You know, oddly enough, the "slippery slope argument" DOES hold water. . .

[xiphias]

One of the arguments which people used to argue against interracial marriage was that it was a slippery slope. If you let blacks and whites marry, why, then, eventually, GAYS might be able to marry, too!

And they DID. Just two generations later!

Now people are arguing that gay marriage is going to be a slippery slope leading to allowing polygamy.

Well.

What of it? If people decide to do that, I feel confident that they will do so because they will believe that it is morally and ethically correct to do so.

Comments

[holyhippie]

I'm perfectly fine with polygamous marriages. As long as all the adults involved consent, what's the issue?

I think that if the government ever did consider moving this type of marriages to a legal status on par with marriages involving two people, they would quickly find the territory full of landmines in respect to benefits, legal rights, insurance, and so on. Plus, there would be reduced barriers to preventing marriages where the sole intent of the marriage is to fraduently gain benefits from the government.

Companies may stop giving health insurance benefits to employees. Right now, they have to cover maybe two adults, plus some number of kids (which are cheaper to cover). What if they had to cover four adults, plus kids?

These problems may be surmountable ... but the issues are certainly going to be different, going from a marriage composed of merely two people, to a marriage composed of many.

[madcaptenor.livejournal.com]

Companies may stop giving health insurance benefits to employees.

Of course, we could have nationalized health care. Then that wouldn't be a problem.

[embryomystic.livejournal.com]

Socialised medicine? What's next, public schooling?

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

As long as all the adults involved consent, what's the issue?

That *is* the issue. When you start adding more people you get into serious problems of undue influence, and consent vs "well okay". (Ask me how I know!)

Not that I'm against it, just saying that it's fraught with difficulty. Of course monogamy is, too, especially from my perspective. ;)

You also bring up the insurance issue...my visualization for this is a giant marriage-katamari, where every employee of the company is forced into some sort of bizarre line-marriage so that they can all be covered under one policy! Or, y'know, insurers could stop privileging married couples as if women were still supposed to be unemployed, barefoot, etc., and just charge per person covered (with some sort of discount like there is for multiple cars).

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

>they would quickly find the territory full of landmines in respect to benefits, legal rights, insurance, and so on.

One friend admitted that while he opposed gay marriage on the grounds that that's simply not what he thinks about when he thinks of the word marriage, he also thinks we shouldn't legalize gay marriage because he didn't think our current setup could afford to extend all the various benefits to same-sex partners too.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

To which my answer is "change the setup rather than denying people basic civil rights", but well, y'know, I'm one of them filthy communists.

[ruth-lawrence.livejournal.com]

:::screams:::!!!

But tjen we don't have quite the giant, top-heavy running-dog infrastructure in our countries.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

oh I agree. He would agree too if he thought this were a perfect world but he thinks of himself as a hardened realist who sees what's actually possible in this world.

hardened realism

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i'm a hardened realist too, but the test is whether i'm only one when i've already got mine, or whether i can handle it when i end up with the short end of the stick.

Re: hardened realism

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

:)
He's gotten the short end of the stick in other areas so I imagine he figures every group gets its share of the short shrift. I'm not agreeing with the guy...just...he's not an "I've got mine" kind of guy.