The Recipe for Disaster

Thursday, January 5, 2012
The New York Times Video
Michael D. Shear
"Santorum has testy exchange on same-sex marriages"

Here's a recipe for disaster:

• College students (the ones with really strong, immovable opinions are best)
• A GOP Presidential candidate (lets take Santorum, he's been in the news a lot)
• Discussion
• A Controversial Issue

     Begin by combining the college students and Santorum in a medium sized lecture hall at New England College. Stir for forty five minutes with discussion—relevant issues and intelligent questions. Now, brace yourself, introduce your controversial issue. The result will be immediate awkwardness amidst the bright red faces of all involved.
     This is exactly the recipe Santorum created for himself when he addressed an assembly of college students in New Hampshire. The group attacked him about his beliefs on gay marriage. The discussion began civilly, Santorum calmly explained that allowing same-sex marriages would extend to marriages between man and comb. That's when the conversation took a turn for the worst. There followed testy questions like, "How can to possibly get from same-sex marriage to THAT?!" To which Santorum responded by reprimanding the group for turning the conversation into an immature argument. The whole this in quite difficult to watch. The ridiculous slippery slope fallacy of Santorum was only made worse by his defence of it. If you dare to attempt the recipe for disaster, I urge you desperately not to!

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/santorum-gets-into-testy-debate-on-gay-marriage/?ref=politics