Last week the far right news sources were exulting that their predictions had come true. They claimed that gay civil unions had led to a polygamous civil union in the Netherlands. This, they said, is proof that if we allow gay people to have any rights as a couple we’ll have polygamy here as well.
Even Bill O’Reilly, who – though opposed to gay marriage – has taken on Steven Bennett and others about their ex-gay claims and extreme anti-gay tactics, took the story further and claimed the three had gotten married.
Now it turns out they were wrong after all.
The “civil union” did not exist. Rather, the three people signed an agreement to live together and had it notarized. This is something you could do today, if you so wish, and it would have no more or less standing than it would in the Netherlands.
Don’t expect a retraction from WorldNetDaily or Baptist Press. Truth isn’t their forte.
The following was received from Log Cabin Republicans’ newsletter e-mail
Radical Right Spreads False Information About Dutch Relationship
It’s important to correct the record regarding an erroneous news item from the Netherlands. Last week, some news organizations and web-sites reported that the Dutch allowed three people to enter a civil union. The story was not accurate. The radical right pounced on this story as proof, they say, that the recognition of gay and lesbian relationships will follow a slippery slope that leads to polygamy. Evan Wolfson, Executive Director of Freedom to Marry, writes, “We looked into the claim and found an erroneous report in something called the Brussels Journal. The Brussels Journal misusing the term ‘civil union’ and talking about something ‘registered by a notary.’ Once we checked this with a leading Dutch expert who follows legal developments in family law, we learned that the only legally relevant thing that happened was that three people, with the help of a notary, signed a private cohabitation contract — and did not enter into any kind of legal state-recognized union. Such personal agreements are not registered, and do not have legal implications for third parties. In both these respects, as well with regard to the state’s imprimatur, a personal agreement or contract is different from both marriage and registered partnership. (And civil union, as such, is not a legal status in the Netherlands).
“Again, this was a private arrangement among three people, not a marriage or partnership or union. According to our Dutch expert, there is no law in the Netherlands (nor in most other countries) that limits the number of parties who can among themselves make a personal agreement or cohabitation contract. Dutch law does not regulate cohabitation contracts as such. Some Dutch laws (for example in the fields of tax and social security), however, attach certain legal consequences to the de facto cohabitation of two people (whether or not these cohabitants have signed a cohabitation contract), but never to the de facto cohabitation of three or more people.”
As can be seen from following the link, the Brussels Journal is not a reputable news source but a blog. The tone of their articles puts them pretty much in-line with the American extreme right web sites like WorldNetDaily.
For further info see also Anonymous Liberal. He has further links.
And of course, even if it were true, nobody has offered up any explanation I’m aware of for why polygamy itself is to be avoided, either. Hell, using most of their logic, it’s a damn good thing. It’s biblical, traditional, it gives kids not only a father and a mother but extra parents besides….
Typical lie from the religious right. I can go down to the bank (in the US) and get any document notarized that I want. All that they are notarizing is the fact that I signed the paper. Big deal.
NB: there are no civil unions (that I know of) in the Netherlands. All same-sex unions are confirmed under the Netherland’s marriage laws. This has been the case for more than a few years.
Polygamy doesn’t have a damn thing to do with sexual orientation.
These knuckle draggers forget that the issue around same sex marriage isn’t ANY two men or two women, but the discrimination is against GAY people specifically.
The current marriage standards as we have understood them is two consenting, non related adults…and there is nothing at all about two gay men or two gay women marrying each other that changes that.
Nothing at all. This change is workable and equitable within the law. It’s not the law that would change profoundly, but people’s attitudes.
It’s a challenge to the mockery of heterosexual prejudice more than anything else.
I can live with it.
But the anti gay really can’t, they just aren’t saying it.
Polygamists NEVER had to wait around for the gay marriage debate to make THEIR stand.
Their place in history has already been proven to discriminate against women and to be an abusive arrangement.
Most of the pluralists in any given culture, even here in America…tend to bring in underage girls as the new spouses. It’s not a consenting adult arrangement and the intendeds are related in some way.
This is just a front for a bunch of horn dog men to control the females in their tribe.
This is a issue of culture, not homosexuality.
Learned behavior, not an inherent personal characteristic.
The closest cousin polygamy has is serial divorce and remarriage.
And THAT is complicated enough. Ask the kids with ten half and step brothers and fifteen half and step sisters and one father how it felt to live like that.
And if the ex gay supporters are to be believed, that distant father is hatching another batch of homosexuals.
Again, I’m real tired of people like Stephen Bennett or James Dobson, Paul Cameron or Stanley Kurtz playing the rest of us like we’re dumber than they are.
These egotistical lying sacks of poo get on this woman’s last nerve.
It’s not that hard to get all these important distinctions figured out.
Where are all the other free minded and thinking straight people?
Don’t they get it? Or just don’t care?