Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) often offers creative explanations for his positions — for example, he opposes protecting LGBT people from employment discrimination because such protections are part of a “war on religion.” During a conference call interview today with noted homophobe Rick Scarborough about his new organization, Tea Party Unity, Gohmert explained that he opposes gun control legislation because it has the same kind of slippery slope as same-sex marriage:
In fact, I had this discussion with some wonderful, caring Democrats earlier this week on the issue of, well, they said “surely you could agree to limit the number of rounds in a magazine, couldn’t you? How would that be problematic?”
And I pointed out, well, once you make it ten, then why would you draw the line at ten? What’s wrong with nine? Or eleven? And the problem is once you draw that limit ; it’s kind of like marriage when you say it’s not a man and a woman any more, then why not have three men and one woman, or four women and one man, or why not somebody has a love for an animal?
There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it’s the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it’s just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.
Listen to it (via RightWingWatch):
The “slippery slope” is a logical fallacy, because it relies on fear in the absence of factual substantiation for the claims being made. There absolutely nothing to justify the suggestion that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy or bestiality, just as there no evidence that anyone is trying to ban all bullets.
What’s disturbing about how Gohmert constructs his slippery slope arguments is how he uses them to justify each other. Not only does he draw comparisons between gun control and same-sex marriage, he also thinks guns are important because he fears the country is threatened by “Sharia Law.” Similarly, he doesn’t understand why women’s liberation groups aren’t outraged by “Sharia creep,” which he imagines would threaten their freedoms. At the same time, he staunchly opposes a women’s right to an abortion, which he compares to the national debt. In fact, he believes the debt compares not only to the immorality of abortion, but of slavery. And of course, Gohmert was all too willing to join The FAMiLY Leader’s Iowa bus tour after the group issued a pledge drawing comparisons between same-sex marriage and slavery.
In other words, fear seems to motivate every single one of Gohmert’s positions, and every one of Gohmert’s positions leads him to new fears.