He's a wee incoherent, but it's worth asking. Why lift prohibitions on homosexuality, but not incest? I can't think of a single argument in favor of gay marriage that doesn't also work in favor of incest marriage. Well, aside from that good old standard, "I like gay marriage but not incest, and things I like should be legal, while things I find icky should be illegal"

I'm not going to defend the dog fucking, though.

Incest is more likely to result in harmful genetic mutations for infants. Also like bigamy, incest is strongly associated with disproportionate power relationships in a way studies show is not the same for homosexual relationships, despite evangelicals citing discredited studies saying otherwise.

The arguments against incest are real, the arguments against homosexuality are based only on 'difference', or some false assumption we need to encourage childbirth, as determined by multiple courts. One can argue that the government shouldn't prohibit incest simply because it can be harmful, but isn't always. But the fact that these differences exist means a slippery slope argument is a fallacy.

And most of these attempts to compare gay marriage to other relationships, leave straight marriage out of the analysis. Because it's trying to establish gay marriage as something 'different' that needs to be let in. It doesn't matter if the same arguments for gay marriage work for incest, because they work for straight marriage as well. What matters is whether there's secular rational reasons why it shouldn't be allowed.

>>Incest is more likely to result in harmful genetic mutations for infants.
>>the arguments against homosexuality are based only on... some false assumption we need to encourage childbirth

Ahem?




>>Also like bigamy, incest is strongly associated with disproportionate power relationships

Three things: 1, can you cite this data? 2, even if it were true, why would it matter? The only relevant issue is consent, not disproportionate power relationships; if marital non-equality (however one manages to quantify such an intangible value) were grounds for banning certain unions, then we should be prohibiting the vast majority of marriages, gay, straight, or otherwise, such as any marriage in which one partner is working and one is not. And 3, I suspect that this data, if accurate, is heavily skewed by the presence of incestuous *pedophilia*, and pedophilia is a different subject.




>>One can argue that the government shouldn't prohibit incest simply because it can be harmful, but isn't always. But the fact that these differences exist means a slippery slope argument is a fallacy.

That's some fairly muddled reasoning. Why is the slippery slope fallacy being declared in favor of prohibition? Shouldn't we instead say, "One can argue that the government SHOULD prohibit incest simply because it can be harmful, but isn't always. But... slippery slope fallacy." Again, this is one of the popular arguments used against homosexual marriage - "gay marriage may not always be harmful, BUT IT COULD BE etc etc slipper slope." And I think we all know why it's wrong, yes?




>>What matters is whether there's secular rational reasons why it shouldn't be allowed.

Right. And since this is really the only thing that matters when the legality of certain types of marriages is concerned, are there any secular rational reasons why incest should be prohibited, but not homosexuality?

Incest stands an exceedingly high chance of being between partners where one has tremendous control over the other. Incest also likely involves situations where one partner or the other can't just walk away if they don't like where the relationship is going.

Sonuvagun, I shoulda hit "refresh" before typing my comment, then I would have known it was redundant.

EvilHomer, how can you truly have "consent" if one of the two people exerts tremendous control over the other? If it's between, say, a father and a daughter, the daughter has probably been groomed from childhood to obey her parent. Until she's self-sufficient enough to strike out on her own she has to do her father's bidding; is that really good grounds for a voluntary physical relationship?

EvilHomer hates gay rights too. That one actually surprised me, but what the hell, the stupid hole never ends. Sister fucking goes on all the time in Kentucky (I know two sister fuckers just by random sample), gay marriage does not.

Five for Charlie Brooker!

The "Ahem" doesn't indicate a contradiction. There is a difference between selectively suggesting that only marriages which can procreate be approved and wanting to discourage relationships in which birth defects are more likely to occur if they procreate. Like Bort said, the relationship between power relationships and consent in polygamous and incestuous relationships is directly at issue. Again, you can point out it doesn't always apply, but it's still a rational secular basis.

A slippery slope fallacy is typically when a person says "Yes but if we do this one thing, why not this other" when there is an actual reason not to. They might disagree as to whether that reason is sufficient, but as long as the distinction exists, the slope doesn't apply. You asked for secular reasons, and I gave them. If you disagree and either think incest isn't sufficiently harmful, or that homosexual relationships somehow are, then you'd have a basis for continuing to suggest a slippery slope.

I bet it's not that EvilHomer hates gay rights, so much as his biggest concern is the coercive power of the state. And to be sure, it is A legitimate concern. But if that power can be used to oppress good men, it can also be used to curb the predations of assholes, and I find it's something you need to take on a case-by-case basis. What does the government want to do, what good will come of it, what negative side effects will there be?

Or to quote Thomas Jefferson's retarded brother Ftinky, "that government is best which does good things the most and bad things the least". Surprisingly, Ftinky's version is more honest than Thomas's.

Also: racist? you type into Twitter like a rat trained to jab phones

jangbones, shitting for no reason pretty much constantly.

Stanhope was the lone turd in an otherwise enjoyable Yearly Wipe.

suck it, EvilOakie.

Hmmmm...Charlie Brooker and Louis CK...or jangbones and EvilHomer....who knows more (anything, really) about comedy...? hmmmmmm.....

I'm five-starring that line, too.

They have two ways of doing it from what I understand. Firstly, they have a watershed time, meaning that after 10pm or so they loosen up the content restrictions under the idea that kids are in bed by then. The other is that this is BBC 4, which is typically more like a cable channel than a network.

Also, it's England , and they often let their comedians get away with shit without screaming over every fucking thing like we do.