RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Putting two gay people in the same category as someone who would harm a child or animal is unfair. if two consenting adults wish to be together so be it. it is not the same thing.

Certain things impose upon the rights of other people, or are harmful to animals who cannot speak up for themselves. Those acts should by all rights remain illegal. As for this being an arguement against gay couples having legal rights under the law, again, it does not hold water.

Yep, the Colorada Sheep Shaggers Caucus have already lined up lobbyists.

So have the New Mexico Melon Bangers.

Next they'll be demanding their Satanic right to wear cotton/polyester shirts!

http://tinyurl.com/48u6gw

After those things, I guess the next logical step might be someone eating a bunch of green grapes, drinking 44 oz. of chocolate milk and then dressing up like Mayor McCheese and banging a tree..

There will be no end to the demands of other perverse and disgusting groups to have their special rights.

Well generally in a homosexual relationship there is consent on both sides. With pedophilia and bestiality, I would imagine ther is not. Also, with incest, there is the chance of having a handicapped or otherwise malformed baby, so that is a very good reason to stay away. For these reasons, these things are not really comparable to homosexual marriage.
The problem for most people is that homosexuality goes against decorum, and unlike the things mentioned here, when the 'evil' of this homosexuality was challenged in an increasingly liberal society, the anti-homosexual train was hard pressed to find anything actually wrong with homosexuality.
And I don't give a fig about St Paul. Jesus himself taught me not to judge unless I want to be judged. Who am I to listen to? The Son of God or a self-gratifying follower?

Sure, and while we're at it, legalize driving too slow on busy streets with your right turn signal on all of the time too. It's just as stupid a suggestion. Gay marriage is just like any other marriage, just gayer. I didn't make that up, it was a brillaint British TV ad campaign.

regardless of your stance on gay unions, to suggest it would lead to legalization of beastiality, pedophilia and incest is absurd. The slippery slope argument is most commonly a fallacy, and especially in this case due to there being absolutely no correlation between the items mentioned. (Besides being sins). Thankfully, however, all sins do share one common factor: Forgiveness by our Father. but that's about it for this case.

Come off it all you one star posters! The legal postition to allow this activity rests on at least two theories. The first is privacy, and the second is equal protection with due process thrown in. What do we care about what happens in the privacy of your bedroom is the question. If society cannot regulate whether a fourteen year old girl can have an abortion, how can it regulate whether a fourteen year old boy wants to have sex with his neighbor, for instance? What do we care what a 35 year old uncle and an 18 year old neice do in the privacy of their bedrooms? Is it our business if a 18 year old brother and a 20 year old sister have sex in the privacy of their bedroom? I can go on and on, but if you think rationally, you should see the point. It actually is a slippery slope and the slope has no bottom or the bottom is a long way down to total depravity.

The legal bases for these types of activity are mainly sophistry that cannot stand analysis by reason and experience.

well its simple there is a penis and a vagina. The vagina opens when sexually stimulated while the anus has 3 different muscular layers to help keep it close doesnt take too much logic as to what nature intended. Well what of gays and gay feelings true i think they should be allowed to marry. adultery in gay marriage should be a legal offence as it is in straight marriages and no publicity to be allowed for gays at all. After all do i get TV coverage if i announce im heterosexual!!!!

These acts can be easily divided into what should and shouldn't be legal by considering our basic human rights. If something infringes on these rights, it should be illegal. Everything else is innocent until proven guilty.

Bestiality and pediophelia do not involve consent on both parties involved, and therefore should remain illegal.

Gay marriage and incest do not infringe on anyone's rights because those involved have given their consent and have made their own personal choice.

It's simple, really.

Notwithstanding the many long-winded arguments to the contrary that I've just read this argument is patently without merit. The only "slippery slope" I can see here is the descent of these arguments from the legalistically tortured into the logically ridiculous.

Comparing incest and and bestiality and etc. to gay marriage? yea real logical......so, what gentic/physical abnormalities does gay marriage cause?

If gay marriage is legalized, then men will be encouraged to go gay. Then we will have a glut of hairdressers and fashion designers.

You say gay, I say who cares. Statistically speaking, if every gay couple got married on the same day and one of the spouses dropped dead the next, the tax payers still wouldn't come anywhere close to the amount of money towards pensions as we have spent in Iraq. Is it ever truly a matter of religion? It always boils down to the ALMIGHTY (buck, that is).

