Slippery slope concerns should not be dismissed

CHRISTIAN voices are loud and clear in the SSM debate. But Muslims are too afraid of their allies in the Left to speak up, writes Miranda Devine.

Worshippers at the Lakemba Mosque during an open day. (Pic: News Corp)

AN Islamic leader has let the cat out of the bag about the odd alliance of Muslims with leftists. Ali Kadri, spokesman for the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils told ABC’s The Drum last week why Muslim voices are rarely heard in the same sex marriage debate, when Christian voices abound.

Muslims are remaining silent, despite their religious concerns, because they already feel under siege from the right over terrorism and burkas, he claimed. So they don’t want to risk alienating their allies on the left as well.

“Unfortunately, in the current climate, the right and conservative side has attacked Muslims as terrorists and extremists, and naturally the left side has been allies in defending us,” he said.

“We are afraid if we come out with our opinion then the left may abandon us for going against their view and we can’t be friendly with the conservatives because they have been bashing us for 15, 20 years every chance they get.”

Full points for honesty, at least.

Ali Kadri said Muslims have not made their voices heard in the SSM debate for fear of alienating the Left. (Pic: Jack Tran)

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PROPONENTS of same sex marriage ridicule concerns about the consequences as “slippery slope” fallacies.

But one concern is that removing gender from marriage would threaten the words “mother” and “father”.

Already we see replacement terms “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” creep into birth certificates.

And now, as the campaign to change the definition of marriage swings into action, the very concept of distinctive fatherhood or motherhood is being challenged.

For example, a television commercial celebrating Fath­er’s Day was rejected for broadcast last week because it was deemed too “polit­ical” by the body representing free to air networks.

The ad, an annual project of fathers’ group Dads4Kids, reportedly features a father singing a lullaby to his baby, has nothing to do with the postal plebiscite and contains no words or slogans.

This follows a campaign to change Father’s Day into “Special Persons’ Day”.

And we’ve already seen the British Medical Association tell doctors they should use the term “pregnant people” instead of pregnant mother.