Well, lots more. This new report about a civil union between three people (a man and two women) in Brazil suggests that those of us worried about the slippery slope aren’t out of our minds.
I should say that Brazil and South America in general has a much stronger political tradition on the Left than in the United States, and so the truisms of the Left (“marriage is what we say it is”) are more likely to be followed to their logical conclusions. But as many have pointed out, plural marriage is a logical conclusion of the “equality” argument made on behalf of same-sex marriage. In fact, the logical conclusion of same-sex marriage is the end of marriage as a normative institution. Its logic is that we can have sex, babies, and domestic contracts in whatever styles and arrangements suit our desires.
I’m not one who thinks that social reality invariably follows to logical conclusions. (Even though it’s often a good bet when it comes to many social trends, the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy.) My guess is that marriage between a man and women for the sake of children will remain quasi-normative in America, in part because it is actually gaining strength among the upper middle class and elites. But there’s little doubt in my mind that “redefining” marriage weakens it as an institution.
And has been the case for most of the personal liberation projects since the 1960s, the poorest and most vulnerable will pay the price.
August 29th, 2012 | 10:33 am
The union between the three people in Brazil is a civil union, not a legal marriage. We don’t even know if the union is of a sexual nature or purely economic. And whether it will stand or not seems very uncertain as I read the article.
So we aren’t dealing with a polygamous marriage. But it seems to me it is impossible to deny polygamous marriage is marriage. Most (including me) would no doubt agree that it presents significant problems in a modern society like our own and should not be permitted. But it is still marriage.
I really don’t see why same-sex marriage creates a slippery slope for polygamy. There are certanly arguments against polygamy that do not apply to same-sex marriage. Those arguments do not disappear when same-sex couples are permitted to marry.
August 29th, 2012 | 1:21 pm
I’ve been looking for years for the argument against polygamy that would be undermined by gay marriage.
And again: it’s quite true that “the logic [of gay marriage] is that we can have sex, babies, and domestic contracts in whatever styles and arrangements suit our desires.” But Prof. Reno has the arrow of implication pointing in the wrong direction. Gay marriage is a result of a change in thinking that began a long time ago, not the cause of that change.
August 29th, 2012 | 2:19 pm
The definition of marriage accords to something physically real – parenthood. Any redefinition breaks the physical mould, “emotionalising” the entire institution. Three-person marrriage is made possible by same-sex marriage in the same way that same-sex marriage would be made possible by three-person marriage. Polygamy (multiple marriages) is considered undesirable in th comtrxt of procreation and parenting. Redefined marriage would – by definition – have nothing to do with procreation.
August 29th, 2012 | 2:30 pm
The definition of marriage accords to something physically real – parenthood. Any redefinition breaks the physical mould, “emotionalising” the entire institution. Three-person marrriage is made possible by same-sex marriage in the same way that same-sex marriage would be made possible by three-person marriage. Polygamy (multiple marriages) is considered undesirable in the context of procreation and parenting. Redefined msrriage – by definition – would have no link to procreation.
August 29th, 2012 | 3:07 pm
“For better or worse, it doesn’t matter, but what we considered a family before isn’t necessarily what we would consider a family today.”
That seems a pretty vague justification, but I admit it conveniently fuzzes the definition of “family” as we are doing with the definition of marriage. It’s whatever the popular people say it is—it’s “not necessarily” what we used to think those institutions are, but that doesn’t apparently matter. To quibble about details is narrow-minded, I guess.
August 29th, 2012 | 3:41 pm
I’m sorry, but all this talk about blurring the meanings of “marriage” and “family” brings to mind dreadful images of a South Park episode in which a character goes off to live in a PETA compound and marries a goat. I pray this is not where this slippery slope is headed.
August 29th, 2012 | 4:47 pm
I’m sorry, but all this talk about blurring the meanings of “marriage” and “family” . . . .
Katherine Infantine,
My nephew and his wife talk about their dog as a member of the family. He appears with them on their Christmas card photo. Probably millions of people feel the same way about their pets. Family has always meant much more than nuclear family (husband, wife, children). The idea of the nuclear family as a unit of society is in fact only a few hundred years old.
We don’t know the details, but what we do know is that this three-person union is a civil union. Brazil has both civil unions and same-sex marriage, so we’re not talking about a polygamous marriage in Brazil. And if it should be the case (as I am only guessing it might be) that the man in this civil union thinks of the two women a his wives, and they think of him as their husband, we don’t have a same-sex marriage.
And of course, as I keep repeating, polygamous marriage is marriage. In Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, Davidic descent is from David and Bathsheba, who was David’s seventh wife. Some of the greatest figures in the Old Testament had multiple wives (or wives and concubines), and it would be bizarre indeed to claim that they were not really married.
