Is Slippery Slope a Logical Fallacy in Same Sex Marriage?

Owners of this Pizza Business Received Death Threats for Refusing to Service a Gay Wedding

The ABC recently wrote a post arguing that the entire NO campaign on same sex marriage is based on a series of logical fallacies, chief among them being the ‘slippery slope’. To better understand logical fallacies see my teachingmaterials on that topic.
 

A ‘slippery slope’ fallacy is the argument against change on the basis that the change will cause all sorts of disasters when there is no reason why that would necessarily occur. 

This can be a logical fallacy. It is also the case that history is littered with examples of slopes that were indeed slippery and disastrous consequences that did follow from bad decisions. 

To take an extreme example for the purposes of illustration consider the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s. The Nazis were a tiny fringe party much like the gay liberation movement was in the 1950’s. You would have been considered crazy if you had suggested that Rosenberg and his followers would start another world war. The very significant popular support they received was due to their success at tackling unemployment, restoring national dignity, and asserting German interests in international affairs. 

Very few people foresaw that within a few years Hitler would have declared war on both the British Empire and the Soviets and the United States, or that cattle cars would be carrying Jews to gas chambers, or that the USAF would be dropping millions of tonnes of explosives on everyone’s heads. It was the ‘slippery slopers’ such as Ps Bonhoeffer, the Edelweiss and the later and better known WhiteRose who warned about anti-semitism, militarism, the reduction of civil liberties, and the takeover of the church and civil institutions by official State ideology. The crazy thing is that anyone who really took the time could have discerned what was coming as Churchill did. Churchill was widely reviled for stating the obvious at the time.

We are now witnessing concerted attempts to impose GLBTI ideology (and its fellow travellers) as formal State ideology with an ipso facto reduction in civil liberties and the takeover of the church and civil institutions from universities, to the AMA, to the professions of psychiatry and social work; and the open persecution of anyone who dissents. We are seeing concerted attempts to indoctrinate children into queer gender theory, to deny parental rights to object, to dismantle traditional social mores, and to contain, isolate and eradicate societal groups and organisations that stand in the way. 

This is not idle speculation about what ‘could happen’. It is what is happening.

In that context to suggest that SSM is just an isolated and minor change to the law is ridiculous. It is part of a long term, calculated, incremental strategy. That is why the YES lobby are so vicious and so panicked whenever anyone talks about the slippery slope because they know the slippery slope is precisely where they want to herd society; but the sheep must be herded quickly before they realise. 

It’s the job of the NO team to warn them.

The Mad Hatters Party - Antifa vs KKK

With extreme groups from the far Left and Right sticking their nose into everything from statues in small town America to gay marriage, it is timely to hold their beliefs up to scrutiny. Do they have anything to say? How do they compare from Left to Right?

The Left believe that:

There is a brutal global class war in which one tenth of one per cent of the population are screwing everyone else.

That is objectively true.

Communism is the natural and inevitable end result of human evolution in which there will be no nations or races but a singe world scientific government controlling all of humanity in which we will all be equal

I sure hope not.

The State can and should take the place of God, the church, fatherhood, the family, democracy, independent education, freedom, conscience, self-direction, and private property, as the all powerful benevolent force.

Um…no

All the reactionary classes, being those who believe God, the church, fatherhood, the family, democracy, independent education, freedom, conscience, and self-direction, and private property, must be eliminated through propaganda, repression and mass extermination if necessary.

Yes, they killed 100 million people, largely through starvation and forced labour, and yet their ideological children are feted by the liberal media in the West. Hitler’s efforts were rather limited in comparison though largely because the Red Army got in his way.

To bring about the destruction of bourgeois society it is necessary to erase all physical, cultural, and moral boundaries, divide society into competing groups and bring it to a state of demoralisation.

Can’t see a lot of human flourishing here

Sexual liberation means sexual promiscuity and sexual deviance from an early age. It is the role of the State to promote this in order to transition society from a Christian base to a Marxist one.

That is a formula for slavery, misery, and the Safe Schools program

The nuclear family is an oppressive institution created by capitalism.

The nuclear family is biologically hard wired and essential to human flourishing

Heterosexuality is a social construct created by capitalism

Heterosexuality is normal for around 98 per cent of people but individuals can be harmed in their sexuality, particularly at formative stages of their life; and some people are gay.

In summary then, as a truth assessment I give the Left about 1/8. 

 Now to the White Supremacists. As far as I can make out they believe that:

There is such a thing as race and there is such a thing as the white race(s).

This is objectively true.

The white race(s) are credited with varying origins and are superior in various ways to other races as demonstrated by the superior development of Western Civilisation.

Hhmmm. Western civilisation by any reasonable measure is the most successful and advanced civilisation humanity has achieved. Not perfect but we did come up with the declaration of independence and put man on the moon and banned slavery. This occurred because of a number of developments in our culture; primarily the emergence of Protestant Christianity and Biblical world view. That had nothing to do with being white, rather it and a lot to do with missionary activity to the West from elsewhere, and the reformation. Nazi groups tend to be anti-Christian and anti-Jewish.

The Marxist left are teaching everyone including school children to hate their culture, demonise their history, disrespect their native countries, and place any and every belief system and culture above their own.

This is objectively true

‘Multiculturalism’ is now a code word for the destruction of Wester culture and the marginalisation of the white race. Specifically indigenously white nations are under systemic physical and ideological attack by uncontrolled immigration of other races and cultures.

This is objective true.

This is all part of a Jewish/Zionist conspiracy for world domination.

Not seen any evidence of that. However, the anti-Western/open borders/progressive (sic) movement is largely funded by a Hungarian Jew called George Soros with the support of the US State Department. It is an open secret that US foreign policy is controlled by Israel. Could be a coincidence..

Hitler wasn’t really such a bad guy.

Hitler was a very bad guy who was most definitely channelling the dark side. However, the triumphant Western powers and the banks need to take some responsibility for the failure of the Weimar Republic and the intolerable conditions Germany found itself in during the Great Depression and what happened to Germany during the Allied occupation was no picnic…but no, Hitler was very very bad.

The Holocaust didn’t happen and six million Jews were not murdered

There was a holocaust but it was primarily of Slavs of whom the Nazis killed roughly 27 million. Hillary Clinton and her Neocon buddies were eager to repeat that effort BTW but Vlad and the Donald stopped them. There was also a holocaust of European and Russian Jewry. The figure of six million is rather tidy and if it is a historical fact why are historians not allowed to research it?

In light of the above we should form secret societies, wear silly hats, abuse Asians, desecrate cemeteries and synagogues, assault vulnerable people, and generally behave like infantile wimps.

Clearly, some people are missing something in their lives.

In summary then, as a truth assessment I give the white supremacists about 4/8. 

So on a scale of ‘bat shit crazy’ the Left is thus four times as bonkers as the Right and every bit as dangerous. Apart from that, they have a lot in common. They are both controlling, totalitarian, absolutist, violent, mean, petty, they both lie, and they both target youth. The main difference is that, whereas the Right are largely relegated to dark corners of the internet, the Left control most of Hollywood, the liberal media, the US Democratic party, the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Greens, European immigration policy, most of the education system, and hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Threat = capacity + intent. It’s not the Nazis we need to worry about.