slippery slope?

[keryx]

I read some interview a bit ago with Mary Cheney, who mocked the idea that including same sex couples in civil marriage rights would be a 'slippery slope' of opening marriage to poly marriage, marrying your cousin, etc. - and then, shockingly, I forgot about it. Except today Feministe brings it back up as 'Mary Cheney Hates Black People'. To sum up: Feministe & Mary Cheney both think the 'slippery slope' argument is bunk, but with slightly different ideas about why.

Personally, I agree that legislating gay marriage (civilly, of course - religions get to define marriage however they like) doesn't introduce plural households into the mix. We're now comfortable with this idea of love as a two-person-perfect-match thing, and it's less of a stretch (albeit a reaaaaally big stretch still) for most folk to apply that to same-gender couples than to imagine a multiple-person concept as also love/family/whatevah.

Hell, even Feministe says I can only be married to one person at one time, no matter who I am and no matter who they are. (arguing that opposite-sex-only marriage discriminates on the basis of sex). I think that argument's weak - or at least, it's too easy for me to see it turned around as "well, we're not discriminating, you can marry any MAN you want" or even any WHITE MAN.

But I'm very much of the opinion that marriage benefits ought to be available to any combination of consenting adults. Is it love and marriage in the religious sense? Maybe not. Maybe it's something new. The issues around gay marriage often sound to me like middle class white queers thinking mostly of ourselves and our own benefits.

And, ya know, it's Mary Cheney.

What do y'all think?
[Poll #734567]

Comments

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

I need a "that article hopelessly confused me" button.

[jadelennox]

I think it is a slippery slope, but we should lie about it. *g*

Seriously? I don't think there should be a *civil* contract that assigns special priveliges to people based on who society assumes they're screwing. IMHO, civil society has a few legitimate concerns:

1. child rearing in stable environments
2. shared property ownership
3. rights of inheritance, power of attorney, medical proxy, etc.

If those can't be dealt with by existing legal contracts then civil society should figure out who has the right to enter into such legal arrangements. Personally I think it should include two brothers raising their dead sister's kids, or three best friends sharing a home, and none of that with any flavor of incest or polyamory because it has nothing to do with sex. If someone else thinks kids are best raised in a household which consists of one man and one woman and some number of kids and a Saab, we can have that argument. But I'll find it laughable if they tell me that those kids will do better if their parents are getting it on.

Legislating sexual relationships is best left to religions. There are a few exceptions (eg. society has the right to forbid sex which is non-consensual, but must define what non-con means, which is why we have such a mess of laws about rape, aquaintance, statuatory rape, incest, pedophilia, etc). But it's social relationships civil society should care about.

I suspect, given enough time, I could convince Miss Manners to take my side in this one. Her practical and private side usually overrides her respect for tradition.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Me, too. Non-religious marriage is merely a civil contract that addresses property owenership and inheritance issues in a particular way, and I don't see why that contract (or others of equal legal footing) shouldn't allow all sorts of configurations.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

The original article, or Feministe's? Cause I'm not sure the original actually had a point.

[snidegrrl.livejournal.com]

Feministe's, actually. But I didn't give it a good thorough reading. I understood it was deconstructing the original, and the original was easy to deconstruct, but I couldn't figure out where that ended and saying Mary Cheney hates black people started.

[steamedwords.livejournal.com]

I don't think Feministe was saying Mary Cheney hates black people, I think that was the original article.

[luguvalium.livejournal.com]

Amen, sister

[catchstars.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a slippery slope, mostly because if you look at it statistically, there are a lot more queer relationships out there than incestuous ones and poly ones. There's a huge queer movement out there pushing for equal marriage rights, and the movements behind other "alternative" lifestyles aren't so big or forceful.

I think that it would take some time for poly marriages to become legalized, mostly because of semantics. If I marry A, but A is already married to B and we share a home, does that make me married to B as well? Would children of B be considered my stepchildren? Two people is very easy, legally. The many combinations of three or more, not so much.

(I checked that I'm cool with it not being a slippery slope, because to me "slippery slope" implies that things happen uncontrollably and somewhat sloppily. YMMV.)

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

Two thoughts:
1. I don't believe in slippery slopes. We're smart enough (some of us, anyway) to differentiate between shades of gray. The world isn't black and white. The slippery slope people always remind me of that line from "It" where Bev's father tells her that (paraphrased) a girl who chews gum will smoke cigarettes and a girl who smokes cigarettes will drink beer and a girl who drinks beer will do *anything*
So chewing gum is the top of the slippery slope leading to drugs, prostitution and a life of crime??? It just doesn't work that way.

2. I'm not entirely sure I'm okay with polygamy, primarily because I haven't seen any cost analysis of it. I assume there isn't any, but I refuse to take a stand in favor of it before I see a study on how it would impact the tax structure and economy. Since marriage is a legal designation, I want to know what it would do to the legal system and tax base if 5 percent of the men in this country chose to marry three women at a time.
I mean, I don't see how polygamy would lead to the downfall of western society, but you never know -- could be that our entire tax structure is based on a two-person marriage system and altering it could send Wall Street into a flaming ruin.

[cutegaychick.livejournal.com]

I'm a huge Miss Manners fan and I'm positive she'd take your side without much convincing. She's way cool and progressive.