December 2004

I think this nicely summarizes my feelings these days:

A slippery slope that isn’t

If we were to pass a law stating that anyone with blue eyes is forbidden to marry his or her sibling, but everyone else can, we’d have a minority rights issue on our hands. We’d be discriminating against a particular group based on a physical characteristic.

But if we pass a law stating that no one can marry his or her sibling, whatever else it might be it’s not discrimination because the law applies equally to everyone.

Preventing gays from marrying discriminates against a group because of sexual orientation. It’s a minority rights issue. But the argument that allowing gays to marry is some kind of slippery slope that leads to polygamous marriages, incestuous marriages and the possibility that the weird guy on the next block will claim the right to marry his pet parrot Polly is bogus. It’s not the same thing.

So just cut it out.

And from one of the comments:

I think the point that’s evading everyone is this:

Marriage is not rooted in any one religious set of beliefs.
As soon as it was opened up for heathens like myself to get married (not belonging, not wanting to belong to, any organized religion), THAT was the only this ’slippery slope’ argument would be even considered valid.

The fact that straight people outside of (because it’s obvious, and easy) the Christian religion can get legally married without protest from the Pope (or anyone else, really), means that the Christian faith has given up all rights to the concept of marriage (at least in Canada).

So we’ve been on this ’slippery slope’ for GENERATIONS now, and we’re not all evil yet.

The commenter makes a good point – you can’t claim something as religiously sacrosanct when you allow people who have no religious persuasion to engage in this practice. The Slippery Slope is not only an argument technique, it’s also a fallacy.

The current top headline on CBC News?

Canada urged to sign on to Bush’s crusade

Bush was in Halifax this morning to thank those in Atlantic Canada who helped out on September 11th handling the thousands of airline passengers who were rerouted while airspace in the U.S. was closed. Yes it was more than 3 years ago. But I suppose in an effort to “warm” relations he’s made this goodwill gesture.

He also took the opportunity to quote one of our longest-serving Prime Ministers, William Lyon Mackenzie King (born in Kitchener!).

[Bush] quoted King’s words directly: “We cannot defend our country and save our homes and families by waiting for our enemies to attack us. To remain on the defensive is the surest way to bring the war to Canada.”

The president added: “Mackenzie King was correct then and we must always remember his words today… There is only one way to deal with enemies who plot in secret and set out to murder the innocent and the unsuspecting. We must take the fight to them.”

King may have realized the necessity to go to war but he still didn’t officially declare war on Germany until September 10th, after Britain had already done so. It’s not like King went out and fought the war on his own days, months or years before anyone else. And let’s not forget that the U.S. didn’t officially enter World War II until 1941. The United States wasn’t exactly actively pursuing a campaign to get rid of the Nazis before that point. I have to give credit to Bush’s speechwriters for using King though; shows that they’re able to do a little bit of research.

We might as well criticize the U.N. while we’re at it:

Bush also took the opportunity to deliver a rebuke to the United Nations, and suggest it and other multinational institutions should be reformed.

“The objective of the UN and other institutions must be collective security, not endless debate,” said the American president. “For the sake of peace, when those bodies promise serious consequences, serious consequences must follow.”

Yes, global security is one of the goals of the U.N. charter but there are other goals in there as well like global human progress, human rights observations and having international cooperation for dealing with problems. There’s bound to be a debate on these issues and perhaps at times there is too much discussion but that doesn’t mean that we should abandon the United Nations model altogether. It has proven effective in a number of situations.