Wednesday, August 24, 2011
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Ron Reagan Jr. was filling in for Chris Matthews last week on Hardball. In the “Let me finish” portion at the end of the show, Ron refutes (fmr. Sen. (R)) Rick Santorum’s (et al), claim that gay marriage will lead to polygamy — the “slippery slope” fallacy/argument.
[youtube width=”290″ height=”175″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rliV6yx0Mfc[/youtube]The pith of it is this:
Ron Reagan Jr.: “Santorum and many of his anti-gay colleagues can do a lot better than paper towels. They’re fond of claiming that if gay people would be allowed to wed, we’d also have to allow polygamy, incest and bestiality. This assertion is so absurd some people find it difficult to argue against.
If you find yourself similarly flummoxed, just point out this very simple distinction. Laws against polygamy are non-exclusionary. Whether you are gay or straight, black or white, Christian or Muslim, you can’t be married to more than one person at a time. Preventing gay people from exercising the same right as their fellow straight citizens creates a separate unequal class of people, it is exclusionary. That is the only meaningful distinction you need to keep in mind when arguing with people like Santorum.”
Not so slippery a slope after all.
Now let’s add some glue to that slope:
One Man, Many Wives, Big Problems
The social consequences of polygamy are bigger than you think
Jonathan Rauch | April 3, 2006
The social dynamics of zero-sum marriage are ugly. In a polygamous world, boys could no longer grow up taking marriage for granted. Many would instead see marriage as a trophy in a sometimes brutal competition for wives. Losers would understandably burn with resentment, and most young men, even those who eventually won, would fear losing. Although much has been said about polygamy’s inegalitarian implications for women who share a husband, the greater victims of inequality would be men who never become husbands.
By this point it should be obvious that polygamy is, structurally and socially, the opposite of same-sex marriage, not its equivalent. Same-sex marriage stabilizes individuals, couples, communities, and society by extending marriage to many who now lack it. Polygamy destabilizes individuals, couples, communities, and society by withdrawing marriage from many who now have it.
And last but not least, the Biblical angle, paraphrased:
2 Samuel 12:7-11: …This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: …I gave your master’s … wives into your arms … And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
“This is what the LORD says: …I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.
So, even though laws against polygamy are non-exclusionary and the consequences of it on society would be devastating, it is somehow right around the corner from gay marriage.
And even though God approves of polygamy, religious supremacists decry it as sinful in order to further their anti-gay agenda.
(Are we confused yet?)
Too bad they don’t have some sort of council thingie to research this stuff beforehand…
For the sake of being devil’s advocate, let’s just do some sums.
Imagine a population with 1000 men and 1000 women. 5% of those men choose to be polygamists and they each have 4 wives (a good conservative estimate given that most people don’t want to be polygamists).
So, we have 50 men married to 200 women, leaving 950 men for 800 women, a ratio of 1:1.1875. 150 men will have no chance ever of marrying.
Now, imagine a population with 1000 men and a 1000 women. 5% of the men self-identify as gay and choose to partner. 2.4% (it helps the numbers) of the women self-identify as gay and choose to partner. This is a fair assumption given latest research.
So we have 50 men married to each other and 24 women married to each other, leaving 950 men and 976 women, a ratio of 1:1.0274. 26 women will have no chance ever of marrying.
Might one reasonably argue that same-sex marriage produces the same kind of distortions to the 1:1 bonding ratio that polygamy does (though obviously to a much lesser degree). Isn’t therefore an argument against polygamy in that it deprives some of the population of the opportunity of being married an argument that can be equally levelled against same-sex marriage? And note, this is an argument based not in the morality or otherwise of polygamy or homosexuality, simply (as you quite rightly point out) in the social dynamics produced.
Of course, the “slippery slope” argument has little to do with these social dynamics and everything to do with the statutory framework that accepts the “if I want to do it and it hurts no-one else, why shouldn’t I be free to do it” position (which once again has nothing to do with the intrinsic morality or otherwise of polygamy and homosexuality).
Just saying.
Peter,
The only problem is that gay people are attracted to the same sex and are deprived of a realistic relationship. Second, there are unqual numbers of men and women in any given community. Third, not all people are interested in marrying. Forth, divorce creates chaos in the “balanced” equation. Fifth, Catholic priest.and nuns diminish marriage potentials. There are many other issues to thus discussion!
Peter, I’m not sure which side you are on, but your example is simplistic and doesn’t make sense except in a police state where the government attempts to make everything equal against the will of the people.
You made no mention of people who are asexual. These people may or may not marry. There are spinster women to consider. What about the ugly? People who don’t want to marry and sluts that don’t want to marry so they can sleep around also need to be counted. Where are the transsexuals? You’ve got men becoming women and women becoming men and not at the same rate. What about autosexuals? They are just going to look in the mirror and touch themselves all the time and never marry. Objectophiles will be marrying bookcases and bridges, stalkers will be too busy looking in Madonna’s bedroom window and the frotteurist must rub against non-consenting people to be satisfied, therefore, will never marry.
The bigger issue, however, is that you can’t create laws based on balancing out who will be left in the marriage pool. Where does it stop? You marry her. Here is your government issued car. There are 2.4 people in your family, so you are assigned this house, etc. This is not “1984”.
And the much bigger issues here is why can’t men marry men and women marry women? I’ve never heard a valid argument against same-sex marriage. Someone please let me know what I’m missing.
Peter, your argument seems to assume that, if gay marriage (or any other form of legalized gay relationship) is not allowed, then:
(1) your 50 gay men, not being allowed to marry each other (although they would like to) would marry heterosexual women instead – or rather 26 of them would.
(2) your 26 heterosexual women, not being able to find men to marry who are sexually attracted to women, would settle, faute de mieux, for being married to men whose sexual interest is in other men.
Neither assumption is one that I see any reason to make.
You also fail to point out that if (2) were true, there are still 24 gay men left over. What is to become of them? Would they, despite not being sexually attracted to women, marry the 24 lesbian women who would have preferred to marry each other? I see no reason to assume that either.
But even if all these highly unlikely contingencies were to be fulfilled, the question would remain: Cui bono?
Peter, you have also assumed that polygamous marriages is between 1 man and many women, well it could happen either way now that women are no longer considered “property” and therefore the 1000 men could well marry the 1000 women and would leave no singles out theoretically. You have also assumed that gays would marry women if they are not allowed to marry men, which is not all true as can be seen in many states that do not recognize gay couples.
From the argument of the article[the very first one], it somehow can’t be used against incest or bestiality, exclusion of marriage for closely-related couples and couples between different species or in a sense, between a human and an object, to be non-exclusionary.
