Honestly, if both parties are consensual and of age, it shouldn't be against the law. Don't get me wrong, incest is disgusting and should be roundly mocked in society, but it's not the govt's job to make moral determination. We don't have laws against pregnant mothers drinking, and that causes far more birth defects than incest (mainly because of how prevalent it is). The social norms should make people feel horrible for drinking a lot while pregnant and for incest. But I don't think the govt should care.
Well they should care; but not intervene. The commercials showing pregnant mothers smoking or drinking; with studies on defects. But if a state allows gay marriage; then they should legalize the others too.
I care because I want to limit the role of government in my life as much as I can. And the idea that my government--where all people are created equally--can tell me who I can and cannot marry, I find offensive. They have no right to discriminate. Religious institutions, however, can discriminate as much as they wish.
I didn't see a slippery slope. I saw the same old bigot argument that "marriage equality will inevitabley lead to polygamy because I say so" even though it has not anywhere in the world (and the countries that allow polygamy do not allow same sex marriage) and some academic saying discuss polyamory. Discuss anydamnthing you want. It's free speech. But it also has nothing to do with marriage equality. When straight folks are ready to renounce their right to legal marraige, then you can ask gay folks to do the same.
From the first article linked: As soon as the government makes smoking and drinking while pregnant a crime, or forbids motherhood after age 40, then the "birth defect" argument against incestuous marriage holds water. However, we know that none of those will ever happen.
So crandc, do you believe polygamy should be legal or illegal? I am for gay marriage, and for polygamy, and I do see legalized polygamy as a natural extension of the legalization gay marriage. I think all the same arguments hold. But I have not thought hard on the subject, perhaps I am looking at it as wrong. The slippery slope part that seems like a silly and juvenile extension are the bestiality type arguments. I don't see the parallel there.
I hereby renounce my right to government sponsored marriage, and endorse my government sponsored civil union. I do NOT renounce my Catholic marriage, however. Satisfied?
The Left in this country have pushed more and more towards socialism and spreading the wealth and risk. So, those people have created a society where we all have to pay for supporting other peoples' stupid decisions and mistakes. The Left has voted for and created a government that cares about being in peoples' lives and having others pay for it, so shouldn't the Left want the government to care about many children being born with defects since the rest of us will have to pay to support it?
I'm not claiming my position to that of the left. My positions are usually more left than right, but I don't follow any party line. I think it's impossible for every topic to only have two sides, and for one of the sides to always be correct and the other always incorrect. I do believe in freedom to make bad decisions, but I also want a compassionate society that catches those that make bad decisions from falling too far. in other words, I don't want it to be illegal for a pregnant woman to have a drink, but if she has a mentally deficient kid because of her bad choices, I still want to make sure there is help available for both the woman and the child.
I feel exactly the same way. I don't understand why so many people on the right have a problem with this philosophy. People on the right always want to make it right vs. left, black vs. white, etc.
The Right have created a system in which we all labor to provide the rich with recreation so they can rest from their heavy work of telling us what to do. We all have to subsidize their mistakes. As ABM's signature might say, the only problem with the rich is that eventually you run out of other people's labor.
