Um, Don't Take That "Husband On A Short Leash" Thing Quite So Literally
In a fit of gay marriage panic, The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed editor actually suggests gay marriage could lead to people marrying their pets:
HENNINGER: This is a footnote to our gay marriage discussion: A woman in India last week married a snake. I would like to ask the proponents of gay marriage--which violates, after all, traditions going back through all of human history--to now absolutely, positively guarantee that the next movement is not going to be allowing people to marry their pet horse, dog or cat. And you know What? Given the "anything goes" culture we live in, I don't think they can deliver that guarantee.
What excuse will they come up with next? The threat to straight marriage excuse clearly isn't working...especially since they've had gay marriage in Massachusetts for two years, and it hasn't caused mobs of married breeders to rush the divorce courts -- well, not any more than were rushing the divorce courts before gay marriage.
Dave Barry calls this the "dog-fucking argument". Anybody with a libertarian streak will encounter it sooner or later. Say you advocate drug legalization, or actually following the second amendment, for example. Some yahoo will likely retort "Oh and I suppose it should be legal to fuck dogs?". Like the threat of arrest is what's stopping everyone.
Todd Fletcher at June 22, 2006 8:48 AM
There was a story on Drudge Report yesterday about a Mexican migrant worker who was doing just that, having anal sex with a puppy, in a city park. After being arrested and put before the judge, he said "What's the problem? He's MY dog."
eric at June 22, 2006 9:27 AM
Thank you, Amy, for posting this. I'm giggling between my fingers at the office. This one is right up there with the 'gay people shouldn't teach at school because they're all pedophiles'. You know how they cull livestock from time to time to weed out the bad seeds? Sometimes I think we should do that to the people who just cannot manage to grasp the concept of logic. "Why do you think that?" "Well, ummm PURPLE!! So there!"
Christina at June 22, 2006 11:32 AM
If the slippery slope argument is all that keeps gays from marrying, we shouldn't have allowed straights to marry, either. After all, letting men and women marry and have sex together, how long will it be before some guy wants to marry another guy?
Point being, if we let this type of thinking influence our actions, none of us would ever leave the house.
Patrick at June 23, 2006 8:23 AM
Anyone who was really interested in protecting the institution of marriage would try to make it hard, almost impossible to get a divorce. After all, what bigger threat to marriage and to the family is there? More than 50 percent of marriages end up in divorce and 30 percent of children are brought up in single-parent households.
But you won't find these "defense of marriage" types screaming about divorce, because they know, at least on this level, they can't legislate the personal lives of heterosexual couples. Who'd want to get married if they knew that this was a commitment that they could never escape? That if their marriage was a mistake, if a spouse became abusive or indifferent, that they had to live with it for eternity. Nobody.
So, the people that claim they want to protect the institution of marriage are lying. They don't care about marriage, they care about keeping a civil right away from a large segment of the population that they find despicable.
Cliff Weathers at June 23, 2006 8:55 AM
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