The argument itself can also be refuted on its own with a statement like this.
“Marriage[of opposite gender] is non-exclusionary, since all can marry one another if they are of an opposite gender, straight men can’t marry other straight men too. So that’s not exclusive at all.”
Of course, my reasons are things that i can’t get answered on my own and would require some ‘assistance’ in getting it cleared up.
@William
(1) “Gay” men (successfully) marry “straight” women all the time.
(2) Straight women (successfully) marry “gay” men all the time.
Here’s the thing. By arguing that those who freely choose to enter into polygamy because they so desire should NOT be permitted to do so, you cannot then argue that it is unfair that those who freely choose to enter into same-sex marriage because they so desire should be permitted to do so simply because they desire to do so. It is logically inconsistent to argue that the State should be permitted to outlaw certain forms of marital relationships but not others, simply on the basis that we are desirous of one of those forms of marital relationship we wish to be legal and can identify the worst aspects of some other marital relationships (and this goes for some who wish to publicise every worst example of “gay culture”) .
In order to argue that the State can outlaw polygamy you have to accept that the State can make a moral judgement on what does or doesn’t constitute marriage. At that point you have de facto accepted that it is perfectly legal for the State to outlaw same-sex marriage if it so wishes (or any form of marriage for that matter).
Sorry, that should read:
Here’s the thing. By arguing that those who freely choose to enter into polygamy because they so desire should NOT be permitted to do so, you cannot then argue that it is fair that those who freely choose to enter into same-sex marriage because they so desire should be permitted to do so simply because they desire to do so. It is logically inconsistent to argue that the State should be permitted to outlaw certain forms of marital relationships but not others, simply on the basis that we are desirous of one of those forms of marital relationship we wish to be legal or that we can identify the worst aspects of some other marital relationships (and this goes for some who wish to publicise every worst example of “gay culture”).
In order to argue that the State can outlaw polygamy you have to accept that the State can make a moral judgement on what does or doesn’t constitute marriage. At that point you have de facto accepted that it is perfectly legal for the State to outlaw same-sex marriage if it so wishes (or any form of marriage for that matter).
Peter, are you just being contrary for giggles and grins? Here is something you’re not engaging: children.
We already have polygamy’s closest situation: serial divorce and remarriage. With so many half and step children along with the full blood children in the mix. Have you ever been around young people who come from such families?
Typically they are very disconnected from the adults because they have so little time with them, and they have many siblings to also compete with.
I can’t think of any young people who actually LIKE this situation, and have thrived in it without some form of emotional and physical neglect of parental attention.
Polygamous marriages (and I doubt this issue is taking into account, one female and many husbands) are formed specifically to have as many children as possible. These are large families where the duties of child care aren’t all that egalitarian. And then there is also the factor that in these arrangements, which wife is subsequent to the first is the husband’s sole domain. The other wives don’t get to consent or choose who the other wives will be.
At least in a two adult relationship, the consent and mutual choice is just that and no others can or will be expected to interfere with that.
I’ve always wondered at the contradictions in terms and the folly of the ex gay movement in particular and the anti gay in general who are at once disgusted by gay people, but think schtupping a gay person is the path to conversion to heterosexuality.
And the unlucky soul who is expected to marry them, is supposed to be responsible for that conversion.
Considering that gay people ARE a minority, therefore have fewer of them to go around as far as life partner material is concerned, it’s unfair for heteros to interfere with helping and supporting that a gay person be with another gay person to even things out.
After all, if I were a straight woman, struggling with dating and wanting to be married…I think I’d resent it if it was a lesbian who got married to a man before I did. Especially knowing that the odds aren’t great that they’ll remain married or committed.
I would think the same is true for straight men, having to compete with gay men for a wife.
I do think there is great purpose in gay straight alliances in giving each other the tools for greater understanding of the opposite sex.
After all, gay men can teach straight men a lot about empathy and protecting women, without being sexual competition.
Same goes with lesbians and straight women. There is a lot to be said about having ALL the benefits of intimate friendships with the opposite sex, but without the ONE component (sexual tension), and expectations of dominance that have been destructive to hetero men and women for thousands of years.
There are of course, those mixed orientation marriages that stem from a very, special and deep place, and perhaps each of the spouses knows one is gay. But it’s THEIR privacy and THEIR choice and some make it work all their lives.
But it’s having THE CHOICE that matters most of all in this.
Polygamy has historical precedence with serious and very negative implications. Same sex marriage does not.
Santorum’s talking points are getting more and more into the realm of outright stupid and without comparison to anything in legal and historical reality.
Ron Reagan is right about what’s exclusive to an orientation and what is not. The issues of incest, underage, bestiality, polygamy and so on…are not exclusive to any orientation.
But the most paramount issue is that ALL marriage involves MUTUAL consent.
Santorum is also wrapping his argument in TOTAL conjecture. And despite the precedence in other countries that no such horribles ever occurred, he’s STILL talking as if such things are still going to.
Discrimination against gay people doesn’t do anything to save/protect marriages or marriage. All these ad hoc state Constitutional amendments and DOMA are inert in that regard.
And only exist to interfere with gay people for no good reason at all.
So basically Regan, you’re arguing that the State should be allowed to make a moral judgement, based on all the information it has, on the validity or otherwise of someone’s “marital relationship”?
Oh and Peter: a ss couple, is still a COUPLE that has to submit to the SAME legal constraints as an op sex couple. Therefore NOT changing the essential dynamics of current marriage traditions and terms.
The ONLY reason a man/woman marriage would be so essential, is if the woman were STILL without autonomy and subject to her husband. The rules of traditional marriage used to mean that the wife had little freedom, or choices within that marriage and the standards were VERY different for her than for him.
The ‘traditional’ marriage meme, assumes that men and women’s ROLES are determined by law, or Constitution. When they are not.
It assumes their roles are DIFFERENT in the law, when they are not.
In the laws of modern marriage men and women are EQUALS. Therefore there IS no role for gender for that reason.
And ss marriage would solve another issue for another distinct segment of the population: the intersexed and the transgendered. There ARE people born with ambiguous gender. And the transgendered who legally married somewhere, find themselves and their marriages rendered void for not recognizing the gender they transitioned to.
In the eyes of the law, and supporting the noble goal of commitment and self reliance, same sex marriage is a win/win.
In the eyes of the anti gay, they aren’t even engaging the facts and relevance of the history of marriage and that so far, it’s redefinitions to this day, have still been all for the better.
So basically Regan, you’re arguing that the State should be allowed to make a moral judgement, based on all the information it has, on the validity or otherwise of someone’s “marital relationship”?
