For those who argue for homosexual marriage, why not polygamy?
This is not one of those slippery slope questions intended to reduce homosexual marriage to an absurdity such as pedophilia or bestiality.
The crucial elements that separate those two things from the rest are consent (animals and children cannot consent) and the law (not that I care about laws per se, but obviously bestiality and pedophilia are illegal and for good reason).
In the case of polygamy, the parties can consent. Other partners can even be required to "sign off" on a potential 2nd/3rd/4th/etc. marriage, so that basically everyone involved would have to give their consent to a new partner.
In a sense, if you're in favor of maintaining the status quo when it comes to marriage, then I guess that would rule out both homosexual marriage and polygamy.
But if you are in favor of changing the status quo, then why shouldn't polygamy be included at that point?
There are many people with passionate views about marriage here. I have asked countless times for said people to define what a legal marriage is to them, why it is needed, what benefits accrue to society from it, and so on. Yet, I have received nothing but obscuration, non-answers and/or accusations of homophobia. Therefore, this is me doing an end-around on the subject and attempting people to actually answer the question about a subject that they allegedly feel so strongly about.
I'll be consistent and say that I have no qualms with polygamy as well. I will state, however, that legalizing polygamy would require some big changes to the law in respect to divorce because currently the law is designed for the dissolution of a legally binding marriage between two people. If the law can be changed to account for dissolution among more than two (X people leave legal contract between Y people) then there are no issues with polygamy.
In fact, we could adapt marriage into something like a general partnership and everyone would be happy.
For those who argue for homosexual marriage, why not polygamy?
This is not one of those slippery slope questions intended to reduce homosexual marriage to an absurdity such as pedophilia or bestiality.
There basically isn't any logical relation between the two - one concerns the number of partners and the other concerns their genders.
There's no logical inconsistency in saying that polygamy should be allowed but not same-sex marriage, or vice versa.
The only reason they are linked is that they're both not the status quo and that you can argue from the Bible against both (of course, you can argue from the Bible in favor of polygamy as well). The fact is, of course, that argument from tradition is a pretty weak argument, and that not everyone follows the Bible (and there are many religions which recognize polygamy and same-sex marriage).
So, neither of those are actually good arguments though. And once those crappy arguments are dismissed, there's really no reason to connect same-sex marriage and polygamy, in any way. If you have a good argument against same-sex marriage, use it. If you have a good argument against polygamy, use it. But you can't argue against same-sex marriage simply by referring to the supposed wrongness of polygamy, or vice versa.
So the premise of this thread (suggesting that I should support polygamy if I support same-sex marriage) is pretty dumb, if you ask me.
In the case of polygamy, the parties can consent. Other partners can even be required to "sign off" on a potential 2nd/3rd/4th/etc. marriage, so that basically everyone involved would have to give their consent to a new partner.
But if you are in favor of changing the status quo, then why shouldn't polygamy be included at that point?
As it turns out, however, I don't have a problem with polygamy, per se.
But if I did, the arguments I would make would bear little relation to the arguments I make in favor of same-sex marriage.
I have a problem with abusive situations like in the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints - but that's a mark against the way they practice polygamy, not polygamy itself. That type of abuse can be outlawed without outlawing polygamy.
I think polygamy would require significant restructuring of the law. I don't think it would be wise for the law to make it possible to accrue significant tax benefits through plural marriage, for example. I think also that organized crime might consider, in extreme cases, the fact that spouses cannot be forced to testify against each other.
And the questions of divorce and child custody and so forth would be much more complicated. You'd also have to be clear at all times who is married to who (if a man has three wives, are the wives married to each other, or only to the man? If one wife divorces him, how does the shared property get split up?) and you'd need some way to deal with networks of marriage in the case that, say, a man has multiple wives and one of his wives has multiple husbands - what is the relationship between the extra wives and the extra husbands? Is there one? Do we need to account for this possibility, or is it so unlikely to occur that we can just allow the courts to deal with it on an ad hoc basis?
If there's any argument against it you'd get from me, it would simply be that it's too much work to account for all of the possibilities. Of course, that doesn't preclude simply allowing only more simple arrangements and forcing those who want more complicated ones to have to come up with the contracts themselves. I don't, in any case, consider these legal complications to be insurmountable, but they would take some thought.
These issues, of course, do not arise at ALL in the situation of same-sex marriage. But for some reason I'm supposed to think that the strength of my arguments for one is related to the argument for the other?
Polygamy makes for a ball of tax and inheritance problems.
Also, what would the relationship between Wife and Wife be?
Are they both married to the husband, or do they have some relationship between eachother?
Say we have H/Wa/Wb. (No children, no will, just these people)
H dies intestate. Wa/Wb split the estate. Pretty easy.
Wa dies intestate. Does all of her estate just go to the husband?
H dies and Wa dies, both intestate. Does Wb get everything, or would Wa's estate escheat?
That aside, whats the problem with polygamy? Is there anything inherently bad about it?
The problem with polygamy, separate from tax and legal issues (which could of course be worked out), is that it results in a big disparity in the numbers of single people of either gender. This, in turn, creates all manner of societal ills, as many young males are unable to find a partner. Studies have shown that it leads to a sharp increase in violent crime and other problems.
This is the difference between polygamy and gay marriage. Polygamy negatively impacts society at large, gay marriage doesn't. Of course, we have to decide whether the benefit of increased liberty by allowing polygamy is worth this tradeoff. I happen to think it's not, but I could see arguments being made that it is.