It's only when you want to leave your pension to a goat do I see a problem.

One has nothing to do with another. Gay people are very friendly and peaceful people.

'Maven' and others make a reasonable case that needs further exploration in its own terms, of course, particularly considering that the institutionalization of a social contract among partners who commit to each other in a permanent relationship has only an incidental bearing with the sexual orientation involved. It would be uncientific and/or unreasonable for the item to imply that legalizing Gay marriage will necessarily lead to officializing sexual excess, as in the 'slippery slope' of cigarettes leading to smoking marihuana.

And yet, there might be room for pragmatic debate, separately and apart from the issue of legalizing homosexual marriages, whether society would ever legalize incest, bestiality, pedophilia, cannibalism, euthanasia, etc. on their respective merits

Classic slippery slope argument (see my "logical fallacies encountered on RIA" list). Legalize guns, pretty soon people will want flamethrowers, bazookas, thermonuclear bombs! Legalize pot, and pretty soon heroin and crack cocaine will be available in high-school vending machines! ... and so forth.

Think of this if a baby's body's really do get deformed because of there genes threw incest for whatever reason then shouldn't we stop them from being deformed the answer is genetic manipulation so we can change the faulty genes or switch them out for different ones thereby stopping the baby's from being deformed. But for that to happen(and i'm not sure if this is true or not) religion has to stop bitching about how mucking around with our own genes is "aggenst god's teachings".also as long as the participants are both consenting then there should be no problem.

Who's to say that heterosexuals are not just as guilty of these perversions? (I'm sure plenty of them are)

Lance probably came the closest to explaining the merits and pitfalls (as I see them) of this argument (i.e. equating homosexual marriage with incest, etc); however, I'll clarify. In short, it's actually the gay rights advocates that make this direct comparison (or at least subject themselves to this argument) by using the "being gay is genetic so society must accept it" line of reasoning. This of course begs the question of what happens if pedophilia is genetic or bestiality is genetic. As abundantly evidenced by most of the prior comments, this counter argument is met with a "but..." (e.g. consenting adults, no harm to society, etc). The problem with this is that it's the "buts" that are the crux of the issue. Gay marriage opponents do not concede that consent is determinative, and they certainly don't agree that there is no harm to society. Moreover, adults can certainly consent to incest and polygamy. This simply leaves the opposing sides back at square one. The slippery slope aspect of the argument is one of those that may be fun at parties but is best left to constitutional rights (which doesn't really apply here notwithstanding claims to the contrary). Bright line laws are used to keep from such slopes (think First Amendment), but for the vast majority of matters (like marriages) we rely on legislatures to make fine line distinctions within areas of gray. The bottom line is that this argument is extremely effective against one who makes the genetic equals okay defense of gay marriages but loses most of its value once that argument is rightfully abandoned, resulting in three stars for this list.

no way,no time, no place.we as human should not be even considering such things.this topic amount our selfs.it just not right
the only way i can put it.no,no,no.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19315412-38200,00.html

Party wants legalization of beastiality, pedophilia in Netherlands (hell).

Incest, rape, murder, pedophilia, beastiality - all will become legal soon.

Categorizing gays with those sadistic behaviors is a ridiculous argument. If ones's logic is so jaded as to believe such garbage then they are not understanding the differences of the groups mentioned. It would make as much sense putting coffee, tea, alcohol, sodas with caffeine, No Doz, over the counter cold medications, over the counter pain relievers, on and on in the same class as illegal drugs, IMO.

What about them? Those things are completely unrelated and would never be legalized because they are harmful to others, wheres gay marriage is not.

As if the association between all of those actions could actually be supported with evidence? There's a HUGE difference between 2 consenting adults, and an adult forcing him/herself on a child or animal. What two consenting ADULTS do in the privacy of their own home is their business and no one else's

I really don't have anything against homosexuals marrying each other but come on now. Pedophilia, incest, and bestiality? Homosexuality happens between two consenting adults. It does not happen between adults and children, adults and family members, or adults and animals. If you cannot see the differences then you are truly blinded by your prejudicial beliefs.

