Volokh on gay marriage slippery slope

If I were a betting man, I'd say that in the near future we'll be able to take separation of church and state and put a fork in it -- since it will be done, since religious liberty will be kaput.

Which, of course, was the real purpose of the gay marriage push all along -- that and dismantling the traditional family and normalizing polyamory and promiscuity (even within marriage).

There are ways of balancing everyone's liberty interests here: I've spoken about some of them myself (as I've pointed out more than once, the real infringement of religious liberty is anti-discrimination laws, not SSM).

But other than non-discrimination in hiring, public accommodations, etc. (again, a separate issue from SSM, where I'm much more sympathetic to traditionalists), where does the legal slippery slope take us? I can see polygamy (even though there are very serious problems with sorting out how to make it work legally), but I have no problem with that on religious liberty grounds (i.e. forbidding polygamy violates the religious liberty of Muslims and members of certain smaller LDS sects, among others).

What else is there to this slippery slope? (I mean besides passing laws forcing Bryce to participate in gay orgies) Or are we venturing into Santorum territory here where everyone ends up marrying their dog?

The poor, poor wedding photographers that don't want to photograph same-sex marriages!

Despite all the philosophical bluster and rhetoric from anti-SSM voices (including some ludicrous and cringe-worthy allusions to Nietzsche and an illustrator immigrant-father tale that seemed like a Mel-Brooks joke until I remembered this is beliefnet!) the locus of the anti-SSM argument is simply a litany of every expanding and increasingly banal hypotheticals of people in various professions oppressed and persecuted because of their opposition to gay-marriage and homosexuality.

It's simply not true. I'm from the south, several members of my family and my friends' family work with gay people all the time, they don't approve, they think it's amoral, but they have the good sense, the Christian sense not to chastise a neighbor, not to cast the first stone.

This whole debate is not about society collapsing on itself or all the other apocalyptic doom expressed on this site and otherwise. It's about the self-righteous finding themselves in a position where they can't be such a jerk in public anymore without some consequences. But hey, that's what blog comments are for. Cheer up guys!

You'll just love it when some Democratic party apparatchik is dictating practice to the Catholic Church, now won't you, Daniel?

That would be better than The Second Coming, so far as you're concerned.

Not that you believe in The Second Coming, as opposed to Obama and abortion and gay marriage.

You'll just love it when some Democratic party apparatchik is dictating practice to the Catholic Church, now won't you, Daniel?

We aren't talking about the work of the Church. Religious organizations almost always have exemptions and protections when it comes to discriminating in violation of the law. Same for clergy.

The question is whether the Catholic photographer can refuse to photograph a Jewish wedding or a Mormon wedding, Can a Catholic landlord refuse to rent to a divorced mom? Can the Unitarian caterer refuse to cater a Catholic wedding?

Geoff G.
What else is there to this slippery slope? (I mean besides passing laws forcing Bryce to participate in gay orgies) Or are we venturing into Santorum territory here where everyone ends up marrying their dog?

The thing anti-SSM people seem to worry about is to being made illegal to, for some reason, say bad things about gay people. Or for refuse to marry them.

Despite the fact that neo-nazis still openly exist, and amazingly aren't all thrown in jail. And that right now, I could walk into a Catholic church and asked to be married there, and they'd throw me out, even if I was attempting to marry a woman...because I'm not Catholic.

But somehow, first amendment rights are going to vanish with SSM.

The real joke, the real hilarious punchline to this, is that certain private behavior towards homosexuals is, indeed illegal in many places and going to be illegal in more...and that doesn't relate even slightly to gay marriage, but rather including 'sexual orientation' as one of the things people can't discriminate against.

It's even more ironic when you realize that often 'married status' is included in that list. Which mean, hilariously, in many states you can discriminate against people who are gay and married on the basis of them being gay, but not on the basis of them being married. (I.e, you'd have to treat married and unmarried gay couples the same!)

I swear, the objections to SSM have gotten so fact-free about what SSM would result in that it's sometime hard to even speak rationally. SSM has absolutely nothing to do with discrimination at all, because churches can already discriminate against who they marry, and random people don't perform marriages so can hardly discriminant in any way WRT them.

How does the believer's veto decide that one?

It depends on the religious views of the dog, of course!