Many people consider the same-sex partners of their sons and daughters as part of the family, and many families have close friends that they think of as part of the family. I don’t think it has ever been the case in living memory (for me) that if someone claimed someone to be a part of the family who was not a close blood relative, people would have objected and claimed the meaning of family was somehow being degraded.
Same-sex marriage is a very new concept, but polygamy is a very old concept, and it has never gone away. Polygamous marriage is fully legal in close to fifty countries and recognized in more. It strikes me as not just willfully blind but arrogant to claim that polygamous marriage is not marriage, or that those in polygamous marriages are not families.
I would certainly agree that polygamous marriage is not right for Western countries or for many of the countries where it is practiced. But it certainly is marriage, and polygamous family arrangements are families.
August 29th, 2012 | 5:17 pm
David, actually, same sex marriage is not legal in Brazil.
August 29th, 2012 | 5:51 pm
David, actually, same sex marriage is not legal in Brazil.
Cojuanco,
If same-sex marriage is not legal in Brazil, I am not sure how the title From Gay Marriage to . . . can be relevant. If you don’t have gay marriage, how can you go from gay marriage to something else?
Wikipedia says, “In Brazil, a same-sex couple may convert their civil union into marriage with the approval of a state judge. This has occurred on a case-by-case basis.”
August 29th, 2012 | 7:41 pm
The “civil union” in Brazil is nothing more than a private contract that they had notarized. As the BBC article itself makes clear, there is absolutely no indication that anyone other than the contracting parties will recognize this “union.”
Private parties can contract among themselves anywhere, regardless of whether same-sex marriage is recognized or not. Indeed, Brazil does not recognize same-sex marriage. It is not so much that the author is “out of his mind” as it is that he lacks the integrity to weigh evidence and to present facts accurately to his readers. He has staked out his position and now will reach for anything to justify it.
August 30th, 2012 | 10:30 am
Indeed, Brazil does not recognize same-sex marriage.
David Riel,
Actually, you are incorrect. According to Wikipedia:
If your point, however, is that R. R. Reno and Robert George (in another post) are making a big deal where none is warranted, I agree completely.
August 31st, 2012 | 12:30 am
What’s all this talk about marriage? Who gets married anymore? Who adopts children? Who even has children? In Germany that can’t pay people to have kids as noted in this week’s WSJ.
Beneath all this talk of marriage is a will-to-power rightisms. It reminds me of Diane Keaton saying she adopted because she wanted to know what it was like. Another notch on the experience belt. Here’s an easy prediction. Same-sex marriage, like gay adoption, will fade into desuetude in less than a generation. It was never about marriage. It was never about children. All civil rights movements have devolved from individual dignity to a mania for power. Look at Detroit. Listen to the president. Then there are the sad incoherent bumper stickers I saw on one car the other day. One: Feminist for Life. The other: Obama 2012.
August 31st, 2012 | 1:14 am
So beautiful to see a truly biblical marraige. Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, didn’t stop at 2. I say take as many wives as you can afford.
Gay marraige is wrong though, the bible says so!
August 31st, 2012 | 1:33 am
I don’t see how pluralistic relationships constitute a slippery slope from gay marriage. Pluralistic marriages were an historical norm and are as “old as time”. I don’t see how gay marriage could lead down a slippery slope to something that was there and accepted long before.
On the issue of marriage being all about kids, by that measure straight people who don’t want to have kids mustn’t get married either. What are we doing to stop them?
September 1st, 2012 | 3:33 pm
I don’t see how pluralistic relationships constitute a slippery slope from gay marriage. Pluralistic marriages were an historical norm and are as “old as time”. I don’t see how gay marriage could lead down a slippery slope to something that was there and accepted long before.
If the argument the gays are making is found to be true, then it is true not only for gays, but for everyone.
That’s not a slippery slope fallacy. That’s a precedent. If a new right is found to exist for gays, then the principle of equality under the law says that it must also exist for everyone else.
Is the right to enjoy sex with your spouse a basic human right?
Is the right to marry the person you love, enjoy having sex with, and/or want to be with a basic human right?
Is it true that it’s unacceptable (illegal and discriminatory) bigotry to hold that marriage has a procreative function, or to value the family-preserving functions of marriage?
If it is, then the principle of equality under the law leads logically and inevitably to the recognition that, as it is true with gays, so must it be for any couple or group: if marriage is a “right”, then the burden of proof should not be on those who wish to unite to prove that their union will do no harm, but rather the burden should be entirely on those who would prevent their union to demonstrate how that union would do harm significant enough to override their basic right to marry.
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