@Christian
To answer your points,
1) Having Civil Unions which afford the same rights as marriage, but not same-sex marriage itself (which is essentially the situation in the UK) does not mean anybody is “deprived of a realistic relationship”. We’re not talking about outlawing gay relationships, we’re talking about the right or otherwise of the State to define who or who may not enter a “marriage”.
2) Yes, but given that once people are born they are born, the State has very little control over that (unless you live in China)
3) True, but then we would need figures as to whether that is in equal proportions in male and female populations.
4) Yes, but then every couple that divorces brings one male and one female back into the “singles pot”.
5) Yes, but in a similar way to (3) you could factor that in.
@Tobey Pearson
The point I was making was that the demographic argument against polygamy (because that is ultimately the argument made in the blog post) can be equally applied to same-sex marriage. That doesn’t mean that it is right or wrong, simply that it cuts both ways. Essentially, your third paragraph (“The bigger issue, however, is that you can’t create laws based on balancing out who will be left in the marriage pool…”) is as much an argument against the specific anti-polygamy position in the blog post (since there are other good arguments to be made against polygamy) as it is against the position I presented (as a devil’s advocate) in my first comment.
@Ian
Yes Ian, I quite rightly make a number of assumptions in my comment and others as well as you have tried to “complicate” the scenario (and quite correctly). The point I was trying to make though was that ceteris paribus the demographic argument against polygamy can be applied to same-sex marriage. That’s not a statement of morality or otherwise, simply a numerical observation.
As for bestiality etc, the demographic argument rejects those as well since an introverted sexual relationship (defining introverted in this instance as being involving only one human). But then that is because the demographic argument used in the blog post assumes that human would want to relate heterosexually. One might argue that the men left without wives through polygamy would most likely be homosexuals anyway, so in this alternative scenario (the men without wives happen to be homosexual) the existence of polygamy does not deny anybody the ability to be in a sexual relationship.
Complicated.
Peter, copy/pasting the same question after two different responses is at best rude and at worst belligerent. Please behave yourself.
This entire argument has always seemed rather silly to me. Polygamy is about quantity and limiting it need have nothing to do with moral judgments. However, even if one were to consider it so, it would not change the argument. This is and always has been a red herring in the marriage equality debate, drawing the discussion down the endless and useless path of justifying various things which are progressively more repugnant in the eyes of society in order to reinforce prejudice against gays and lesbians and the idea of marriage between two people of the same sex.
You can frame it as a noble argument, but it still the same old bigotry and it smells just as bad.
You can frame it as a noble argument, but it still the same old bigotry and it smells just as bad.
I haven’t once in this thread made a moral judgement about homosexuality or any other relationship / desire. All I’ve done is ask whether one demographic argument can be applied in a number of different scenarios. Nothing more, nothing less. If the argument about demographics is silly, why write a blog post about it in the first place?
And as for Regan, I reposted my comment because nothing that Regan wrote actually addressed the question I asked. I wanted to know whether she believed that the State did or didn’t have a right to define marriage (for example, to refuse to recognise polygamy). Her reply simply didn’t address that simple question.
This is your blog. You have the right to allow or refuse comments as you see fit, but do me the decency of engaging with what I actually wrote, not what you think I secretly meant when I wrote it.
Calm down and keep taking the tablets, Peter. The “you” was general, and could have been written as “one can…” As for Regan, if you felt she hadn’t answered your question, then tell her that instead of posting the comment over again like a bot.
Do you see my name on the post? Writers at XGW don’t think in lock-step.
@ Peter:
I don’t dispute that marriages between gay men and straight women can be and sometimes are successful. But I also think it has to be conceded that such marriages do have a disconcerting tendency not to be. Marriages fail for innumerable other reasons, of course, but discordant sexual orientation is one potential obstacle to the success of a marriage that is obvious in advance. Not that I would deny for one moment a gay person’s right to contract a straight marriage if they so desire, but I regard it as highly immoral to exert any pressure – legal, moral, religious or whatever – in an attempt to induce a gay person to do so.
Nor have I so argued. I am sure that we could sit down and make a gigantic list of things that people may desire to do, but which they should not be permitted to do. What I would argue is that if people desire to do something, they should be permitted to do it in the absence of any particular reason why they should not. In the case of legally recognized same-sex relationships (whether they be called marriages or civil partnerships), I see no such reason.
Yes, but the main point under discussion here is whether it is a good thing for the State to outlaw same-sex marriage (no matter how legal such a proscription may be). Some people think that it isn’t.
Unlikely, but yes, in theory. But I don’t see that that really gets us anywhere with the present argument.
To return to my first point. There are doubtless all kinds of reasons why a gay person may contract a straight marriage. In the civilized western world, at any rate, the number who do so either in order to conform to a social norm or in obedience to a religious doctrine has diminished, is diminishing, and I am sure will continue to diminish. A reversal of this trend is neither likely nor, in my view, desirable. I see no reason to believe that it can be reversed or even arrested by refusing to permit gay marriage – which is what you seemed to be implying – nor do I think that an attempt to do so by this means would be moral, even if one is opposed to gay marriage on other grounds. As for those gay persons who contract a straight marriage for some other reason than those mentioned above, I am sure that they will do so whether or not the option of same-sex marriage is open to them.
@David Roberts
I don’t see your name on the post. But then the “why write a blog post about it in the first place” obviously didn’t refer to you but to the author (in the same obvious way that in your final paragraph of your first comment the “You” wasn’t aimed at me personally).
Are we square now?
Here is why the slippery slope argument fails.
Let us take the 4 common arguments: beastiality, pedophilia, incest, and polygamy. First off, all 4 of these are fetishes, and irrelevant to homosexuality, which is a sexual orientation. Let me distinguish this for you using incest as an example. If a guy into incest is straight, he’ll choose his sister, and if he’s gay, he’ll choose his brother. See the distinguishment? Now pedophilia and beastiality will never be legal, because both are non-consenting and harmful, whereas homosexuality is 2 loving consenting adults that is not wrong or harmful. Incest, also has been shown to lead to genetic defects, so that is also out of the question. Incest also is a fetish, not a sexual orientation. I have never seen a person exclusively attracted to their brothers/sisters etc. Polygamy also is a choice. No one can choose who they would or will be attracted to, but they CAN choose to be in more than one relationship with more than one person at the same time. Polygamy can be damaging, as it can cause jealousies and resentments among the participants and any children produced. Those 4 fetishes can be seen to be harmful and wrong, whereas gay marriage is neither harmful nor wrong.