A blind priest with a seeing-eye dog has to give last rites to a Catholic, but the only means of transportation is a Muslim-owned cab. The cabbie sees the dog and shouts "Haram!" and starts pulling away from the curb as a Unitarian cop takes notice of what's going on. How does the believer's veto decide that one?

Okay, I'm working on it. Let's see, if the cab is going toward the Vatican at 40 mph,......

Daniel,

Catholics aren't part of the Catholic Church?

They are not entitled to practice their religion?

Got it.

I guess those views should come as no surprise, since you already think that babies of a certain age have no right not to be killed, no right not to be burned to death by chemicals, no right not to have their skulls cut into and their brains sucked out with a vacuum hose.

None of this, of course, is to imply that you're anything less than the most "devout" Catholic on earth.

Of course it would, and it will.

Prof. Volokh (a leading First Amendment scholar and a conservative) draws the opposite conclusion in the law review article on this topic (see http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/marriage.pdf ). He writes:

"On balance it seems to me that the potential slippery slope harms caused by recognizing same-sex marriage, while plausible and potentially significant, are not very likely; their costs, discounted by their improbability, are thus exceeded by the more direct benefits." (emphasis added)

Volkh's point is not to dismiss "slippery slope" arguments out of hand because legal reasoning is analogical. Even so, he concludes that the First Amendment free speech, free association, and free exercise of religion rights are sufficiently vigorous that in the United States, extending marriage rights to gays poses a low risk to the rights of religious folks who view homosexuality as morally improper.

Geoff G.,

It's worth pointing out that just as there won't ever be anything to force me to take part in gay orgies, there also isn't anything now to prevent you from doing so -- as you well know.

What there are are longstanding and near-universal moral norms that have thus far prevented you from imposing your Humpty-Dumpty-style redefinition of "marriage" -- to accommodate bathhouse orgies and other aspects of gay sexual practice -- on everyone else, who would rather cast his or her vote with what Chesterton called "the great democracy of tradition" and not with a handful of pushy activists from by far the least sympathetic of all special interest groups.

But of course, those longstanding and near-universal moral norms will soon be swept away by the anti-democratic fiat of one unelected court or else another, and you will have your way.

Which makes me -- and I'm guessing many others here -- wonder why you waste so much of your energy here, fighting for something you have already won, something that will give you much less than it it will take away from everyone else.

The First Amendment only protects you from direct government action, and some traditionalist Christian groups may be viewed in the future as despicably as the racist groups you mentioned.

It is not the role of the government to make your beliefs socially popular. I don't expect the State to make people like me.

I just expect to be allowed to conduct my private affairs without being assaulted, stalked and so on.

Bryce,

By all means, demonize me in your mind and convince yourself that I want something bohemian and dissolute, if it helps you internalize your opposition to my marriage.

Or you could try being intellectually honest.

I am on my second marriage. My first was to a woman. This one is to a man. Same vows. Same love, except better chosen this time. Same monogamy. Same self-identification as a family. Same desire to have children, except that desire has been realized this time.

I do hate to disappoint your lurid imagination, but I haven't had time for bathhouse orgies or extramarital affairs this week - I was busy at work, went to a home show, judged a middle school speech contest, cleaned my garage, went shopping for and prepared Easter baskets, and spent time with my family instead.

If a Church wants Federal tax exemptions, then they are going to have to abide by governmental regulations. That's the law. If a Church wants the freedom to discriminate without fear of prosecution, then it should reject Federal support vis-a-vis tax exemptions and stand on principle.

The sad truth is, Churches are more concerned about money then principle, and that's why I do not have sympathy for the impact on your tax-free ability to discriminate.

"And if you were a middle-class person who was publicly identified, say in the press, as a member of one of those organizations then you would likely lose your current job and most opportunities at future ones."

Yes, and here in Iowa we face the loss of our job for almost any reason, as we are a right to work state. That means that my employer can release me from my job if he believes me to be gay, straight, Catholic, Wiccan, racist, married, unmarried, or just about any other reason. The burden, under both federal and state laws currently in place (and yes, Iowa has anti-discrimination laws for religion, gender, family status, and sexual orientation and identification) would fall upon me to prove that he released me from my job for an actionable reason.

