GOODRIDGE IS GOOD: Mark Miller

Here comes all the hand-wringing about the pending disaster of this decision. I'll give a brief response to the most common objections:

1) It sends a message that "children do not need both a mother and father."

There are already many legal "marriages" that send that message: for example, prisoners and illegal immigrants. The argument that same-sex relationships should be denied legal acknowledgment because they do not provide a "mother" and a "father" is pretty weak when 1) single people can adopt and 2) marriages are allowed for people regardless of their past/present actions (i.e.: rapists, murderers, abusers). If marriage were truly the institution that anti-SSM advocates are trying to paint, there should be some qualifications to get "in the club."

Your point is simply that opposite-sex is the only relevant criteria to maintaining this "crucial social institution."

2) Slippery slope argument:

Justice Scalia was correct. If you begin to accept homosexuals as people who have the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals, then the slippery slope does lead to the right to have your relationship acknowledges the same way heterosexuals do. Just like the slippery slope for race--first, the slaves were freed, then they got the right to eat anywhere, then the right to vote, then the right to marry anyone they chose. The fear is the same--that "this group of people" will become accepted into the mainstream.

3) The next step is legalized polygamy or incest.

This is totally different. This was excluding an entire group of people the right to marry the person they love. Polygamy does not exclude an entire group of people. I'll concede that if one believes that polygamy/incest is the moral equivalent to a relationship between people of the same sex--then I can understand how that person would be against same-sex marriage. But that belief is not based on any legal foundation deeper or more intellectual than the "ick factor."
posted by Eve at 8:44 PM | link

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