Slippery Slope and Sodomite "Marriage"

James Taranto has a good discussion of slippery-slope arguments, the federal constitution and courts, and the current marriage crisis, at Best of the Web Today, yesterday (brackets in original):

.... Last year, Sen. Rick Santorum made a similar argument about Lawrence v. Texas, a then-pending case challenging state sodomy laws: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

And in his Lawrence dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: "State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers' validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision."

These comments drew howls from gay-rights advocates, most of whom, we suspect, were objecting to the implication that homosexuality was comparable to practices like incest and bestiality, which most everyone still agrees are deviant. But Lithwick thinks the slippery-slope argument itself is fundamentally flawed: "The problem with the slippery slope argument is that it depends on inexact, and sometimes hysterical, comparisons," she writes. Also: "Slippery slopes are only metaphors. They are not intrinsic principles of law."

Yet the way American constitutional law works, slippery slopes are almost inevitable — a point that is more easily understood if we think of same-sex marriage as coming at the end of such a slope rather than the beginning....

P.S. Recall, Faithful Reader, that AP added the word "gay" (in parentheses or brackets) to Santorum's remarks.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 05/22/04 10:25:59 AM
Categorized as Political.