As a matter of fact, if an Iowa employer did not like a Christian employee who was known to be a staunch opponent of same sex marriage, that employer could dismiss that employee by simply eliminating that position. I've seen it happen quite frequently here in my hometown as well as elsewhere in the state.

How does adopting SSM change any of this? Again, the claim that by furthering the rights of one group another group's rights to speak are threatened does not hold water.

Nicely put, Geoff G.

I forgot which commenter refers to himself (or herself) as an agnostic on the SSM issue, but that's where I am, though sometimes less so when pushed to the anti-side by the activist, in-your-face fringe on the left which is running the show. At face value, allowing two people, regardless of gender, to commit to each other legally and enjoy whatever protections come with such legal commitment seems fair to me. I'd like to be able to support it, but the very side that wants me to support it also keeps proving to me why I cannot, and that is because of the ramifications of the bigger picture that wouldn't necessarily affect me, but others.

First, even as some pro-SSM individuals have conceded here in the past few days, there could be some negative social effects SSM could have, and those issues might not be apparent for several year, so I feel some trepidation there. Some years after SSM is approved on a national basis, I'd love to see some honest, widely published research on social effects and such. Not that any negative effects would change anything, but it would hopefully make us wiser as a society to move much more cautiously into changing whatever status quo existed in social, legal, ethical issues.

Second, and on a more immediate level, as evidenced by the to-and-fro in this blog, there's a duality to our civil liberties and therein is where most of our struggles are. How do we accommodate one group without trampling the rights of another group?

I agree with Geoff in that there can be accommodations, but the whole of society, even the fringes, would have to accept them and carry on their lives. Given recent history and trends, I don't think that this will happen, and it will be those with religious, or even non-religious, conservative views* be denied their First Amendment rights. *Just as you don't have to be religious to have morals, you don't have to be religious to be conservative. There's less mutual exclusivity among values than you think.

Let's take a look at a couple of lawsuits. By denying a service (i.e., wedding photography and such) to another, one is not denying another the ability to go find someone who will accept their money. Someone is ALWAYS willing to take your money, regardless of your color, gender, orientation, whatever; as Geoff said, most businesses are concerned about the color of your money than they are about anything else. If someone denied me service, yes, I'd get upset - but I'd gladly take my money elsewhere, and probably encourage friends and family to do the same, and leave it at that. I don't have time to waste on people who are not interested in serving me. I move on.

What about eHarmony? eHarmony specialized in matching heterosexual couples. What was wrong with that? Apparently, much. A gay man decided he wanted to use its service and found that matching homosexual couples was not an option. So, he sued:

(I don't know how to post links here correctly, so please cut an paste the following in your browser.)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/11/eharmony-goes-g.html

Plus, gay couples received free subscriptions. So, you tell me that this isn't an example of shoving an agenda down someone's throat. The individual in question was not already paying eHarmony for a service he wasn't getting (i.e., paying for cable and not getting service). He had plenty of options available to him. But that wasn't good enough. It's that mindset that I envision will get much worse and keeps me in the middle of the issue, if not pushing me into the anti-spot.

Let me apply this to myself, a straight single woman. So, could I go to a gay dating site and sue them for not agreeing to match me with a straight man? I suppose I could, but why bother? Those sites serve a particular purpose and population, as do Jewish dating sites, Muslim dating sites, and so on, and that's fine with me. The clientele on those sites wouldn't be interested in me, and guess what? I would understand that, and accept that without rancor or anger, and I would move on to other sites that cater to my market.

Geoff, and any of the more level-headed gay and/or pro-SSM contributors to this blog, does the above make sense?

Just to clarify, I'm talking about both of Geoff G.'s post on this particular blog entry.

The truly libertarian/classical liberal position is that anyone should have the right to discriminate on whatever basis he/she chooses. This position extends to employment, housing, commerce, etc. Few here remember that there were those who opposed the civil rights legislation in the 1960's precisely on those grounds. These individuals derived their position not from racism, but rather from the concept of individual autonomy. Of course they were derided as bigots by those promoting that legislation. But that was an unfair characterization, in the same way that those opposed to SSM are being smeared with very much the same language today.

I have stated on another thread on this blog that this country no longer has any shared civic values. We are divided into camps that detest each other. Whether it be SSM, abortion, ESCR, whatever, there is in each case a sizable and disenfranchised minority that is being told by the majority: "We won...screw you." Where this will lead is anyone's guess, but the ending will not likely be a happy one.

