Reply #55: You have to at least be on the same slope, though. [View All]

[Brotherjohn]

The people who want to outlaw abortion and go about it by making certain types of abortion illegal clearly have the goal of eventually making all types of abortion illegal. They see a compelling need to protect the unborn and can at least make a argument in principle that unborn fetuses and embryos have a right to life just as we do (whether or not you agree with that argument).

The people who want to make gay marriage legal clearly are NOT interested in making any imaginable form of union between any number of people and/or animals legal. There is no constituency for this, there is no principled argument for it, there is no compelling need or public desire for it. They merely want the same rights that others have. It is, as I said above, an issue of equal rights and equal protection. It is not an issue of the "definition of marriage".

The abortion issue is pivots between the goals of making it completely legal and completely illegal. The gay marriage issue pivots between the goals of making it completely legal and completely illegal. To say that legalizing gay marriage would be a slippery slope towards legalizing polygamy and bestiality is like saying outlawing abortion would be a slippery slope towards outlawing consensual sex among adults. You're jumping over onto a completely different slope.

I haven't ever heard any reasonable advocates for choice make that argument about abortion.