There are some very good points below me and one of the good points is that homosexuality and bestiality and incest aren't related and it is like saying that if we increase the speed limit to 70 mph, what is to stop us from increasing it to 100 or more mph? Well, I must admit one of my weaker arguments against gay marriage is the fact it could lead to more moral degradation ie then they may start to one day legalise incest based on the argument we should get with the times. But there are two problems here: 1 - Maybe it may not be like a slippery slide thing where once we make one law, then we will allow others. One of my concerns is the fact that people are accepting homosexuality which was once considered abhorrent. Now I find it quite hypocritical when homosexuals get angry with us for detesting what they do, yet they would detest someone who commits incest. Both sins are just as unnatural and are just as dirty. Basically society accepts one sin as being normal but detests the others. What if it could be proved that during incest, that there was a way of making it so that the baby wasn't deformed? People who supported the legalisation of incest would use that argument that the baby won't be deformed, yet the homosexuals would detest that. We will slowly degrade to the point where we have no morals and if we want to remove a moral law, we just simply argue it away as homosexuals have tried to do with he marriage laws. 2 - My second concern is, OK then, say if they legalised murder. It is now OK to kill others. Surely murder is a lot different from petty theft which means that they aren't all of a sudden going to make theft OK. My problem is the principle of making an abomination OK. That is what it is like with homosexuality. My problem is that although they may never legalise incest, especially from gay marriage, it is the principle of an abominable practice being legalised.

Umm yes, I honestly can't say I really think this will have an effect on incest, nor bestiality. Yes, they could use the same arguments as Gays, yet, these are downright putrid. I've read some articles dealing with pedophilla, but I really don't feal this is going to happen.

I suggest reading John Corvino's objections to what he calls the "PIB Argument" (PIB standing for pedophilia, incest, and bestiality). He offers thoughtful insight and disregards the argument completely, in my opinion.

This sort of argument demonstrates a lack of basic understand in regards to the legal principles involved. Marriage, same-sex or otherwise, is an activity engaged in by legally competent, consenting adults. Animals (i.e. bestiality) and children (i.e. pedophilia) cannot give their competent, adult consent to enter into a gay relationship. These are purile contentions. In regards to incest, I would suggest to all to take a look at your state's already existing incest laws. These laws vary WIDELY from state to state, and each state will have to address the issue in the light of it's own laws. But, there are two main issues which are addressed in the marjoity of state incest laws, which are a restiriction on consanguineous relationships (which elevate the risk for birth defects) and abusive relationships which are a specialized category of child abuse. Neither of these purposes are endangered by same-sex relationships, and other couples which do not threated these purposes are already allowed to marry in many states. A good example is Utah, which permits first cousins to marry only provided both spouses are over age 65, or at least 55 with evidence of sterility. percivale

If we let blacks out of slavery, what next, they lamented? If we let them vote? If we let women have jobs? Oh no! Of course there are other bad things, but lets draw the line where we should, not hurt the innocent out of fear of the guilty, not cut off our hand to spite... etc.

The latter two are non-consentual and the first (incest) causes biological problems. All of those "marry a millionaire" shows have really helped maintain the sanctity of heterosexual marriage, haven't they? Anything can be used as an argument against something if you can debate well, anyway. As edt4 said, I would prefer people were straightforward as opponents of this, instead of finding unreasonable premises to argue.

UPDATE:I do have to admit, though, that there would be no logical reason to deny an incestual marriage or marriage to more than one person. But legalizing homosexual people to get married would not be the stepping stone. In our history, things like incestual marriage and marriage to more than one person already exists. Legal bigamy existed in Utah for a long time. No one could legally marry an animal because an animal cannot enter into a legally binding contract. Same goes for children.**This whole slippery slope thing is a crock! Gay marriage has been legal in Massachusettes for a year, now, and there has been norequests to legalize incest, bestiality or pedophilia. As for polygamy, there have not been any requests to legalize that either. However, polygamy doesn't need gay marriage as a precedent. If anything, it would be religious belief that opens that door. ***Homosexuality is NOT a deviant behavior. Sex between two consenting adults is not illegal. Sex with a horse is not two consenting adults. Sex with a little boy or girl is not two consenting adults. If this country legalizes gay marriage, it will NOT set a precedence for beastiality or pedophilia. I have yet to find one legitemate argument. **I agree, Wid71. Ignorant people love to mix homosexuality with deviance.** Again, PBeavr, you are mistaken! Gay people can NOT CHOOSE WHO THEY ARE ATTRACTED TO! Can you control what you like? I don't know anyone who can. Anyway, again, the hypocracy about incest. In the Bible, Abraham married his half-sister! HIS HALF-SISTER! If anything is going to lead to incest, the Bible will. As for Beastiality and Pedophilia, kids can't consent to marriage and they can't legally sign a contract. Animals can't consent to marriage and can't sign a contract. So this argument is lame.