Gay marriage has been legal in MA for 6 years now, and i don’t see anyone pushing for polygamy there. The slippery slope is a myth meant as a scare tactic that’s quickly becoming obsolete.
Another very interesting observation. If we are to correlate anything with polygamy, let’s look at the map where polygamy is actually legalized. Notice the areas: Africa, Middle East, some Asian countries. Those are some of the most anti-gay areas in the world. So we can logically assume, if we are to use that particular argument and correlation, that the more anti-gay an area is, the more likely polygamy will exist in that area. However, look at the places where gay marriage are legalized. Polygamy is outlawed in the majority of those areas. So in areas with larger gay rights, polygamy is a less likelihood.
@Peter Ould
Nice try, but you weren’t speaking to the author, you were speaking to me, as opposed to my general statement about an argument being used en masse. But then you knew that already, didn’t you.
Debates with you always end up in minutia, which is why I rarely try.
I see. If I write a comment in response to you then I am speaking to you, but if you write a comment in response to me you are not speaking to me? Makes perfect sense.
Yup, it’s a conspiracy against you, Peter. Everyone is against you, and it’s all because of your beliefs. There, I just condensed three pages of your typical comment history into one line, that should save us all a lot of unnecessary time and trouble.
FALSE EQUIVALENCE
You missed the very first part of class — laws against polygamous marriage apply to EVERYONE — they are non-exclusionary. Laws against marriage itself DO NOT apply to everyone — they are exclusionary.
Marriage equality and polygamy (marriage inequality) are fundamentally different. It’s the difference between 0 and 1+countless.
Wanting one is not the same as wanting more than one. It’s like that stupid argument that compares the sinfulness of gay marriage with adultery, as though the desire for one spouse is exactly the same as the desire to cheat on one’s spouse.
It is logically inconsistent to argue that the State should prevent certain people from marrying but not others.
That’s my whole point. The State is withholding marriage-itself from us, while affording it to others.
If by “moral” you mean the Biblical definition of marriage, you can have marriage equality, but you’ll have to legalize God approved polygamous and incestuous marriages (and possibly even bestial marriages).
But, if by “moral” you mean logical, then yes, I accept the States role in recognizing and enforcing marriage equality.
Outer quotes are Peter’s, inner quotes are mine:
I’m not arguing fer or agin the legalization of polygamy, I’m pointing out the bankruptcy of its argument — via slippery-slope fallacy — and hypocrisy of its use to bash marriage equality.
It’s propaganda, it’s malicious, and it’s unacceptable.
I think what Rauch was pointing to in the excerpt was the evidence that polygamy creates a surplus of unmarried men who, over time, tend to rape and steal and burn things. I think there’s something to it. It’s no coincidence that the jihadi problem stems from an Islamic culture, which condones polygamy. If these young men were being nagged to put up shelves in the kitchen, they might be less likely to blow themselves up.
But social policy isn’t what matters in America. It’s all about individual rights and that much-abused word “freedom”. That’s why Republicans will fight like savages until infants are allowed to own automatic weapons. It’s why Rand Paul gets a hearing when he suggests that “no blacks and dogs allowed” is the right of every private property owner. So why they rail against polygamy I’ll never know – it not only prioritizes the individual rights of consenting adults, as per the Holy Constitution, but it also creates exactly the kind of savage winner-takes-all society that they seem so keen on.
(Oh, I know why. It’s because they’re hypocrites).
No Peter, I’m NOT arguing that. The state ALSO has an interest in keeping marriage within means and understanding for the participants. This is not a matter of morality, it’s a matter of keeping things within REASONABLE and already established structures.
There IS a difference between sexual orientation and marrying someone appropriate to one’s own, and EXCESSES and redundancy of spouses.
Let me break it down to you this way:
The states requirement is essentially an age MINIMUM, mutual consent and that the couple not be already married or closely related. This is a matter of KINSHIP. And the kinship of blood relatives and the already married is ALREADY respected in the law, making marriage UNNECESSARY for the basic intents and purposes already imposed by the state.
The opposition literally argues in support of discrimination based on un Constitutional issues to do so such as non procreation, non biological connection to one’s child, or the aforementioned non exclusive issues of excess, redundancy or non consent.
Civil unions have not now, nor EVER carried the same necessary weight and standards of marriage and are unenforceable. In other words, literally not worth the paper they are printed on.
The limits of even the legal marriages for gay people, and civil unions were structured SPECIFICALLY to also limit the responsibilities, security and needs of gay people for their own spouses and families and NO OTHER REASON.
They are the only couples adversely affected by such limits, as no heteros are limited in the scope or weight of THEIR marriages by this discrimination.
In effect there IS no reason for any of this to occur against gay people in particular.
This is strictly a matter of unfair discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation, not EXCESS.
Does THAT answer your question?
So the state STILL isn’t defining marriage for straight couples for a moral reason, but a practical one. Were this about morality, then the most reprobate hetero people would not be able to marry once and again and again and again, or unlimited amounts of children no matter their failures as parents…over the most exemplary gay couple marrying at ALL.
Obviously there are no limits on how many serial MARRIAGES a person can have, just how many concurrent spouses.
And for the state’s purpose, THAT is a reasonable limit.
I honestly can’t see how polygamy is related to monogamous marriage (marriage, the two-person contract, as it is defined). They’re two completely different kinds of relationships.
The only people who really think gay marriage somehow leads to polygamy are those who think a person loving someone of the same sex is so foreign, bizarre, and deranged that only other “foreign bizarre deranged” things could possibly follow (like polygamy).
Let the polygamists and plural marriage-ists argue their own case on its own merits.
The only dog I have in this fight is the one for marriage equality.
Can’t argue with that Ms. K.
And what I honestly don’t like, and truly resent, is that if a person does support gay couples marrying, then the anti gay typically insist that we MUST and ALWAYS support the other marriages they suggest.
Can’t stand how they constantly put words in our mouths we don’t say, and intentions we never uttered.
In other words, if someone doesn’t say it, make shit up.
@ Peter..
The devil doesn’t need advocates. The devil has been f**king with gay folks long enough already.
Dontcha think?
IMO its true and are non-exclusionary, i will provide examples to try and explain it.
Polygamous marriage: those who desire polygamy and those who don’t could not have a polygamous marriage irregardless of their desire for one.
SS marriage: those who desire to have a SS relationship and those who don’t could not have SSM irregardless of their desire for one.[example: straight men cannot marry other straight men when SSM is banned. Whereas gays/straight men can marry straight women/lesbians under the current law.]
Hence both are NON-exclusionary. However, ‘desire for marriage’-wise, its exclusionary, but that would also apply to polygamous marriages.