"However, in a narrow sense, a church-affiliated agency may not be free to discriminate even if it sheds its tax exemption. My understanding of the case involving Catholic Charities of Boston is that there was no freedom whatever on their part to avoid adoption placements with gay individuals, and that this had nothing to do with their tax exemption but was rather an unyielding aspect of Massachusetts state law."

Actually, as I read the story, it had to do with the state insurance program. Since the Catholic hospitals in question accept payment from the government insurance program, the fear was that they would be forced to offer all of the services that the insurance program covered, including abortion and family planning services.

However, I just read that at least one of the Catholic hospitals is considering some sort of a contracted services agreement with a secular healthcare agency that would handle the abortion and family planning services not offered by the hospital.

Steve posted, and it's well worth repeating: "For the umpteenth time, the way to approach this is to have civil unions for everyone. Then, let churches perform religiously based marriages. The civil union provides for the legal safeguards that all couples need. Religious marriages performed by churches make marriage a spiritual entity rather than the state sanctioned, legal entity they now are. You can currently get married at City Hall and never enter a church in your entire life. Atheists get married."

"So, you tell me that this isn't an example of shoving an agenda down someone's throat. The individual in question was not already paying eHarmony for a service he wasn't getting"

New Jersey has a public policy saying gays should not be discriminated against by businesses who operate in their state. EHarmony--a business and not a religious organization--specifically stated it would not consider gay customers. Unlike JDate or Muslim Date or Gay.com (which all allow non-Jews or non-Muslims or non-gays to use their services), Eharmony directly forbid gays and lesbians from using a business that operated in NJ.

So why should this kind of business operate in a state that says gays should not face discrimination in accessing business? Why should a company that discriminates against some NJ citizens be allowed to operate in the state.

Is the fact that Eharmony's founder is a Christian be enough of a reason to justify allowing it to operate in violation of state laws? Why should gays and lesbians be the only group who are allowed to face ths stigma of discrimination just because an individual business owner thinks gays are immoral?

Geoff, and any of the more level-headed gay and/or pro-SSM contributors to this blog, does the above make sense?

As Daniel pointed out, most dating sites are open to all. It's all in the marketing. Jewish site touts its ability to match Jewish couples. Gay site touts gay matches. Neither blocks non-target clients from joining.

eHarmony could have done that, too.

Not appealing to a market segment isn't the same as forbidding use by a market segment.

eHarmony has also been sued for racial discrimination. Don't remember the details.

For what it's worth, I'd be willing to go along with whatever accommodations hetero society can figure out as long as the compromises apply to sexuality, race, and religion.

Get back to me when y'all have worked out something.

Just for fun, I just went to eHarmony.com. I checked out the About, the Why and the Diversity links and nary a mention of heterosexuality.

Odd.

There's a pop-up and -- unlike before -- you can choose Man seeking Man and you get sent to another site. First thing I noticed was the photos. eHarmony.com is full of photos of couples. CompatiblePartners.net is full of photos of one person at a time.

But here's the best part:

If you click on the Why link, they explain that gay people should use them because they match people using the patented matching system developed by eHarmony.

Ha!

Well, that's odd. Missing post.

Anyway, if you go to eHarmony and pick Man for Man, be sure to check why THEY think you should use them. Turns out it's the patented matching software developed by eHarmony.

Ha!

Loosely Cult: what you are asking for is fidelity to Christ. With respect to institutional responsibilities I think we can do both. For example, Catholic Church tends to educate children cheaply and well. It would be expensive for the State to replicate all the things subsidiary institutions do well. We as Christians should be able to set a better example than some we know when it comes to being good stewards of worldly wealth.

RJohnson and Steve: We should maintain our favoritism for heterosexual marriage. I don’t think bowing to novel philosophies is the way to go. This is not to say other sexual partnerships should be criminalised, or that civil unions that include other very strong bonds should not be given legal protection. I believe we can still preserve marriage for those that come after us. The culture is toxic to be sure but we can recover, I'd argue we should start with custody of our eyes and imagination asking for help from God.

Rod I’m surprised by the Pollyanna attitude too. The empirical evidence is in: families and marriage is suffering and we pretty much know the cause.

