This post might make some people mad, but it is logical and that’s what really matters. I was discussing same-sex marriage with a friend of mine about a week ago and I boiled down what it truly meant to make it “legal.” I am not going to throw around the usual “social conservative” arguments about undermining traditional marriage, promotion of homosexuality, etc. because I actually do not believe those reasons. What worries me the most about same-sex marriage is the oft-cited justifications behind it.

Let’s start by understanding the problem that some liberals and some social conservatives have with government, oddly enough a place they converge: they do not want the government setting a social agenda for the country. The difference is that these liberals are opposed to imposing a Christian moral code on the country and social conservatives are opposed to imposing a strict amoral secular code on the country. Where they agree is where most Americans agree: government should not tell us what to do. This is where the problem with the whole same-sex marriage comes in. Proponents of same-sex marriage tend to think that the government should “defend” the right of people of the same sex to “marry,” at the very least to have rights equal to those conferred on those who are already legally “allowed” to marry. There are two ways that this can happen: either government gives certain couples special rights or the government simply recognize inherent equal rights of all people to marry whoever they choose.

By and large, from what I have read, proponents of same-sex marriage do not believe that this type of union is a special right, but rather a natural human right. In fact, just google it and read the pro-gay-marriage sites. Neither proponents of gay marriage in general nor opponents believe that the government should create special rights for particular classes of people. Same-sex marriage proponents preach “equal rights.” Which brings me to the meat of the argument.

Since proponents of same sex marriage argue that a person should be free to marry whoever they want, the extension of the definition of marriage from the previously “socially assumed limits” of heterosexual couples means that other “socially assumed limits” can be and, in fact, should be disregarded. What this means is that to accept the freedom for anyone to marry anyone opens the door to incestuous relationships and polygamous relationships. So here we get stuck: if we accept the premise that anyone has the right to marry anyone, then we are open to incestuous relationships; if we believe that some people should not be allowed to marry in our society, like close relatives, then it means that society has the right to restrict same-sex marriage if it so chooses. That’s what it comes down to. If same-sex marriage proponents do not wish to open the Pandora’s Box of any type of marriage imaginable, then they must be open to some sort of government restriction, and if they are open to giving government the power to restrict marriage, then they open the door to restrict same-sex marriage. So the more consistent proponent of same-sex marriage that believes that government should not restrict the right of people to marry should take the full-blown libertarian plunge and say that “yes, we envision a society that permits incest, polygamy, incestuous polygamy, homosexual incestuous polygamy, etc.“

What a possible pro-gay-incest marriage button will look like

This is just food for thought. It’s an argument I came up with a while back but is shared by many other people across the political spectrum. Here’s an interesting article I just read. Sometimes this argument is called the “slippery slope” argument or reductio ad absurdum, but the reality is simple: either a person is free to choose any other consenting adult or a person can be restricted. It is no stretch to say that logically and legally this type of argument for any type of marriage can be used. Here is where I need to clarify though: same-sex marriage itself will not lead to homosexual incestuous polygamous marriage but rather the explicit “freedom” to marry anyone will. So this is not inherently an argument about same-sex marriage, it is an argument about our willingness to let government decide the rules for marriage, e.g. rules possibly restricting gay marriage. So now the question is: do we want to live in a society where we can collectively choose to restrict some forms of marriage or not?

-AG