What a moronic argument.

If we legalize marijuana, does it follow that we should legalize crack cocaine? No. If we increase the speed limit to 70 from 65, does it follow that we should increase the speed limit to 100? No. If we allow nail clippers on airplanes, does it follow that we should allow box cutters too? No. Slippery slope arguments are weak. When the benefit no longer outweighs the costs, that is where you draw the line. As far as I can tell gay marriage has benefits that outweigh costs (ask the residents of the Netherlands) (more stable two parent households, fewer incidents of STDs, lower suicide rate, etc.). Bestiality does not.

Where's the connection? (edt4 has said it all)

More tiresome anti-gay prejudice. The anti-gay bigots like to dress it up as philosophical and/or political debate, which is laughable. When you divest the said debate of its philosophical trappings, its just more of the same numbing prejudice that people in America have historically always had to deal with, whether they were black, Jewish, Irish, Italian, etc. Pseudo-scientists in the 50's resorted to the same kind of tactic, arguing that science and empirical evidence demonstrated conclusively that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites. Now we're comparing the love that a same-sex couple feel for each other with bestiality between a man and horse, or a man and sheep, or the sick perversion of an adult having sex with a minor. In truth, it really is despicable to make these fatuous comparisons or arguments. I'd have more respect for the people who disseminate this crap if they just came out, admitted their bigotry, and proclaimed, I don't like gay people, I don't want them getting married, and that's it, that's me. No more disingenuousness, no more tortured rationalizations...just plain, unadorned anti-gay bigotry, without the sugar coating.

I pity the people who feel like they have to reach for every single far-fetched, irrelevant idea to make their side of the arguement look better. I know how the anti-gay marraige drones love to do that--stick the label Freak on the foreheads of homosexual people and then put them in bags with pedophiles and other diluded perverts. And for what? Because they don't happen to live by YOUR morals and standards? Because they don't behave (now that's a laugh) the way your bible says they should? Give me a break. They are people just like you, maybe a little different, but they deserve to have the choice to get married.

I agree with PBeavr (I think) And I think I agree with Lanceroxas but I have to admit he may just be too smart for me sometimes... Simply put, why is it so far-fetched for some to believe that if we condone two males copulating now that 200 years from now we as a race could find the reasons to condone a man copulating with a boy or even an animal. It may sound like the conservatives overshooting thier point but I dont think so. I happen to be repulsed with the idea of laying down with a man as much as I do a boy. And I believe if we can start accepting one level of DEVIANT behaviour (that is what it is!) then we could eventually find reason to go to further levels. When does it stop? That is what we have not figured out yet. I hope we do pretty damn quick.

NAMBLA has it's fingers crossed.

This kind of ignorance pisses me off. While I may not agree with the homosexual lifestyle, I resent when people compare it to incest, beastiality, etc. Homosexuality occurs between 2 CONSENTING adults. These other sexual practices DO NOT. Big difference there people. It's the same as the difference between consentual sex between a couple and rape. Would YOU want your relationship with your partner (wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend)referred to as rape? I'm guessing no. Then perhaps these same people shouldn't compare homosexuality to pedophilia or incest.

While i don't have a major problem with homosexuals, and i am smart enough to realize that homosexuality isn't a choice. And even though i am a somewhat liberal democrat. Civil unions yes, but as a lol somewhat practicing Catholic, i just don't think homosexuals should be married period. But the notion that incest, bestiality, and Pedophilia are no different from homosexuality is really sickening. There is a difference between having sex with the same gender and having sex with family members, animals, or children.

