Three Men and a Dog
A number of years ago, I worked on a film for PBS with Gwen Ifill entitled “God and Country,” that focused on religion and law, specifically constitutional law. We shot it at Constitution Hall in Philadelphia and featured a number of individuals on both sides of various issue, and it made for a lively discussion.
Personally, I came away with a number of interesting perspectives.
As we were doing our background research, several of the conservative political activists and ministers I interviewed opined that if we allowed gay marriage in this country, it would be the camel’s nose under the tent, leading to all kinds of other consequences. If you allow two men to get married, where would it stop, they asked rhetorically: Three men? Three men and a dog? Who knew? I noted that several of them used the exact same examples, as if they had all come from the same place and that the fabric of the Republic was at stake.
Well, now we will have a chance to see. With the Supreme Court’s rulings of last week on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, the camel’s nose is indeed under the tent of equality. So far, I have heard no public outcry or observed any political drumbeat for gay polygamy or bestiality, with dogs, camels or otherwise.
And if that lack of activism continues for another week or two, I think the Republic just might be safe.
http://patdollard.com/2013/07/it-begins-pedophiles-call-for-same-rights-as-homosexuals/
Very much enjoyed your humorous commentary on the “slippery slope.” What rigid folks who stick to the script like it was flypaper don’t understand is that most of those who wish to live on the fringe also enjoy the sense of living “underground” and don’t wish to corrupt or, indeed, include polite society into their club.
It’s hard to imagine those who think by bringing a thing to light, it will make those who were never so disposed gravitate to it and hold them in its clutches, but my own mother was that way. As a thirty-something adult, I was in LA on business and she called me at the hotel specifically to beg me not to go to San Francisco because she truly believed it was catching. I can only be left with one conclusion: Perhaps for people like her, it is. But I’m safe because I have a mind of my own and am already doing whatever it is I want to do.
Good for you, and well said!