a notary who duly registered their civil union.

Yes, I understand that “slippery slope” arguments can be … slippery. It’s easy to make them, but harder to prove that they’re happening. Well, this story is that proof. First same-sex marriage, then civil unions, and from civil unions you can go literally anywhere. Quoth the groom:

Victor: “A marriage between three persons is not possible in the Netherlands, but a civil union is. We went to the notary in our marriage costume and exchanged rings. We consider this to be just an ordinary marriage.”

Next stop, normalized polygamy. That’s not some dire prediction. That’s what is happening and will happen if we don’t hold the line somewhere. I’ve heard those who suggest that they’re for same-sex marriage but not anything further. But this story proves that, having opened the door a crack to let in just one person, a whole multitude stands ready to take advantage of the breach. You can call those who wanted the door to stay closed all sorts of names–prudish, intolerant, homophobic, narrow-minded–but regardless of how accurate or inaccurate those names are, when it comes down to what was predicted would happen, you can also call them “correct”.

Will that change the minds of those pushing for civil unions here? For most, I have my doubts, although I have no doubt that they’ll be shocked–SHOCKED–when the first trio get married here. “I had no idea” will be no excuse.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger News Network and Redstate.org. Comments welcome.)

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“How Appealing” has links galore on the latest ruling of the California Supreme Court on the same-sex marriages that were performed in San Francisco. Short answer: Mayor Newsom had no standing to unilaterally break the law by performing those ceremonies. Therefore, they are null and void.

In an AP article on the ruling, there’s quite a bit to comment on.

The same-sex marriages had virtually no legal value, but powerful symbolism. Their nullification by the high court dismayed Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage license in San Francisco.

“Del is 83 years old and I am 79,” Lyon said. “After being together for more than 50 years, it is a terrible blow to have the rights and protections of marriage taken away from us. At our age, we do not have the luxury of time.”

…but plenty of time for violating the law. Time is not the issue–the rule of law is.

The court did not resolve whether the California Constitution would permit a same-sex marriage, ruling instead on the narrow issue of whether local officials could bypass state judicial and legislative branches.

…which, you’d think, would have been patently obvious to a politician like the mayor of San Francisco. His blatant disregard for the law is not a characteristic you want in any sort of public servant. That’s a lot of wasted time and money by someone who should (and most probably did) know better.

The California court sided with Lockyer’s arguments, ruling that Newsom’s actions would foment legal anarchy and sanction local officials to legislate state law from city halls or county government centers.

Is this the liberal way of affecting societal change; fomenting legal anarchy?

When the justices agreed in March to hear the case, they said they would decide only whether Newsom overstepped his mayoral powers for now, but would entertain a constitutional challenge - that gays should be treated the same as heterosexual couples under the California Constitution - if such a lawsuit worked its way to the justices through the lower courts.

Gay and lesbian couples immediately acted on that invitation, suing in San Francisco County Superior Court alleging laws barring them from marrying were discriminatory. Mayor Newsom filed a similar lawsuit.

…which is one way this should have been handled in the first place. A far more preferred way would be to work it through the legislature. Of course, that would mean letting the people have more of a say, and liberals know where the majority of the country stands on this. When the “will of the people” doesn’t support them, all of a sudden it’s not such a great ideal to them.

The now-consolidated cases are unlikely to reach the California Supreme Court for at least a year or more. California lawmakers have refused to take a position on the matter, and have left the politically volatile issue to its Supreme Court.

There’s “leadership” for you.

The Arizona-based Christian law firm Alliance Defense Fund, a plaintiff in one of two cases the justices decided Thursday, had told the justices that Newsom’s “act of disobedience” could lead other local officials to sanction “polygamists.”

There hasn’t been any reasonable explanation of why this expansion to polygamy wouldn’t happen by those advocating for same-sex marriage among just 2 people. And don’t forget that man and his horse.

This has been one set of legal proceedings that has shown liberal activists for what they are and how they operate. I will admit, though, to being very pleasantly surprised that the California Supreme Court hung in there for the rule of law, although this really isn’t about same-sex marriage per se, but about whether a constitutional ban against discrimination trumps a state law forbidding same-sex marriage. The proper channel would have been to do what they’re (finally) doing now; take the same-sex marriage ban to court. In handling it the way he did, Newsom made sure he fired up, in a big way, those who agreed with him first, no matter the cost to the taxpayers, and then follow the proper procedures. Totally dishonest, but not out of character in how this issue has been handled by the left.