It would not be considered ‘cheating’ if the wife/husband approves of it, this could be referenced to an open relationship.
@shadowman
lovely!
bestiality,polygamy,pedophiliaand incest.One left, what if it were an incestuous gay couple? Or sterile couple?
@Patrick Fitzgerald
Patrick you are wrong because you are confusing two different things.
Much of the conversation on this thread has been about the morality and the “goodness” of varying proposed forms of marital relationship (same-sex, other-sex, polygamy etc). That is not the issue and at no point in this thread have I made any statements about such judgements. What I have done is raise two crucial issues:
i) If a demographic argument is used to reject polygamy, can such a demographic argument be used to reject same-sex argument?
ii) If contributors to this thread believe that it is within the remit of the state to decide that a certain form of relationship cannot be declared a valid marriage (eg polygamy), does such a position intrinsically accept that the Government is entitled to declare that same-sex marriage is not legally recognised?
Neither of these two points are anything to do with judgements of morality or equality, they are simple basic questions of logic and jurisprudence. Indeed, one might reasonably accept point (ii) and yet still make a coherent moral and sociological argument to prohibit polygamy and accept same-sex marriage (which indeed many here are making).
But it strikes me that what is actually going on here of this thread is a form of defensiveness that has formed a priori conclusions (that same-sex marriage should be accepted by the state) and then seeks to diminish and discredit any reasonable argument that might be made against it, even down to the level of basic logic. Take for example the response when asked question (ii) as I did of Regan above. Her response was not to engage with the fundamental issue of the right of the state to define marriage (even the right to define it as between two people of the same sex) but rather to make moral statements about polygamy, attack the ex-gay movement and to cast doubt on mixed-orientation marriages. All of these are valid arguments when addressing the reasons why the state might or might not accept same-sex marriage as legal and reject polygamy, but they do not engage with the prior discussion which is whether the state has the right to make such a decision in the first place.
And that comes across as wanting to stack the deck. It comes across as realising that on a much deeper level then arguing why same-sex marriage should or should not be legal, we first need to discuss the right of the state to declare something legal or not in the first place. Of course, if we accept that the state has the right to declare something not legal, that means that even if we have a great argument in favour of what we want to be legal, we have to accept that the state may choose not to accept that. For some people that is a position they do not wish to be in.
Let me be clear – I do not believe that accepting same-sex marriage means that the state will also be forced to accept polygamy. That is not what I have argued on this thread. What I have argued is that in grappling with the reasons why the state can choose to reject polygamy (which is a different discussion as to the merits of such a decision) one result is that you intrinsically accept the fact that the state has the right to define marriage as it decides, even if that means it rejects same-sex marriage.
Polygamy and same-sex marriage are not the same thing, to be sure (though there are LGBT people who want more than one spouse), because there are countries with polygamy but same-sex marriage is banned. The bigots are bigots about much, though, and they shouldn’t be answered with “same-sex marriage is different than polygamy,” they should be answered with “Why shouldn’t an adult be free to marry any consenting adults?” Make them defend their bigotry. They can’t. Polygamy isn’t a problem… abuse is a problem.
Polygamy, if ever legalised will keep the lawyers busy for decades. Think how complicated things get partners joining and dropping out of the union, yet the union persists, bringing/taking children with them. How do you divide property? How do you handle child custody? How do you make laws that apply to the huge variety of possible unions? I think the best way to handle it would be with custom contracts. That is not what marriage is for. It is a standard contract for unions to protect dependents.
Gay marriage is a legal piece of cake in comparison. You can use the exact same laws as now except where the laws treat men and women unequally. There you probably want to clean things up to be fairer for straights anyway.
I think Santorum has greatly overestimated the slipperiness of the slope to polygamy, both because of the legal difficulty and because there are so few people pushing for it.
However, if it could be done, I’d say fine. How other people arrange their unions is none of my business no long as the kids are protected. Official polygamous marriage vs informal polygamy would almost certainly increase the protection for the kids.
Alright Peter,
The states, on many levels HAVE already argued their case whenever it went to legislatures. But where the COURTS have been participating in this decision, the evidence, facts and effects of ss marriage have been contested against what the opposition has argued.
And the opposition’s objections are ALL based on issues that are not singularly, nor collectively legal at all already.
An objection based on their conjecture, such as polygamy ‘might, could be, will’ are not factual nor a basis of untested precedence.
The typical objections contradict themselves, and become circular.
For example: they argue that marriage is based on the securing of children, and therefore since ONLY men and women can spontaneously conceive a child, they are the ideal and superior examples for marriage and are the only people who deserve the benefits of marriage.
On it’s face that argument requires either that sterile, or non procreative adults do not deserve to marry.
Or the children of gay parents are not ideal enough for the state to allow the benefits of marriage to their parents.
They have no evidence that’s EVER proven that the man/woman model is superior, nor that the children of gay parents are any LESS than similar in situation to those parents that are not.
This has been their primary argument all along, and the Constitution cannot assume that heteros are superior human beings, nor be used as an instrument of discrimination that reflects this FALSE assumption.
Polygamy, unlike ss marriage, has a historical model and precedent to examine. Polygamy has negative and distinctly unnecessary aspects that the state can reject.
SS marriage also now has precedent that has proven no such negative aspects, nor reasons to exclude gay people simply because they ARE gay, or their marital arrangement is two men or two women.
This arrangement has no more complications, than those of op sex couples.
Multiple concurrent marriages DO have serious implications AND complications to the extent that the state has no model of primacy within that structure that it can protect.
And as I said, above all, the state doesn’t have to support extremely complex marital relationships that exponentially have major impact on the local community and elsewhere.
The state can choose to reject polygamy on it’s merits.
SS marriage has argued on it’s own merits, and essentially on these points:
there are heterosexuals that meet the opposition’s stated objections, but are legally supported.
And that there is no RATIONAL reason to reject gay people’s inclusion for the same reason.
Rick was never big on consistency. The old testament he uses to justify making life hell for gay people also tells us out that all the Judeo-Christian god celebrities of the time were polygamous.
@Roedy Green
Actually Roedy,
You make your own point in why polygamous marriages wouldn’t work, not even in the interests of the children.
I already mentioned that this isn’t just about the privacy of the adults handling their own lives, but the impact on such widespread multiples on these children. We already understand polygamy to be one man, multiple women. The first obvious negative is the imbalance of options for wives for other males.
The next is that the women do not have any consent as to the subsequent wives. They are required to accept this arrangement and whoever it is, so ALSO participate in raising children that aren’t their own.
The next problem is competition for the male’s time and resources with regard to parenting their own children.
