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Three's a Crowd?

July 19th, 2007 | 1 min read

By Matthew Lee Anderson

Does sanctioning homosexual marriage lead to a slippery slope or no?

Elizabeth Marquardt says "Yes."  

Of course, sometimes the three adults might want to live together, which leads to a different set of concerns. As one advocate of polygamy argued in Newsweek, “If Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy.” If more children are granted three legal parents, what is our rationale for denying these families the rights and protections of marriage? America, get ready for the group-marriage debate.

On April 30th a Harrisburg, PA judge ruled that a child can have three parents, which seems the equivalent of saying that a man can have three ears.  Of course, with genetic enhancement, that may not be far off either.

Concludes Marquardt:

Finally, why should courts stop at assigning children only three parents? Some situations involve a couple who wants the child, the sperm donor, the egg donor and the gestational surrogate who carries the pregnancy. If we allow three legal parents, why not five?

Questions worth asking, indeed!

HT: The PoMo Conservative

Matthew Lee Anderson

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.