If you've posted in forums you might remember writing some decent responses. I usually spend a lot of time polishing my discussion forum responses depending on the subject or who I am talking to. Often I want to remember what I said about something, but finding the original post can be difficult. So it makes sense to capture the better responses for later review. Welcome to Clint's Reposts.Tuesday, February 24, 2004
The Slippery Slope of Disenfranchised Morality (Politics Forum)
David wrote:
"C'mon, Clint! Man/boy marriage has got no more to do with this issue than man/girl marriage has to do with marriage as we know it today. All these slippery slope arguments are crap as far as I'm concerned. You could as well say "a man can marry a girl who is 18, so what's to stop us from letting him marry a girl who is 17... or 14... or **gasp** 10 years old!" It's all subjective!"
Response:
Well David, maybe the slippery slope arguments don't do much for you, but you've never really explained what it is you think *will* stop us (society) from allowing some of these slippery slope issues to progress. At what point will your personal moral line in the sand be crossed? What arguments will you propose when you are not in alignment with some group advancing their issue under the equal protection clause? It's easy to say all those other arguments are crap when nothing crappy appears on the horizon. But you have to remember that the S.F. debacle is the direct result of the slippery slope. Back in June, the majority on U.S. Supreme court said that the (Texas) case "does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter."
Scalia said: "don't believe it." In fact, is worth linking back to the dissenting opinion in that court case. He was right. For so many people, the slippery slope was the Texas sodomy case, not for what the court was ruling about, but for the fact that a formally "rational-basis jurisprudence" was trashed. As Scalia said: "persuading one's fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one's views in absence of democratic majority will is something else." That's what is happening in S.F. That's where slippery slopes take you.
I always thought that we elected people to create laws to stabilize the (usually forward) progression of social morals to fit society at large. Just because one feels emotionally that gays are currently disenfranchised, does that make what is happening in S.F. OK? Does their struggle rise to the level of say slavery, women's rights, etc.? Is this now a time where it is justified for S.F. to ignore state law? Is that the way the game is going to be played for the next disenfranchised group? I wonder.
Clint
"C'mon, Clint! Man/boy marriage has got no more to do with this issue than man/girl marriage has to do with marriage as we know it today. All these slippery slope arguments are crap as far as I'm concerned. You could as well say "a man can marry a girl who is 18, so what's to stop us from letting him marry a girl who is 17... or 14... or **gasp** 10 years old!" It's all subjective!"
Response:
Well David, maybe the slippery slope arguments don't do much for you, but you've never really explained what it is you think *will* stop us (society) from allowing some of these slippery slope issues to progress. At what point will your personal moral line in the sand be crossed? What arguments will you propose when you are not in alignment with some group advancing their issue under the equal protection clause? It's easy to say all those other arguments are crap when nothing crappy appears on the horizon. But you have to remember that the S.F. debacle is the direct result of the slippery slope. Back in June, the majority on U.S. Supreme court said that the (Texas) case "does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter."
Scalia said: "don't believe it." In fact, is worth linking back to the dissenting opinion in that court case. He was right. For so many people, the slippery slope was the Texas sodomy case, not for what the court was ruling about, but for the fact that a formally "rational-basis jurisprudence" was trashed. As Scalia said: "persuading one's fellow citizens is one thing, and imposing one's views in absence of democratic majority will is something else." That's what is happening in S.F. That's where slippery slopes take you.
I always thought that we elected people to create laws to stabilize the (usually forward) progression of social morals to fit society at large. Just because one feels emotionally that gays are currently disenfranchised, does that make what is happening in S.F. OK? Does their struggle rise to the level of say slavery, women's rights, etc.? Is this now a time where it is justified for S.F. to ignore state law? Is that the way the game is going to be played for the next disenfranchised group? I wonder.
Clint