In any given neighborhood, children don’t have to compete for their father with EVERY child on the street.
The next issue, is a crisis: who has the primary say in what happens with that husband and father? Who is the inheritance standard going to favor? Who will decide for the other children of the other wives?
And if multi marriages also means, allowing POLYANDRY…then the other imbalance factor applies.
One woman is able to have three husbands, leaving several other females with no option for one.
With TWO mutually connected spouses, they are the primary caretakers of one another. This does simplify things for the state. And you’ve already pointed that out and made the case AGAINST polyamorous marriage.
@ Peter Ould:
It seems to me that we have here a number of different questions which have become conflated, thus clouding the issue.
(1) Does the state have a legal right not to allow same-sex marriage? Yes, of course it does. The state is supreme in deciding what the law is. The supremacy of the British Parliament, for instance, means that it could in theory define black as white, and its definition would be legal. As you have said yourself, the state would have the legal right not to allow any kind of marriage at all.
(2) Does the state have a moral right to define what does and does not constitute marriage? Yes, since formulating the law is one of the state’s vital functions.
(3) Given that the state has both the legal and the moral right to decide what the law is, I would say that the state also has a moral duty to ensure that any laws that it makes are moral ones. I do not mean by this that it is the state’s duty to enforce morality, but that any laws that it makes should be morally defensible. No-one, I imagine, would say that the state has the moral right to enact an immoral law. For instance, although the state would have the legal right to outlaw any kind of marriage at all, few would dispute that such a law would be an immoral one. The question then arises, is a law proscribing same-sex marriage a moral one? That is the matter on which opinions differ.
(4) Whether or not the state would be morally right to proscribe same-sex marriage, could it logically do so on the basis of the demographic argument that you have outlined? My answer is that it clearly could not. As an argument against polygamy, its reasoning seems to be, reducing it to its simplest terms, that polygamy means some people getting more than their fair share and thereby depriving others of theirs. I am not concerned to dispute the validity of this argument, so I will take it as valid. But it is not reasonable to think that it can be transferred to the case of same-sex marriage. Most people, I think, would agree that the state has a moral duty to allow those who wish to get married (in the traditional, heterosexual sense) to do so, and to remove unfair obstacles to their doing so, and this can be brought forward as a good reason – perhaps one among others – for prohibiting polygamy. But I submit that the state does not have a duty to ensure that all those who wish to marry will actually do so or can do so, nor is there any means, including the prohibition of same-sex marriage, by which it could in practice achieve this. Still less does the state have a duty to ensure a supply of unattached homosexual people as consolation prizes for those heterosexual people who have not managed to find heterosexual partners. As I have already said, I would not deny a gay person the right to contract a straight marriage if that is what he or she freely chooses to do; but the hope that restricting gay people’s choices will lead more of them to contract straight marriages because in effect “it’s that or nothing” – even if the hope were a realistic one, which I don’t think it is – strikes me as a downright immoral reason for opposing same-sex marriage.
@William
William,
Thank you. You are the first person on this thread to actually engage with what I wrote and you did so in a courteous manner that dealt with the issue at hand.
I agree with you utterly that that demographic argument against homosexuality is absurd, but then I also think that the demographic argument against polygamy is absurd as well. If polygamy is judged moral apart from this issue, then the demographic issues it raises are simply aspects of that morality. It no more makes sense to say that homosexuality disadvantages a remnant straight population by affecting 1:1 male:female ratio then it does to argue polygamy should be banned because it has the same effect. The argument against polygamy, as highlighted above by many, is that in practice we know it has severe detrimental effects on many involved in it, particularly the multiple wives and children.
So, we are left with the fundamental issue that the State has the right to define marriage as it wishes. The argument about the morality or otherwise of various models of marriage is an independent question.
This raises then a new question. Can we truly speak of a “human right” to enter into same-sex marriage if we have agreed the State has the right to define marriage as it wishes?
Peter, this is a new question? The state has a right to define marriage as it wishes. But gay people are a distinct minority that challenges that wish. And at a level that took decades to study, give major allowance for other precedents to take affect. Gay people were taken for granted for a long time and now that this challenge to that definition has been PROVEN to be not such a challenge after all: the state doesn’t have a reasonable or rational basis for discrimination.
We aren’t talking about gay people suddenly forming pair bonds to satisfy scrutiny, but gay couples who have already been well established as couples, some with children, already. It’s the state that’s essentially catching up to a reality that would make gay people MORE responsible, secure and contributing. Not less.
We are talking about a demographic that’s already fought to be adoptive parents, freeing the burden of unwanted, sometimes hard to place children from the state.
For a gay couple to be able to inherit pensions, property and be the primary custodian of major decisions for each other, this frees the state too, of possibly having to support a survivor or children of that couple with welfare or other public social services.
And there is also the reality, as I said, of the intersexed and transgendered. Removing the archaic gender specificity from the standard marriage laws, those of ambiguous gender can also participate in being as contributing and self reliant as everyone else is through marriage.
These are the human rights factors that enter into the practicality of same sex marriage. This involves the transgendered, gay people AND the children they MUST support, where they have been in a vulnerable position (that has been exploited to their detriment). They haven’t chosen their orientation and gender issues. Nor have the children left in state run orphanages chosen theirs.
However, polygamists choose to have redundant marriages (typically claiming religious reasons), and excesses of children and dependents that sometimes the state DOES have to support through welfare fraud.
See the differences in how the state can support ss marriage, but cannot, polygamist ones.
One has FAR more positive,Constitutional freedom affirming aspects.
Whereas polygamist is recessive in it’s structure against women and children from a less egalitarian period in the past.
Oh and William wasn’t the only person who answered you politely and intelligently. He might have used a more LEGAL definition, but you didn’t specify that’s the kind of answer you wanted.
If you’re one of those people with a tic and asks endless circular questions that repeat over and over again because you’re being imperious about being answered to YOUR satisfaction, then understand you’re being rude.
The government makes laws necessary for the common good. Our Constitution (especially the Bill of Rights and other amendments) is meant to protect the rights of the people from an overbearing government or to change structural aspects of the government. All laws have a moral idea behind them. There is no such thing as an amoral law. There is a reason and purpose to every law and each of those reasons and purposes can be judged as to their morality. The government has the right to discriminate against a group of people if it can be demonstrated that their behavior is detrimental to the common good or that harm would be caused to others by their actions. It’s this simple: gay marriage does not cause harm to other people and does not disrupt the common good, whereas polygamy can be objectively demonstrated to do both on several grounds. Thus, the law outlawing polygamy is a good moral decision, while the law against same-sex marriage is not and, as such, is unjustified discrimination against a group of people from a right that already exists for certain other people.