ScrappleFace has the best commentary I can think of on this. >grin<

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John Hawkins at Right Wing News has a good post on a topic that I’ve been emphasizing as well. His comment is “It’s not too late to stop gay marriage, but the clock is ticking“.

Quite frankly, today may turn out to be one of the low points in the entire history of our nation. The beginning of the end of the relevance of marriage, the building block of our society.

Today, gays are getting married, soon polygamy will follow. Heck, if you ask me, you can make a better case for polygamy than you can for gay marriage. In fact, if Andrew Sullivan wanted to marry three wives instead of another man, we’d probably be complaining about Utah legalizing Polygamy today instead of Massachusetts putting their stamp of approval on gay marriage.

But, give it a couple of decades and we’ll have people marrying the dead as they do in France, animals as they do in India, and you might as well throw adult siblings into the mix because that won’t be far behind. Of course, advocates of gay marriage, most of them at least, will deny that. But, hasn’t that always been what Americans have been told as they were dragged kicking and screaming down the slippery slope towards gay marriage?

Eventually, as marriage becomes totally debased and meaningless except as a method to get gov’t benefits or insurance, most people won’t bother to get married and we’ll see skyrocketing crime and drug use, single mothers mired in poverty raising their kids, and all the other ills befall our society that go along with illegitimacy.

If all these things happened overnight, it would be easy to get people to understand what the problem is with gay marriage. However, because all of these events will take time, years, and in some cases decades to manifest, it’s difficult to impress how urgent it is to fight against gay marriage right now.

His point about polygamy is worth noting. One of the arguments against same-sex marriage (one that Michael Medved often uses) is that children adopted into that marriage are essentially in a fatherless or motherless home, and study after study has concluded that a 2-parent, mother-father family is in all ways better for a child–emotionally, psychologically, any way you can name–than a single-parent family. This is not to disparage single moms or dads, but that’s just the way it is. In polygamy, you could make a case, then, that both genders are, in fact, represented and thus children would get all the benefits of a mother-father family, something that same-sex marriage can not provide. If the latter is legal, then (”for the children”) shouldn’t the former be even more desirable?

Up until now, while marriage was generally understood to be between one man and one woman, recognition of polygamy as legitimate by the state or federal government wasn’t even an issue. However, once you stray from that, when the definition becomes fungible, and regardless of the intent of same-sex marriage advocates, the result will be no definition of marriage. This isn’t crystal ball speculation, it’s an inevitable progression.

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Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily has summed up my opposition to same-sex marriage very nicely. And it points out that this will open a Pandora’s Box, which is acknowledged among some advocates.

On the one hand, when I interviewed Evan Gerstmann, author of “Same Sex Marriage and the Constitution” and perhaps the leading legal scholar promoting the idea, he conceded that we as a society would probably have to get used to the idea of threesomes, foursomes, etc. He acknowledged that it could be seen as “discrimination” if we deny anyone the right to marry the person of their choice. In the case of a man or woman who wanted to marry someone who was already married, that’s just what we would be doing if we prohibited such unions.

Of course, there are those that say it won’t; that this new line will be inviolate.

On the other hand, the president of the nation’s largest homosexual group, Human Rights Campaign President Cheryl Jacques last week expressed moral disapproval of allowing three or more consenting adults who love each other to marry.

Now get this: Asked why the line won’t be pushed any farther…

But Jacques was downright puritanical in her opposition to polygamy. And why?

“Because I don’t approve of that,” she said on CNN.

Apparently our laws in this brave new world envisioned by the same-sex marriage proponents are going to be based in the future on her feelings.

More folks don’t approve of same-sex marriage, but that’s not stopping mayors and judges from forcing the issue. The double-standard on this issue is astounding.

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Justice Antonin Scalia was right:

Justice Antonin Scalia warned that the ruling [that struck down Texas’ anti-sodomy law] would unleash a wave of challenges to state laws against “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity.”

So what’s one of the results of that ruling?

Sure enough, [Brian] Barnard, a civil rights attorney, has brought a lawsuit challenging Utah’s ban on polygamy. And some legal experts say the case could have a fighting chance because of the Supreme Court’s gay-sex ruling.

The federal lawsuit, filed Jan. 12, involves a married couple, identified only as G. Lee Cook and D. Cook, and a woman, J. Bronson, who wanted to enter into a plural marriage but were denied a marriage license by Salt Lake County clerks.

Can you hear it; the sound of American society sliding further down that slippery slope? It’s almost deafening.

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