Anyone else bored to tears with the “slippery slope” arguments against gay marriage? Since few opponents of homosexual unions are brave enough to admit that gay weddings just freak them out, they hide behind the claim that it’s an inexorable slide from legalizing gay marriage to having sex with penguins outside JC Penney’s. The problem is it’s virtually impossible to debate against a slippery slope. Before you know it you fall down, break your crown, and Rick Santorum comes tumbling after.

Ooh ooh, this is one tasty article by Dahlia Lithwick.

The real problem is that there are really only three arguments against gay marriage: One is rooted in entirely God’s preferences—which have little bearing on Equal Protection or Due Process doctrine, as far as I can tell. The second cites inconclusive research on its negative effects on children. The backup is the slippery slope jeremiad, which seems to pass for a legal argument, at least on cable TV.

It makes sense and it’s entertaining.

Another problem with the slippery slope objections to gay marriage is that they present a moving target. No two opponents of gay marriage seem to agree upon where this parade of horribles begins or ends. You can order your comparisons off the Santorum Menu (“bigamy, polygamy, incest, adultery”), the Scalia Menu (“bigamy, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity”), or off the James Dobson Menu, in which all of the above evils ensue, plus the demise of heterosexual marriage altogether. Call this argument the horse-and-elephant leavings, smoking on the ground after the parade of horribles has passed by. No one can plausibly explain why the entire institution of marriage is at risk from gay unions. Which raises yet another objection to slippery slope arguments: These are projections into an unknowable future. Asking proponents of gay marriage to prove that these marriages won’t be bad for kids or families is asking that they prove a negative. The law cannot know the long-term future social effects of legalizing gay marriage (Stanley Kurtz, who has quite fixed views on gay men and their philandering ways, notwithstanding). We can only determine whether it is fundamentally unfair to bar one whole class of citizens from a privilege constitutionally afforded the rest of us.

If Dahlia were on stage before me, I’d toss my legal briefs up to her.

One of the most persistent complaints of conservative commentators is that liberal activist judges refuse to decide the case before them and instead use the law to reshape the entire legal landscape for years to come. The Massachusetts Supreme Court, in finding that the ban on gay marriage violated the state constitution, did exactly what good judges ought to do: It confined its reasoning to the case before it, rather than addressing the myriad hypothetical future cases that may be affected by the decision. Opponents of gay marriage should consider doing the same.

Just… just… just go read it already.

Related posts:

1. Why Proving Discrimination Isn’t Good Enough for Gay Marriage Supporters in Prop 8 Trial
2. Things make so much sense when he says them.
3. Rick Santorum is a fucking idiot, but you all knew that, right?
4. Gay Marriage Statistics from 2010 Census Will Probably Increase Legal Protections
5. John Kusch Has an Interesting Spin on Things