I feel strange defending polygamy, because the people who mainly practice it usually have religious beliefs that make me want to scream in frustration. However, I believe it is a superior system for raising children. I had an abusive mother. The essential problem was that she had to look after five kids full time. In a polygamous relationship, the sister wives spell each other off. Two generations ago, an extended family provided the same service.
I hated being bound to one intense woman. Had I three mothers, I would have had more balance and a way of putting some distance from one overbearing mother.
It has been a tradition in my family, myself included, for at least a few years of our lives to live with two partners. It has basically been motivated by an inability to give up one of two potential partners, a kind of exaggerated nostalgic attachment. (I am still strongly attached to all my exes.) It is difficult to manage the relationships, but nobody else’s business so long as there are no children involved.
Polyandry in animals and in people occurs only very impoverished conditions. Basically it takes the resources of three males to provide for even one wife/child.
We might start seeing it in China and India, because of female infanticide. We also might start seeing more prostitution (the technique of the old west to share scarce females), or open homosexuality (I just went to a conference called We Demand where a man presented a paper on the topic in the Canadian west where the ratio of males to females was very high.)
The polygamy argument for persecuting gays makes the assumption that social change is like an avalanche. Once it starts, it cannot be stopped. It will trample everyone forcing people to do things that nobody wants. This is nonsense. Ask the blacks. They had to fight for every nanometer of change. Gay liberation is more like dragging a Stonehenge pillar through the mud.
T.J.>It’s this simple: gay marriage does not cause harm to other people and does not disrupt the common good, whereas polygamy can be objectively demonstrated to do both on several grounds.
What are you thinking of?
1. a substandard male can broadcast his defective genes extremely widely.
2. because there are typically so many children, they don’t get much paternal attention.
3. the male pays relatively little tax, but puts an enormous burden on the state educating his brood.
4. something else?
Roedy, you are defending polygamy as a means of assuming that a child will have SPARE mothers to assume responsibility, and care for the needs of all the children involved. If that’s true about you having a difficult mother, you’re assuming that these women don’t ALSO have issues as well. Then you’d STILL have a lot of traffic to get to because of the other children and THEIR needs.
Which may well be greater than your own.
The old fashioned methods of parenting, which these sorts of retrograde, strict faith communities, have a lot to do with early disciplines in not actually BEING a child. Free from work, from expecting to defer their own wants and emotional expressions to their religious beliefs and not expect a parent to indulge those needs.
Your assumptions won’t square with the realities of the emotional, physical, financial and material limits the parents have. Especially in multiple spouse situations like this, envy, jealousy, lack of consent of subsequent wives and children, and the sabotage of the extra relationships are the negative undercurrent.
And perhaps because of the likelihood of such competition, the extra mother in this situation might have to treat you the same way as your prime mother just to get along with the tribe.
When a child is having troubles in their own family, and is perhaps longing for that compassionate and understanding mother they don’t have at the moment: sometimes there are other adult women in the neighborhood or at school that fill that role. You don’t need to have that woman actually married to your father.
But she can be a woman already happily with her OWN husband, away from the situation you’re suffering at home. That way she can provide a separate refuge you can go to.
I know this, because I’ve been that woman to countless children in my neighborhood and the gay kids I’ve specifically mentored who have been in foster care group homes.
I don’t have children. Making me a person freed up to support the needs of those children who are just like you’re talking about.
So polygamy is UNNECESSARY to provide for a child who might have a failed parent in their lives. So no, it’s still not an arrangement that needs support from the state.
I have not lived as as child in a polygamous family, so I am speculating.
I have seen videos of the kids in Bountiful BC where nearly everyone is polygamous. The kids look unusually healthy, clean and happy. In regular society, parents are too busy to supervise the kids. They let them balloon up on junk food, or park them in front of TV or video games where they sit immobile for hours at a stretch.
I saw a depressing documentary about teenage boys in polygamous societies. They are driven away, exploited and treated very badly. They are not equipped to suddenly join ordinary society and have all manner of trouble. There is no place for most of them in adult polygamous society.
My Mom had two quite different personalities. She was normally a monster. However if there were relatives or her friends about, she turned into a benevolent angel. Cruel people behave better when others are watching, as the Amnesty International says. A single parent can easily abuse a child. With a few extra adults around the child has allies. The extra mothers would usually be a moderating influence. I think it is unhealthy the way kids are now isolated from all adults but two. This not the way human societies have worked for millenia.
As a child, some of the mothers in the neighbourhood would offer some respite. But they would not believe our complaints about my mother. An extra mother in the house would know what was going on, and would be much more willing to get involved in protecting the kids. And today many kids don’t get to interact with any neighbourhood moms.
We kids kept trying to convince my dad to divorce my mom. We did not want an extra mom. He of course refused, oddly on the grounds that no one would marry a man
with five kids.
There is a complication. Polygamy is usually associated with primitive vicious religions.
Don’t blame the cruelty on polygamy. It is hard to separate the effects when you don’t have many non-religious polygamous families to study.
We always enjoy returning to find the potential to trip and fall down an Ouldian Logic Hole.
And, quelle surprise, it hinges on but a single word.
That is not an independent question, of course, because talking about the State having “rights” is nonsense. People have rights. The State has power.
So… to re-frame, and avoid the Ouldian Logic Hole.
Yes, the State has the power to define marriage. The State also has the power to establish potentially competing authorities to rule on the definition. Such as, having a 1) Parliament, an 2) independent judiciary and being signatory to a 3) convention on human rights.
But the power of the State to impose on people is tempered by the right of individuals to equity under the law and to liberty. Or should be. Equity under the law, and to at liberty to establish their own family on equal terms, is all that gay couples are asking for. They are asking for their existing rights to be recognised, not for a new or special rights.
The laws of marriage, in real life.
When a gay couple marry that creates no legal dilemma, for others or for the State. They are simply recognised as being a couple, with all that entails under the current law, in the same say a straight couple are. A legal impediment on some individuals has been removed, and without needing to alter the regulation of marriage.
The same cannot be said about polygamous marriage as they would require a wholesale re-write of (our) established law. Could they be accommodated? Yes, potentially. But not easily, and not comfortably if the law also intends not to by default also create categories of higher and lower wives or to remove rights that are currently created by the relationship. Etcetera, and it’s a long list.
Lay the laws and rights of marriage of, say, the UK and Saudi Arabia, along-side each other; and discuss.
The so-called demographic argument.
