How do you justify gay marriage without justifying incest?

[EGarrett]

This is the only logical difficulty I see when I'm arguing gay rights with people. I've said in the past that there is no logical argument against gay marriage, and that's pretty much true, but looking deeper into the justification for gay marriage (people have the right to pursue happiness as long as it doesn't harm others or harm the functioning of society...and homosexuality does not harm anyone, whereas bestiality, pedophilia and incest are harmful to the animal, the child or the offspring).

The only problem is, how do you respond when your opponent points out that you must support incest as long as they don't have children?

 

[Nogbad]

This is the only logical difficulty I see when I'm arguing gay rights with people. I've said in the past that there is no logical argument against gay marriage, and that's pretty much true, but looking deeper into the justification for gay marriage (people have the right to pursue happiness as long as it doesn't harm others or harm the functioning of society...and homosexuality does not harm anyone, whereas bestiality, pedophilia and incest are harmful to the animal, the child or the offspring).

The only problem is, how do you respond when your opponent points out that you must support incest as long as they don't have children?

What do you mean by incest? I have known 1st cousins who have married. He got the snip. If it is gay incest then there will be no kids anyhoo

 

[EGarrett]

A brother marrying his sister (without having children), or a mother marrying or having sex with her 18-year-old son (again without having children)...

 

[Rasmus]

This is the only logical difficulty I see when I'm arguing gay rights with people. I've said in the past that there is no logical argument against gay marriage, and that's pretty much true, but looking deeper into the justification for gay marriage (people have the right to pursue happiness as long as it doesn't harm others or harm the functioning of society...and homosexuality does not harm anyone, whereas bestiality, pedophilia and incest are harmful to the animal, the child or the offspring).

The only problem is, how do you respond when your opponent points out that you must support incest as long as they don't have children?

Where is the problem?

If you cannot demonstrate that there is a problem with X, then I will indeed support it. Why should I be against incest in lieu of all the reasons against it?

 

[Earthborn]

I am assuming you are talking about consensual sexual relationships between direct family members. Still, the question does not make sense; sex isn't marriage. Better questions would be "how do you justify gay sex without justifying incestuous sex?" or "how would you justify gay marriage without justifying incestuous marriage?". At least those questions compare similar things.

I guess it is certainly possible that incestuous couples will also demand that they can legally marry, and perhaps they will make some of the same arguments that are now used in favour of same sex marriage. I also don't think such a thing would necessarily be bad.

But I believe that there is a very fundamental difference between same sex marriage and incestuous marriage, which I think makes it less likely that people in incestuous relationships will feel the need to marry. Civil marriage is something that is organised in most countries as a way for two people who are not family to be treated as family by the government. Incestuous couples are already family and many/most of the government benefits/regulations that apply to married couples already apply to them.

 

[Retrograde]

The only problem is, how do you respond when your opponent points out that you must support incest as long as they don't have children?

OK, iff it's between consenting adults. As for children, well, we breed race horses to close relatives and look how well, um, er, nevermind. There is an increased risk for perpetuating non-desired traits; however, with modern medicine and technology we see a lot of high risk babies surviving today that wouldn't have a generation ago.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

How do I counter this? I simply point out that it's a red herring and slippery slope, akin to how one could say "no, women can't be allowed to vote, because then children will have to be allowed to vote, too", or "if you eat animal meat, you might as well eat start eating human meat, too". Instead of discussing the topic at hand, you derail the discussion while simultaneously associating your opponent's stance with a social taboo. It's a cunning move, but ultimately nothing more than a fallacy.

If I was to take the argument seriously, I'd say that apart from the risks you undertake when having anal sex, which causes tearing, etc., homosexuality is not hurting anyone. Incest, however, is genetically unsound, and shouldn't be undertaken by unless one partner is sterile. In fact, as far as I know, there are places in the world, among them American states, that allow cousins to marry if one of them is sterile.

But as Earthborn says, incest isn't marriage. Denying people in an incestuous relationship the right to marry won't stop them from getting each others laid.

As for the "gay marriage is pedophilia" argument: Even if homosexuality was similar to pedophilia somehow, and children did feel romantic love and wanted to marry, which they don't, children shouldn't marry for the same reason they shouldn't vote, move away from home, or create and manage their own bank accounts: they're below the age of consent and aren't advanced enough to make such decisions.

So ultimately:

How do you justify gay marriage without justifying incest?

I don't. I tell them to get the **** back on topic.

 

[Fiona]

Civil marriage is something that is organised in most countries as a way for two people who are not family to be treated as family by the government. Incestuous couples are already family and many/most of the government benefits/regulations that apply to married couples already apply to them.

But not all. I do not mean to suggest this pair were incestuous but, if incestuous gay marriage were legal it might have solved their problem

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/7372555.stm

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Wait, how would you justify prohibiting incest? It produces genetically damaged kids? No parallel argument exists for homosexuality, so the comparison falls flat. What else, it's icky? If ickiness were a valid argument for stopping people from doing things, wear socks with sandals would be illegal.

Why should we prohibit incest, exactly?

How does an opponent of gay marriage who is also an opponent of incest justify prohibiting incest?