I’m surprised as well that SSM advocates use the Abolition and Civil Rights movements as parallels. Both were lead by great leaders with a living faith (W.Wilberforce Rev. King) and overall were Christian inspired and motivated. The SSM movement on the other hand is motivated by a fundamentally anti-Christian anthropology. Chai Feldblum in your article

"It seemed to me the height of disingenuousness, absurdity, and indeed disrespect to tell someone it is okay to 'be' gay, but not necessarily okay to engage in gay sex. What do they think being gay means?" she writes in her Becket paper. "I have the same reaction to courts and legislatures that blithely assume a religious person can easily disengage her religious belief and self-identity from her religious practice and religious behavior. What do they think being religious means?"

The vocation of a gay person is to have sex? Eve Tushnet chooses celibacy out of fidelity to Christ, another out of fidelity to a dead loved one: are these people now straight? That sex is identity and destiny is a new idea, of radical implications and never seriously entertained by our Judeo-Christian society. It is anti-Christian. I hope we don’t hear anymore that the SSM movement has the same pedigree as those earlier movements.

At a time when we live in a pornographic culture, with marriage being destroyed, a million abortions a year, pederasty and paedophilia crimes multiplying, religious knowledge declining and secularism regnant I’m not convinced that this culture sees more clearly the meaning of sex than our ancestors.

I’m more convinced by the argument that what SSM proponents want is a ratification of the goodness of their sexual desires like most others in the ‘me’ generation.

A child has the right to grow up with a mum and a dad. Children do best when raised in stable families. The duties of this generation are clearly marriage renewal. It is this that is the genuine progressive politics.

Erich here is an concise and elegant essay from the great Fr Richard John Neuhaus RIP. You have nothing to fear from robust debate.
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?m=200711&paged=2

The atheist philosopher Austin Dacey has recently published a book called 'The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life'. He says that secularists have the high moral ground if only they would claim it. They have in past excluded conscience and language to do with moral values from public life and are soul searching at present, in fact are in disarray.

Among secularists who tend to repress speech to do with morality and religion conscience and moral values don't disappear instead they tend to find expression in perverted forms like Human Rights Tribunals (see Canada's Kangaroo Courts) and Judicial activism.

You mustn't rephrase a person's argument so poorly, that is called the 'straw man fallacy'. You must try and present your opponent's best argument and rebut it on those grounds. Otherwise the peace we enjoy is in peril. We are together in this, we can find a way forward.

Martin-I do not think we are so far apart, but maybe the gap is inseparable. I want to preserve marriage as a religious institution. I want churches to be able to decide whom they will marry. I want every church to have that right and obligation. I want government out of the marriage business. I want government to make decisions on the legal aspects of relationships. I want churches to have preeminence on spiritual matters. It would be nice to see God included in marriages again.

Steve

dubs,

Your last sentence should read:

"Zeitgeist and Zarathustra bless a handful of unelected activists for not letting Iowans decide for themselves what their laws ought to be"

dubs,

Actually, on second thought, let me revise your last sentence to read this way instead:

"Zeitgeist and Zarathustra bless a handful of *autocratic activists* or *activist autocrats* for not letting Iowans decide for themselves what their laws ought to be."

Perhaps we could call those responsible for and supportive of this latest imposition Autocratic Activists for Zeitgeist and Zarathustra or AAZZHOLES for short.

Bryce: "Zeitgeist and Zarathustra bless a handful of unelected activists for not letting Iowans decide for themselves what their laws ought to be"

I'm curious, Bryce...do you believe the US Supreme Court erred in their decision on Loving v. Virginia? Should they instead have allowed the residents of the state of Virginia (and all the other states that had laws prohibiting interracial marriage) to decide what their laws should be?

I missed out on a lot of the conversation here, but since the question of eHarmony was posed to me, I'd like to address that specifically.

I personally think that the eHarmony case was wrongly decided. There might have been a case if the service was unique, but you can't turn around on the Internet without bumping into another dating service, each with its own niche that it caters to. For gays to somehow allege that they are damaged by not having eHarmony provide service to them is pretty ridiculous.

EHarmony was all about going after a highly visible website (thanks to all of their advertising) that happens to be run by a religious person. As I understand the case, this was based on an anti-discrimination law in New Jersey (again, nothing to do with SSM), and that is an area I would be pleased to stand alongside social conservatives who are concerned about the erosion of their liberty.