A red-herring, because it’s based on an Ouldian falsehood; namely that gay men and straight women “successfully marry all the time”. (I’m not sure what lesbians and straight men do, but it’s apparently nothing worth including for comment).
Ouldian falsehoods need to be named and shamed.
Gay men and straight women don’t “successfully marry all the time”. Some unique individuals do, at least so far as their idea of success goes. Those unique individuals would be free to continue to marry each other, and already are, even when gay and lesbian couples can marry each other.
This particular Ouldian falsehood, one based on outliers who aren’t at issue in any case, completely fails to recognise that in the vast majority of cases gay men are a priori not part of the pool of men available to, or frankly desirable to, women as marriage partners. And to further challenge this particular Ouldian falsehood, because we know where it’s going, such gay men are not capable of being “fixed” in order to make them available and desirable. It just doesn’t happen, wishful thinking aside.
This alone makes gay men as couples unlike polygamous marriage which a priori does indeed create a demographic problem. Like it or not, the sex ratio remains essentially 1:1. By allowing some men to monopolise all the women we create an underclass of men who can never marry, despite there otherwise being more than sufficient women to, erm, ‘spread around’.
Ok, so now we’ve created this underclass of excluded young men … what follows next?
Hi Roedy,
On what you observed regarding the children of the Bountiful, polygamous cult: these are people who keep themselves from outside scrutiny for a reason. They would have to submit to the types of laws that would keep young girls from being indoctrinated into being underage wives and premature parents. Their lives are so pre programmed, even to the extent they are were virtually wearing the same dowdy prairie dresses and hairdos.
Might as well translate Bountiful wives into Stepford wives.
And of course we also know what happens to the gay children or the male competition in this equation.
They had something to prove to the law, and there have been enough first hand accounts, and why Warren Jeffs is in prison for us to know this is NOT a healthy environment and even MORE reason that someone who wants out, or is mentally ill, or gay isn’t going to get any help.
Don’t assume for a second that a multiple wife home will give you enough spare mothers or that they are going to spell each other. That kind of dependency is born of a religious control factor, that FORCES this on women and you have no idea how many might actually resent it, but have no way of expressing it.
The man and his wives that have been on tv are arguing in court to NOT be scrutinized or subject to the law, but to have privacy. Which is kind of redundant since they are all over television.
He knows he can’t MARRY them, and he’s not arguing that actually.
But the fact still remains that they need to present a happy, healthy home to the cameras and the public. But under the surface are issues that will ultimately go beyond their private lives and impact the outer community.
@Regan DuCasse
My comments about the physical well being of the children of Bountiful can be ascribed to the superior care they get from multiple mothers. Your observation about their harmful psychological indoctrination comes from having parents who subscribe to a fundamentalist Christian cult, not directly a problem derived from polygamy. Consider the children of a 70s hippy commune. They got better care than they would in dual parent hippy families, but did not suffer from Stepford Wife syndrome.
To defend this topic drift. The question originally was, how do you combat a Rick Perry, by saying “so what if the people choose to legally recognise the reality of polygamy?”, or by attacking polygamy and saying “why would that happen? Almost nobody wants it?”
The big error the Rick Perrys of the world make is that they imagine if the law refuses to recognise gay unions or polygamous unions they will go away. All it does is unfairly punish citizens that Christians enjoy using as their scapegoats. They use it to assert their superior status, much as French nobles enjoyed humiliating the serfs.
Surely there is a principle in law that legislators cannot, for example, tax only people with red hair. This is arbitrary discrimination. It would put the law as a whole in disrepute. Laws surely must have some sort of logical justification. Majorities get away with it for a time, but eventually the majority weakens or the minority manages to convince everyone of the unfairness, as happened with gay people back in the 1970s.
I consider the religious indoctrination of children a form of child abuse. The basic idea is to terrorise children into believing nonsense. I received a fair bit myself, from school and strangers even though I was raised atheist. I think it should be illegal, though I recognise that my view is held by only a tiny minority.
Finally, the Rick Perrys of the world think what they are doing is condoned by the bible. It most certainly is not. See the “first stone” story in John 8:7. Also read Leviticus and Deuteronmy cover to cover or, if you are lazy, see my bible study guide at https://mindprod.com/religion/biblestudy.html to point out the highlights. Those old buzzards had it in for everyone, not just gays. They are stark raving bonkers. They want everyone executed.
The differences that remain are this:
That sexual orientation isn’t a choice. That discrimination on the basis of it, is wrong based on factors that there are no negative aspects to individuals or societies at large that people have this attribute and commit to a single person as per the standards set that are simpler and more fortified for individuals and the state.
Polygamy is a choice of lifestyle, whether religious based or not, carries negative and extremely complicated aspects for individuals and society.
Mainly that it denies the essential factors of PRIMACY and CONSENT, for those involved.
Redundancy and excess are not NECESSARY factors to marry, or for the state’s intents and purposes.
So, if we were to make a choice between what resembles and adheres to more positive and egalitarian principles for which individuals marry, it would be in favor of same sex couples.
And this is an opinion from weighing irrefutable evidence, facts, historical, legal and social precedent. Not a conjecture or theory, which is what you’ve placed your opinion on multiple mothers in.
When it’s all said and done: a mother is going to prefer her own child over the needs of the other mother’s children. In a village, especially one with the polygamous option, the other mothers are forced to look after the other children. Depending on which wife has more favor, which children do.
Resentments, jealousies, rivalries and sabotage are more the reality than the smiley face you have projected on the polygamous arrangement.
Christians have two sources of hatred for gays: Leviticus concerned about preventing sex, and St. Paul concerned about preventing lust. Bigots will point out that choice of gender in partner both for sex and marriage is a choice. They even try to pretend that sexual orientation is a choice, though they can never find anyone who changed their mind. Therefore gays should do what fundamentalist Christians tell them to. Whether they do or not, Christians will still persecute them.
Christians need to be told firmly to get stuffed. They have no more right to choose partners for gays than vice versa. They seem to think they have the rights of parents in India to arrange marriages. Gays have just as much right to choose their partners as anyone else.
A religious objection to someone else’s behaviour is insufficient grounds for legal action. That is built into the US constitution. That is what freedom of religion implies.
Nice to see you around grantdale — it’s been a while. Sage commentary as always (with crickets in return, also as always in an Ouldian influenced thread).
Hey grantdale, I wanted to say this earlier, but I was worried I’d get in trouble for a comment that didn’t further the discussion. (But now that David Roberts has done it, I think I’m safe.) I’ve missed you guys. I squealed gleefully when your names and comment popped up in my feed reader. 🙂
DM! Nice to see you as well. And please, relax 🙂
Here, here!