Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is at it again. In an AP interview this week he continued his stance against same-sex marriage. To explain his views, he added this:
You're taking any definition of a family away. When two bisexuals or two transgendered marry, how large is that family? Can they marry two persons, one of the same sex and one of the opposite sex? Then, you've got a family of four or how many?
Let me answer those questions for you, Mr. Moore.
"When two bisexuals or two transgendered marry, how large is that family?"
When two people marry, there are two of them. Two. One plus one equals two.
"Can they marry two persons, one of the same sex and one of the opposite sex?"
No, they cannot.
"Then, you've got a family of four or how many?"
No, you have got two. Two. Two people getting married equals two people. One person marrying another person creates a family of two people. Two.
Maybe this will help: Do you remember Noah and the Ark? (I am trying to speak your language now.) Remember how they all entered the ark two by two? It is like that. Two.
Still do not understand? You know the Ten Commandments? Of course, you do. You were removed from the bench once because you would not remove a monument of them from the Alabama Supreme Court building. So take the Ten Commandments and divide by five. The answer is two. Got it?
How about this? You are familiar with the shortest verse in the Bible, "Jesus wept," right? Count the words in that sentence. "Jesus": word one. "Wept": word two. Two.
Roy Moore is filled with questions. In a Good Morning America interview he asked:
Do they stop with one man and one man or one woman and one woman? Or do they go to multiple marriages? Or do they go to marriages between men and their daughters or women and their sons?
OK, let us try this again.
"Do they stop with one man and one man or one woman and one woman?"
Yes, they do.
"[D]o they go to multiple marriages?"
No, they do not.
"[D]o they go to marriages between men and their daughters or women and their sons?"
No. That is incest.
Maybe it is futile to try to explain this to Justice Moore. Would he ever be able to understand that someone who is bisexual is capable of monogamy? Or that gender identity is not linked to sexual orientation? Or that incest is not the same thing as homosexuality? Trying to explain these concepts to Roy Moore is like explaining string theory to a clam.
The group Sanctity of Marriage Alabama led a rally recently where Republican State Rep. Will Ainsworth furthered Moore's slippery-slope argument, saying, "Allowing the whims of our pop culture to redefine marriage is a slippery slope that could lead to polygamy. Where does the definition stop? Think about that."
I am thinking, and here is my answer: The definition stops at two people. One person marrying one other person. Not multiple people.
This slippery-slope argument has been around for some time now in conservative circles. The Family Research Council, for instance, has a glossy pamphlet titled "The Slippery Slope of Same-Sex Marriage," which begins with a story of a man who wants to marry his horse, ultimately asking, "What is marriage -- and where do we draw the limits on who can marry?"
Let us try one more time.
"What is marriage...?"
It is a legally recognized union between two people. Two. People.
"[W]here do we draw the limits on who can marry?"
We draw the limits at two people. Two. Human beings. Not horses. Humans.
Any more questions?