I don't want my freedom to come at the expense of someone else's.

From the article: "Would it increase the likelihood of punishment of wedding photographers who refuse to photograph same-sex weddings (even if they have religious objections to participating this way in such ceremonies, and even if they feel that requiring them to photographing same-sex weddings compels them to create artistic works that they do not wish to create)?"

If they cannot or are unwilling to do their job that they are hired for, perhaps a different line of work is in order. There will be plenty of others who won't have any issue with it. And I feel exactly the same way about pharmacists who refuse perscriptions because of their beliefs, and cab drivers who refuse fares for their beliefs - if you can't do the job, you should not be working in that field. And if I were their employer, I would fire them for not being able to perform their duties, whatever the reason.

Hector,

I'm well aware of who Zoroaster was.

The "Zarathustra" in my formulation is Nietzsche's -- but then you already knew that.

Sorry to deny you your "gotcha" points.

Eugene Volokh has often posted on the slippery slope. One point he's made is that slippery slopes have two sides. You can make the arguemnt that if we ban SSM, that slope leads to banning divorce and contraception. Would it be fair of me to say that's "of course" that will be the outcome if we don't allow SSM? No, because again, as Volokh has patiently pointed out, it takes explicit action to slide up (or down) the slope.

The Vermont House and Senate just over-rode the guv's veto of marriage equality.

HOORAY FOR VERMONT!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/

This article is probably right about many of the things that anti-gay people imagine will happen. It might make them aware of people besides themselves, and would that be such a bad thing?

> If they cannot or are unwilling to do their job that they are hired for, perhaps a different line of work is in order. There will be plenty of others who won't have any issue with it. And I feel exactly the same way about pharmacists who refuse perscriptions because of their beliefs, and cab drivers who refuse fares for their beliefs - if you can't do the job, you should not be working in that field.

Purposes BobN? I'm not sure what you've thought regarding Easter Sunday, I don't know you and haven't followed this site closely until a short while ago.

I want to be careful not to write something that would make things worse for a non-believer who is gay. This is where I trust Eve Tushnet better than I trust myself - she has the most charming style, she is sexy and funny and generous and gay and Christian. If you're wondering about Christ she might be worth checking out - or John Heard from Australia.

Deb: treachery is an horrific crime. The traitor, to do their worst must act like they're your best friend to be able to deliver you over to your enemy. There is a good chance humanity has an enemy of unfathomable malice the one Jesus kept talking about and who even in his weakness was able to defeat, (he suffered greatly and was murdered though). In that case an initial victory ended up being a calamitous and final defeat for our enemy.

What happened there tells us what a human is - shows us who we are up against and gives us confidence that it has been finally defeated.

I hope that you develop your taste for victory and move on to even greater ones, because there is such a thing as treachery and such a thing Pyrrhic victories.

"Yes, but then a constituency for such could develop absent approval of SSM".

The usual overlooked fact that decimates the slippery slope. The whole presumption of causality goes to hell when "a" is NOT essential to get to "b". But then again, the slippery slope has never been based on something as logical, factual, rule-based as causality. It's really nothing more than a juvenile game of negative-emotion association. Lump all the icky stuff together over there away from the normal, pure stuff, and suggest that if one of the group comes, the others will follow. For the sake of argument if all the icky stuff is inextricably linked in the minds of people wanting to have their own particular icky desire legalized or approved, the conservative religionists can thank themselves for that in a twist of irony, since it is they, who have created the link. They could've had just one icky thing to deal with. Now they suffer from the paranoid thought that one day they will be overwhelmed by ickiness.

"What about the slippery slope in the other direction (maybe marriage is a hill?)".

THE OTHER DIRECTION??!!! Noooo. That may end up affecting the people with non icky desires.

The slippery slope has already slipped.

It takes 50% divorce rates & 40 illegitimacy rates and porn and fornication and un-chosen childlessness. All the pain and heartbreak and loneliness and venereal diseases and fatherless-ness.

Except the Lord that buildith the house thy labor it vain who build it.

The human vanity of same-sex “marriage” is stunning.

Another failed leftist experiment in a long list of wanton destruction.

When you jump out a window you don’t prove that you can fly, but you do prove the law of gravity.