Probably foreshadowing the U.S. of A.’s continued moral slide into degradation, Canada has recognized two men and a woman living together in a polyamorous relationship as the legal parents of the woman’s child. All of them, all three, are the legal parents.
In his judgment, Justice Robert Fowler of the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court’s family division wrote:
Society is continuously changing and family structures are changing along with it. This must be recognized as a reality and not as a detriment to the best interests of the child. I can find nothing to disparage that relationship from the best interests of the child’s point of view. To deny this child the dual paternal parentage would not be in his best interests.
The Obergefell decision was a slippery slope because society is now defining marriage based on shifting terms and definitions. The decision’s slippery slope also envelopes parenting. Basing institutions important to the fabric of our society on shifting terms and definitions is already bearing rotten fruit in Canada, as evidenced by this recent decision by the Canadian judge.
One of my pet peeves about online conversations is that many people use accusations of fallacies as a bludgeon against those with whom they disagree. However, if during the course of an argument your opponent calls you an idiot, that doesn’t mean that your opponent is guilty of an ad hominem attack. He may be guilty of being a rude jerk, but he hasn’t committed a logical fallacy. He may even be wrong — you may not be an idiot — but, again, not a logical fallacy. Now, if your opponent claims that your argument is invalid because you’re an idiot, then he is guilty of an ad hominem attack. The validity of an argument is based on the argument itself, not on the intellectual acuity or the moral turpitude of the person making the argument.
Likewise, saying that something is a slippery slope does not, of necessity, signal that the person has committed a logical fallacy. For example, I assert that the SCOTUS’s Obergefell vs. Hodges decision is a slippery slope. That’s not a logical fallacy because I do not claim that the SCOTUS’s decision is wrong because it’s a slippery slope. It’s wrong for a host of other arguments. It’s a slippery slope because, well, it’s a slippery slope. Don’t believe me? Look northwards to our once friend and ally, Canada.
Saying that it’s a slippery slope because it’s a slippery slope makes for a sloppy argument. So, allow me to pose a question to those who agree with the Obergefell decision: how do you define marriage? If you say that marriage’s parameters are set by two consenting adults, then I counter with, “What about an adult daughter and her obviously adult father?” That pair fits within your parameters. What’s more, I challenge your definition of adult. On what basis do you define “adult”? Many societies have different definitions of what constitutes an “adult.” Why are you right and they’re wrong?
Without an objective standard, society is going to continue to redefine what is in the best interest of children. What is going to happen when those who support pederasty rise to power? Or, more likely, what’s going to happen when those in power begin to embrace pederasty as morally neutral? The answer is not hard to see: the “best interest” of children will be rewritten, once again. Rebelling against God’s revealed parameters for sexuality, gender, marriage, and family is a slippery slope to decreasing levels of moral degradation.
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