Gay marriage/slippery slope

Overview

This is for discussion of the "slippery slope" argument against gay marriage.

Debate

if we allow gay marriage, we allow anything and everything

This is a slippery slope circular argument – that is, it argues that gay marriage is bad because if we allow it, we might then allow something worse ("something worse" implying that gay marriage is bad, which implies the conclusion in its premise). The same rhetorical statement could be positively rephrased as: If we redefine marriage to include gay couples, then this opens the door for us to continue refining it so it serves everybody to the best possible extent.

Refinement: Redefining "marriage" to include same-sex couples opens the floodgates, giving rise to redefine any terms with which the vocal minority does not agree. e.g. Marriage can be redefined to be a union with any number of people (Heinlein's S-Marriage (or Line Marriage? See wikipedia:Group marriage.)). "Adult" can be redefined to anyone who can vocalize the word "no" (A commonly held belief in the MAA community is that children are capable of giving consent to sex). etc. What is "MAA"? Also, the claim about redefining "Adult" is a straw man; if true, it is an issue entirely separate from gay marriage. -W..

Again, this presumes that Line Marriages would be bad. The argument should never be about how popular an idea is, but regarding its relative merit. Line Marriages always seemed like a good idea to me, at least as one possible form of extended family. -W..