Now, I don't consider DickDIrk a slippery sloper, but he's raising a flag (with Lance's help) that looks valid. If (and that's a big word) deviants like pedophiles follow the blueprint used by gays to get their deviant behavior legitimized, and mainstreamed by society, how will you stop NAMBLA? How will you stop pedophiles from legitimizing their behavior with kids who are willing to go along? The outrage in response to this argument is silly. If there is no legitimacy in the point, why can no pro-gay-agenda people articulate a thoughtful response without insulting those they're arguing with. Is the suggestion so offensive to your sensibilities that you can't offer a cogent reason?

Why is it then, that we can stop at gay marriages but we can't stop at incestual marriages? If anything is going to lead to incest being legal it's definitely NOT gay marriages, it would be the incestual ones.

This is the greatest problem liberals have with understanding this discussion. The ethical paradigm they defend gay marriage within proclaims a right to marriage under the auspice that other individuals can equally claim a right to marry consenting individuals. Individuals are therefore equal under the law to attain access to a contract that any other is so long as the other consents. The key to the discussion is that these are consenting adults engaging in a contract that is not harmful to others. To those who argue against gay marriage the institution itself represents a positve reflection of a natural process that cannot be redefined. However the liberal- or libertarian- argument is problematic because the logical causation inherent in their defense of gay marriage can be applied to incestual marriages or polygamous relationships- like in the case of mormons and muslims. What the liberals do is then switch ethical defenses and make discernments prior to the application of the logical position that undercuts their original defense. Case in point- Liberal argues: gay man should be allowed to marry gay man because they aren't hurting anyone, they both consent (and to deny them is discrimination). Conservative argues: you are redefining the natural institution of marriage to include those who can not engage in the natural process in fosters- it's simply not marriage. Liberal argues: you are discriminating against gay Americans because you are religiously biased toward behavior you find repugnant and sinful- who are you to judge homosexuals and deny them equal rights to marry whomever they want? Conservative argues: what are you going to do when some father wants to marry their son or three or four women want to marry one guy? Liberal argues: well that's different you redefining marriage to include other repugnant things- those are not the same thing. Conservative argues: no the defense you originally made was that it doesn't matter what the behavior is so long as they are consenting adults engaging in behavior that harms no one else. The liberal in this discussion flips back to a tacitly understood logic eshewing the original logic they attempted to defend their original premise upon. The liberal position is false and logically untenable. Update**** Apprently some of you never took logic 101. The causative statement that defends the original argument for gay marriage is done prior to any discernments on the basis of consent. Adults should be free to marry anyone so long as they aren't hurting anyone else and consent to the marriage contract willfully. Specifically there should be no post-argumentative objections based on discernments that that still fit within the discussed context. For instance, yes father daughter relationships do not fit within the context discussed because there are ancillary effects- abnormal children and such. However brother-brother marriages or polygamous marriages where all adults consent do fit within the context of both not harming anyone and adults consenting to a contract so therefore these would have to be included in the redefinement of marriage.

UPDATE: Ahh, but homosexual insest does not cause abnormalities. How do you justify that being unethical. Also, I need to see some proof of the self-esteem argument before I give it any merit. How can you quantify self-esteem? This is the enherent problem with trying to create ethics that specifically avoid moral boundries. You end up having to arbitrate boundries and you loose the reason for having them in a specific place. This is not to say that all ethics should follow moral boundries, but to specifically avoid them is foolish. UPDATE to Metal666: I have never heard someone who used this argument propose that there is a connection between these behaviors as far as homosexuals becoming insestuous or anything like that. There is only a connection between the arguments for the legalization of each behavior which I listed in my original argument. We are only saying that it shows poor forsight to allow something on the basis of an argument that could be used in the same way to adovace things like insest and polygamy. ORIGINAL COMMENT: First of all, not all crimes are an abuse of someone else's rights. If you smoke crack locked up in your house not harming anyone but yourself, it is still illegal is it not? Here we see the government making a decision about what somebody does with their body and few people complain because it is easy to see the inherent harm in drug abuse. This is why people argue for the legalization of marijuana, because it becomes more difficult with a weaker drug to see the harm caused to the user. Magellan, I agree with you. Comparing homosexuals to pedophiles and those who molest animals is insulting as well as logically flawed. But the incest argument does not suffer the same problems. Here you have two consenting adults that happened to be born into the same family (however close) who love each other. They cant control the way they were born and neither should they be told to control the way they fell. Sound familiar? The only difference between these two situations is that one is far less practiced and therefore has retained the original disgust that surrounds it better than the other. For most of us, having sex with a sibling would be unthinkable and disgusting, but where did this feeling come from. If it was not imposed at a young age by society, did it come from nature or for those of faith, God? And if so, why do most of us have similar feelings about having same-sex relations? If indeed the stigmas are imposed by society, (and I dont really think they are), are these things we teach our children about incest just as wrong as raising them in a world heterosexuality is considered the norm?

