By: Roger Oliver
Dan Haseltine, front-man for the Christian Band, Jars of Clay sent a Twitter message supporting gay marriage. You can read it here: Dan Haseltine of Jars of clay Twitters on Gay Marriage. I like their music and have two of their albums so the story interested me. No doubt the man is sincere. I read the article and here offer an analysis of the crux of Haseltine’s Twitter statement:
Haseltine Twitted, “Not meaning to stir things up BUT… is there a non-speculative or non ‘slippery slope’ reason why gays shouldn’t marry? I don’t hear one.” He went on to write “I’m trying to make sense of the conservative argument. But it doesn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. Feels akin to women’s suffrage. I just don’t see a negative effect to allowing gay marriage. No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage. ?? Anyone?”
Let me unpack this one line at a time as I understand the argument and my response.
“Not meaning to stir thing up BUT…”
Nonsense. This is meant to stir things up and put a spin on the conversation that poisons the well against opposing views before they are expressed. He is announcing what he has decided and doesn’t want to discuss it, not really.
“Is there a non-speculative or non ‘slippery slope’ reason why gays shouldn’t marry? I don’t hear one.”
Of course there are. This is not a speculative slippery slope question; it’s about what law governs and the consequences of obedience and disobedience. Sodomy is breaking God’s law in the same way the adultery, rape, bestiality and pederasty are breaking God’s law. To remove any doubt, Leviticus 18 spells out what the 7th commandment (adultery) means in disgusting detail. Romans 1:18-32, 1 Corinthians 6:8-11 among many New Testament passages reinforce the prohibition. Haseltine is not hearing any other arguments because either he isn’t reading the Bible or interprets what he reads through an antinomian, pietistic lens. There is nothing to speculate about here.
The slippery slope is a type of fallacy defined as follows:
- “The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because there is no reason to believe that one event must inevitably follow from another without an argument for such a claim.”[1]
- From another source: “The problem with this reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, this fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion fallacy by leveraging fear. In effect the argument at hand is unfairly tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture.”[2]
I’m not sure what slippery slope argument he is talking about. Perhaps this one? “Colin Closet asserts that if we allow same-sex couples to marry, then the next thing we know we’ll be allowing people to marry their parents, their cars and even monkeys.”[3] Indeed this is not speculative. We already have three women married[4] and there are numerous advocates for redefining marriage to mean whatever suits you, to children, to animals, whatever. To call this a slippery slope is another fallacy, a red herring, avoiding the issue at hand by changing the subject. Understand this clearly, Dan Haseltine is calling the conservative Christian argument against same-sex marriage fallacious.
Paul argues in Romans 1:18-32 that there is a downward spiral of consequences that leads to exactly what we are seeing today. It is a description of what happens to a people who know God but suppress the truth in unrighteousness. God gives them over to their dishonorable passions. The plague of homosexuality is the bottom of the hill and a judgment of God on a society that tolerates this kind of behavior.
“I’m trying to make sense of the conservative argument. But it doesn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. Feels akin to women’s suffrage.”
What is the conservative argument he refers to here and exactly how does it fail to hold up to ‘basic’ scrutiny? First he asks if there is any argument other than the slippery slope and before he gets an answer judges the conservative argument not to hold up to basic scrutiny. What is the standard by which he is judging? What evidence does he present? None! This is pure Twisertion (assertions published on Twitter). Twitter is not the best forum to present a reasoned argument. It is good for spectacular speculation.
What were the arguments about women’s suffrage and how are they parallel? Akin to doesn’t make it equivalent. It turns a behavioral issue into an ontological question. Being a woman is ontological; practicing sodomy is a behavior. It is not law-breaking to be a women, it is to commit sodomy unless you completely reject the Law of God in the New Covenant as its application is explained in the New Testament.
“I just don’t see a negative effect to allowing gay marriage. No societal breakdown, no war on traditional marriage.”
The end game of the homosexual movement is not homosexual marriage but the end of marriage completely. It is considered an outmoded form of societal organization that is being replaced by the state in the evolution of man. This is not a secret to anyone who will take the time to do a tad of research. The end game is this: no God, no marriage, no private property. This is not a speculative slippery slope, it is what homosexual activists have said.
Some will say to disagree with Dan Hasletine is unloving. Someone did indeed accuse me of said sin without any substantive evidence or a clear definition of love. We appear to be incapable of thinking rationally these days. Paul says in Romans 13:8-10 that obeying the law is the very definition of love; it doesn’t prejudice your brother. Love you neighbor as yourself is a quote from Leviticus 19:18 in the context the antonym hate, in vs. 17 is defined as follows, “You must not hate your brother in your heart. You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him.” If I don’t point out that your conduct is out of line with the Law of God, indeed I hate you. That I am writing this is an expression of love as it is defined in the Bible.
In the thread below the article on the web page where it was published there was lots of talk about Christian love from the supporters of same sex marriage interspersed with vile denunciations of anyone who disagreed with them. How do they define love? They only offered a negative definition: it is unloving not to accept same sex marriages. But if love is tolerance defined as acceptance of whatever another believes even if you disagree then where is the tolerance/love for those who believe homosexuality is law-breaking?
Anyone who disagrees with them is deemed to be imposing their views on others. How is a mere expression of disagreement imposing one’s views? How is silencing the opposition to homosexuality using obscene and profane expletives not imposing one’s views? By what standard do they judge?
Speaking of judging, another tactic in the readers’ blog was to call down an opponent of gay marriage for judging. One young man threw in a clever turn of phrase and said that God was judge and didn’t need a secretary. But when you call someone down for judging you are judging. His very statement was a judgment. By what standard? On whose authority?
It is impossible not to judge, it is required to live and survive as human beings on the earth. Jesus’ admonition to judge not that you be not judged is a command to judge yourself by the same standards you use to judge others. These comments from the pro-gay marriage that demand love but spew hate out of the same pen are judgments by a double standard. This is the definition of hypocrisy. It would be more honest just to say they have a different law, a different standard and will tolerate no other.
To accuse another of being unloving because he disagrees with you is not an argument, it is a personal attack and an evasion, a suppression of the truth in unrighteousness. We’re making up our own definitions. God is love, love is not God. His very character expressed in his immutable Law defines love. Enough with the hypocritical talk about love.
In conclusion, we are talking about two very different Christianities. The disagreement is about the standards that are to govern our lives. We have disdained the Law of God in the Bible with a million excuses: “That stuff was for Israel, it doesn’t apply to us.” “We’re under grace, not law.” “According to the Law you’re not supposed to wear clothes made of mixed threads? Are we going to obey that?”[5] If it is not God’s Law of liberty, then what law? In the name of a distorted view of grace we have thrown off the liberty of God’s law for slavery under humanistic law, the worst kind of legalism. How’s that working for us?
[1] http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery-slope.html
[2]https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope
[3] Ibid.
[4] The next marriage redefinition? Massachusetts lesbian ‘throuple’ expecting their first child. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/the-next-marriage-redefinition-massachusetts-lesbian-throuple-expecting-the
[5] You can find answers to these questions and more about the law in R.J. Rushdoony’s Law and Liberty and the pamphlet, Faith and Obedience at www.chalcedon.edu.