 

[BPSCG]

What, if we allow gay marriage, I'm gonna start ******* my mother?

I bet I don't.

 

[paximperium]

As already mentioned by "Safe-Keeper" your argument is a logical fallacy and therefore invalid.

It essentially a dishonest or ignorant attempt at linking one issue with another unrelated issue. Instead of discussing "gay marriage", you link it with Incest which are two differing issues only related by sex practice and hated by Christians.

My personal belief is that the government should get out of the "marriage" business. All current marriages should be civil unions(a completely legal and secular based practice) and you can go and get "married" at your local church if you want to call it that.

If you want to discuss the ethics of incest, start another thread.

 

[GreyICE]

This is the only logical difficulty I see when I'm arguing gay rights with people. I've said in the past that there is no logical argument against gay marriage, and that's pretty much true, but looking deeper into the justification for gay marriage (people have the right to pursue happiness as long as it doesn't harm others or harm the functioning of society...and homosexuality does not harm anyone, whereas bestiality, pedophilia and incest are harmful to the animal, the child or the offspring).

The only problem is, how do you respond when your opponent points out that you must support incest as long as they don't have children?

Well first I'll ask the logical followup question: Since society has the right to arbitrarily restrict what parties can be involved in a marriage, you must logically support the right of countries to restrict based on race and/or religion, correct? It's exactly the fallacy they're using, turned around and thrown in their face.

Then I'd follow up with saying that I do think incest between two consenting adults is fine as long as they don't have children. That is related to my stance on gay marriage only in that I have started from similar base principles to arrive there. But first I'd let them argue themselves out of the race restrictions. If it was a debate, I'd simply use the question above to show the fallacy of the argument, and leave it at that.

 

[ceo_esq]

As already mentioned by "Safe-Keeper" your argument is a logical fallacy and therefore invalid.

It essentially a dishonest or ignorant attempt at linking one issue with another unrelated issue. Instead of discussing "gay marriage", you link it with Incest which are two differing issues only related by sex practice and hated by Christians.

To raise a slippery slope argument is generally not fallacious so long as one is not arguing that A will inevitably, as a matter of logic, lead to B. A more modest claim that A will or may make B more likely may be mistaken but does not generally involve an error of logic. Such non-fallacious slippery slope arguments are important in matters of legislation and jurisprudence. As Eugene Volokh has noted:

Slippery slopes are … a real cause for concern, as legal thinkers such as Madison, Jackson, Brennan, Harlan, and Black have recognized, and as our own experience at least partly bears out: we can all identify situations where one group's support of a first step A eventually made it easier for others to implement a later step B that might not have happened without A (though we may disagree about exactly which situations exhibit this quality). Such an A may not have logically required the corresponding B, yet for political and psychological reasons, it helped bring B about.

(E. Volokh, "The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope", 116 Harv. L. Rev. 1026 (2003) (internal citations omitted).)


Interestingly, Professor Volokh has written a subsequent article dealing with slippery slope arguments in the specific context of same-sex marriage that is available online. EGarrett, this might be of particular interest to you in relation to the kind of conversations to which your OP refers.

 

[articulett]

Most states allow marriage between two consenting adults who are not related (some states allow first cousin marriage... others say they must be at least second cousins)--

Most states do not have (or did not have) laws forbidding sex between same sex couples nor did they allow polygamy, incestuous marriages, nor children to enter into "contracts"-- gay marriage was allowed in some states because it was never forbidden by the words of the law... incestuous marriage is.

 

[SimonD]

I don't see why we need to justify gay marriage in the first palce. I don't see why they shouldn't suffer alone with the rest of us who are.

 

[jimtron]

I agree with much of what has already been said. Also I'd point out that there isn't a critical mass of people pushing for the right to marry a family member, afaik; yet there are millions of gay people in the U.S., many fighting for the right to marry, and although a lot of Americans aren't comfortable with gay marriage, I'm pretty sure the majority of them think that homosexuality is OK. I don't think that's the case with incest.

 

[Gregory]

A brother marrying his sister (without having children), or a mother marrying or having sex with her 18-year-old son (again without having children)...

I don't justify it; if a brother and sister want to marry, it's no business of mine; as you say, who's it hurting? Liberty hall, I say.

 

[Rasmus]

The only problem is, how do you respond when your opponent points out that you must support incest as long as they don't have children?

One could be a good little sceptic, of course, and simply tell them that one does, in fact, "support" incest.

(Minor derail on the choice of words here: I don't "support" gay marriage. I am in favour of it being legal. I would think gay people can get married all by themselves without any help or assistance from me. But that might be an issue I have with English as a second language ...)

Anyway, I am uncomfortable with the argument that incest should be illegal because of increased risks of the potential offspring. First of all, I think (but might be wrong) that the risk has been greatly exaggerated. Secondly, and more importantly, the same restriction is not applied in cases with a much greater risk, i.e with people who already have known genetic defects.

 

[Ysidro]

How do I what now? I'm sorry, but it doesn't follow. I justify gay marriage without justifying incest because they have nothing to do with one another! But thanks for trying, please enjoy the home game.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Why should we prohibit incest, exactly?

Because I don't have a sister.