Bestiality is abuse of animals. Child molestation is abuse of kids. The ethical reasons for giving no legal recognition to incestuous and polygamous relationships are nearly as obvious. (For starters, inbreeding causes genetic abnormalities, and those who would keep multiple spouses often take unfair advantage over people with limited self-esteem.) Ethicists have a much harder making a case why same sex unions typically cause harm to any of the involved parties. The conservative case for harm boils down to these arguments: (1) Too much societal acceptance of same sex partnerships would cause a significant percent of young individuals to choose to be homosexual. (2) Such choosers substantially harm themselves (with procreation challenges and other difficulties in life) and/or they infringe on well being of their own community. These points are worthy enough of debate. What is less worthy of debate is the red herring, slippery slope argument of this list topic. Acceptance of same sex unions in no way implies any kind of acceptance of the legal recognition of bestiality, child molestation, incest or polygamy. These are fully distinct issues that have no logical basis for being tagged on the debate.

These items have no relationship to each other whatsoever. Irrelevant. Turn off the computer now and seek professional help if you think they are related.

There is a clear line between gay marriage and whatever other social ills conservative fearmongers would have us believe it will lead to. Marriage is an act between consenting adults. On the other hand: beastiality is cruelty to animals, pedophilia is abusive and damaging to children, and incest results in children with birth defects and genetic diseases and is therefore unfair to them. With the exception of gay marriage, all share a lack of consent and are hurtful or predatory to someone. Gay marriage is not at the same level as these, no matter how wrong you feel it may be. Furthermore, there are clear reasons, supported by secular legal doctrine, why these other behaviors will never be legalized.

I can understand some of this argument. I think there the concern about when and how something is allowed for fear of what will follow is a genuine one. In this case, concerning the other things listed, I think the difference is same sex marriage would be between two consenting adults. Incest, pedophilia, etc., involves unwilling participants. Comparing same sex marriage to pedophilia is like comparing making love to your wife to raping a stranger.

i agree with the people that said it is completely unrelated and just takes attention away from the issue.**pbeavr How can you say that gays grow into being gay with such certainty, how are you at all qualified to make such a statement as if its fact?

Im sure the same questions were raised when discussing the women's rights controversy as well as equal rights for blacks. Pure nonsense that focuses the attention away from the real issue.

Sadly, this argument was also used for another group: those who wanted to marry the ones they loved of a different race. Interracial marriage is (arguably; there are always going to be a few people who throw a hissy-fit over it) now generally widely accepted in the United States, but the idea was still being fought as late as the 1960's (look up the case of Loving vs. Virginia; in 1967, there were 16 states which had prohibited interracial marriage, using the same arguments against homosexual marriage today; interracial marriage was not so long ago considered deviant behavior). This argument offends me more than any other argument on this list, because frankly I would be furious and highly insulted if anyone compared the relationship between my husband and myself to child and animal rape, and as genetically harmful as incestual relationships (for those who arent familiar with me, Im of Chinese descent, my husband is White). The (general) acceptance of interracial marriage has not lead to an increase nor acceptance of child rape, animal rape, or incest. Gay marriage does not promote rape, and it would certainly not cause any problems with genetics (as incest eventually would), so I dont see how this argument could be used as a reason against the legalization of gay marriage.

This is another argument that really pisses me off. I find a comparison of a relationship between two consensual adults to a a physical act between an animal and a beast to be pretty offensive. To lump together any behavior that isn't the behavior of the majority as deviant and on par with child molestation and bestiality is a terrifying concept to me. I'm taller than the average human - does that make me a deviant? I like to dip my hamburgers in catsup as opposed to putting the catsup on top - clearly this is deviant behavior an