Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:30 pm
Today, in response to a caller asking about the “slippery slope of gay marriage,” Glenn Beck claimed that gay marriage laws would result in incest, because siblings would be allowed to get married as long as they got fixed, and didn’t have children because they would make mutants.
Here is the audio:
According to Beck the argument for incest would be, “If you change the language and make it about love, that is, there is no answer to that. When it comes to incest the answer is well you couldn’t procreate. You would make mutants for children, so that’s where it gets bad, but if you take the children out and say you are only going to adopt, well then there is no, because you can’t procreate as two women, or procreation is not part of the marriage deal anymore. We have minimalized that, so if you got fixed and your sister got fixed, why couldn’t you get married?”
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Beck’s comments are part of a pattern. Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Pat Robertson have all been equating gay marriage to perversions. Beck’s argument makes no sense from a legal point of views. Gay marriage and incest is not the same thing. No matter how much the right tries to equate gay marriage to pedophilia, bestiality or incest, they aren’t the same thing. The simple fact is that every right wing scenario ignores the reality that incest would still be illegal even if gay marriage was legal everywhere.
They are separate laws. The argument that opponents make is that marriage is the backbone of our society, and if gay people can get married, it will lead to the fall of the republic, but since half of all marriages end in divorce, does that mean that our society is already in collapse? In the future, people like Glenn Beck are going to sound like those who argued in favor of segregation, and against civil rights.
The political reason why the GOP is going back to the gay marriage well is because they need something to motivate their base. Gay marriage worked for the GOP earlier in this decade, but attitudes have changed. I do have to give Beck credit for arguing in favor of civil unions, but as more states continue to legalize gay marriage, being in favor of civil unions won’t be enough. The tide has turned in the gay marriage debate, and not even a right wing smear campaign can stop it.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
