Given the far-right's rhetoric I've heard over the past few years, it's extremely difficult for me to come away surprised by a fallacy used by such individuals to discredit the LGBT community as deserving of equal rights, especially with regard to marriage. The most common fallacy used by the anti-LGBT community is that of the slippery slope: "Well, if we legalize gay marriage, then what's next? Multiple spouses? Marrying animals? Marrying a pet rock named Softy?" In saying all of that, however, I'm still shaking my head by what Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Josiah Coleman recently said about the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling.
"[The Supreme Court's marriage equality decision is like] a United States Supreme Court decision that held the Constitution of the United States required every household in America to own a giraffe."
No, actually, it's not. In what has to be one of the most bizarre, most ridiculous quotes I've heard with regard to the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling, Supreme Court Justice Coleman couldn't be further off the mark. What does Justice Coleman think the Supreme Court's ruling was exactly? Given his comparison, he seems to believe the Supreme Court of the United States required all American households to include a gay or lesbian couple, or perhaps for every home owner to marry someone of the same sex. I'm sorry, but that's more off the mark than if a pitcher through a fastball to the centerfielder instead of the batter at home plate. Americans are not required by law to include anyone in their homes who happens to be gay and married like the judge insinuates. If he'd like a more accurate comparison, he could have instead stated, "The Supreme Court's marriage equality decision would be like if the United States Supreme Court held that the Constitution of the United States allow any household in America to own a giraffe if they so desire."
Please allow me to calm your worst of fears, Justice Coleman. If you happen to be a heterosexual man, as you contend to be, the only thing you're now required to do is recognize same-sex marriages as legally valid. You don't have to morally agree with it; you don't have to befriend anyone in the LGBT community; you don't even have to invite members of the community to live with you; all you have to do is recognize the law, abide by it, and at least in legal terms, treat people equally.
Justice Coleman: "Recognize equality?!? Oh, the horrors! That'd be like being forced to own a giraffe!"
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/11/06/3720007/mississippi-supreme-court-justices-break-out-jim-crow-era-arguments-to-defy-marriage-equality/
"[The Supreme Court's marriage equality decision is like] a United States Supreme Court decision that held the Constitution of the United States required every household in America to own a giraffe."
No, actually, it's not. In what has to be one of the most bizarre, most ridiculous quotes I've heard with regard to the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage ruling, Supreme Court Justice Coleman couldn't be further off the mark. What does Justice Coleman think the Supreme Court's ruling was exactly? Given his comparison, he seems to believe the Supreme Court of the United States required all American households to include a gay or lesbian couple, or perhaps for every home owner to marry someone of the same sex. I'm sorry, but that's more off the mark than if a pitcher through a fastball to the centerfielder instead of the batter at home plate. Americans are not required by law to include anyone in their homes who happens to be gay and married like the judge insinuates. If he'd like a more accurate comparison, he could have instead stated, "The Supreme Court's marriage equality decision would be like if the United States Supreme Court held that the Constitution of the United States allow any household in America to own a giraffe if they so desire."
Please allow me to calm your worst of fears, Justice Coleman. If you happen to be a heterosexual man, as you contend to be, the only thing you're now required to do is recognize same-sex marriages as legally valid. You don't have to morally agree with it; you don't have to befriend anyone in the LGBT community; you don't even have to invite members of the community to live with you; all you have to do is recognize the law, abide by it, and at least in legal terms, treat people equally.
Justice Coleman: "Recognize equality?!? Oh, the horrors! That'd be like being forced to own a giraffe!"
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/11/06/3720007/mississippi-supreme-court-justices-break-out-jim-crow-era-arguments-to-defy-marriage-equality/
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