Marriage is an enormous legal aspect of life and, iirc, one of the main issues for homosexuals is that they cannot receive the legal benefits/what-have-you with marriage.
Thus, homosexual marriage is both a social and legal issue. You're literally preventing a select group of people their legal rights on the sole claim that their sexual orientation is all wrong. Doesn't sound right, does it?
Polygamy is not built into the legal system, and does not have the same legal rationale behind it that homosexual marriage does. Is it possible to rewrite the laws to allow polygamy? Sure, but the obvious legal ramifications and issues that arise from that is, I think, so utterly overwhelming that no sane person will seriously try it.
Polygamy is not psychologically a good relationship. The one on the multiple end (usually females) have a hard time feeling secure in their relationship due to not being "the one". However homosexual relationships have been found to be just as sound and psychologically healthy as heterosexual monogonus relationships.
Marriage is an enormous legal aspect of life and, iirc, one of the main issues for homosexuals is that they cannot receive the legal benefits/what-have-you with marriage.
Thus, homosexual marriage is both a social and legal issue. You're literally preventing a select group of people their legal rights on the sole claim that their sexual orientation is all wrong. Doesn't sound right, does it?
Polygamy is not built into the legal system, and does not have the same legal rationale behind it that homosexual marriage does. Is it possible to rewrite the laws to allow polygamy? Sure, but the obvious legal ramifications and issues that arise from that is, I think, so utterly overwhelming that no sane person will seriously try it.
Mostly this. Marriage is a legal system for dividing assets and legal right. By entering more than two people into the marriage contract, it creates all sorts of legal issues. Not to mention that traditional polygamy is a system that has usually existed a system for maintaining control or ownership of the women involved (although there are examples of single wife-multiple men marriages that have interesting sociological reasons in different cultures).
For instance - do all the wives have to agree to accept a new wife? If yes, doesn't that limit the man's rights? If no, doesn't that infringe on the other wives' rights in the marriage contract?
Is it a contract between everyone involved or a contract between individual parties, so a man's two wives aren't married to each other? What if a there is a man married to a woman who is married to another man, who is married to another woman? If the first man is the sole survivor, is he entitled to the last woman's assets? If everyone is married 'together', do they all have to agree to a divorce unanimously for someone to leave the marriage contract? Does a second wife have parental rights to the first wife's children because they are all 'married' together? Does a third wife have the right to avoid testifying against a first wife in court? And these are just the questions I thought of off the top of my head.
Although ethically, I suppose I don't really have a problem with it if those confusing legal issues can be worked out. My only problem would be that historically there tends to have a cultish aspect and forced marriage aspect to it, especially because that kind of marriage was when marriage was still essentially an ownership or guardianship of a man over a woman.
As for a societal view it could alter things a little probably not.
As far as the law goes this one is complicated. First out "marriage" laws are extremely antiquated which leads to tons of problems. The whole idea of marriage is a religious thing and it should stay that way. I don't agree with homosexual marriages or polygamy in marriage because most religions disagree with them. This is the whole separation of church and state thing again for me.
We should not have marriage, but civil/legal unions from which no religious stigma is attached. Then laws that really only effect society can be judged using common sense and reasoning.
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The reason we have strong anti-polygamy laws on the books which have been upheld in the courts is that polygamy at the time those laws were written meant splinter/fringe Christian polygamy, for example Mormon polygamy, and that style of polygamy is deeply intertwined with cult behavior, child abuse, rape, child rape, expulsion of adolescent males, and a host of other dangerous behaviors.
The reason we haven't overturned those laws in the modern world are that it's pretty hard to drum up much of a movement to overturn them. It's relatively easy to see gays as victims of oppression; they can't just choose to fall in love with a person of the opposite sex and thus achieve happiness. It's harder to see polys as victims of oppression; first, there's not much of a group identifying as 'poly', and second, who hasn't been attracted to someone other than their partner at some point? We (if we adhere to society's default morality) consider resisting those attractions to be noble and virtuous, and succumbing to them to be immoral. In that light, poly doesn't look like an 'alternative lifestyle', it looks like 'being weak and wanting to be rewarded for it', however unfair that characterization might in fact be.
Personally, I'd be perfectly prepared to recognize poly marriage provided other laws kept the cult polygamy in check (that shouldn't be too difficult to write into the law, I'd imagine). I don't consider it my place to become the champion of a cause like that (though if real victims of repression can make a case similar to the one made by gay advocates, I might change my mind on that - I doubt it will happen, but I'm by no means sure of it), but I'd vote for it if a sensibly written ballot measure went up for a vote in the next election.
A funny thing. Polygamy is okay in the bible but considered taboo in our culture today. Homosexuality is condemed by the bible but is now borderline okay in our culture today. weird little reversal. Though I like to think that polygamy has a lot more deep seated reasons as to why its not a good idea. The main reason homosexuality has been deemed wrong is christianity and not much else. Polygamy has been rejected by the empowerment of women and a plethura of other taboos set by our siciety from a non-religious point of view.
As a supporter of gay marriage, I also support polygamous marriages. Logically speaking, I don't think I could oppose it as polyamorous relations are just as deserving of the rights that come with marriage as gay relations are.
However, for legal reasons, I do think polygamous marriages would need to have special contractual requirements:
-All other spouses would need to consent/approve of the new spouse in writing.
-Marriage contracts would need to spell out what marriage rights/obligations primarily go to which spouse (medical decision making, inheritance, child stuff, etc.) to avoid scenarios where one spouse dies or becomes incapacitated and the other spouses have conflicting/clashing interests.
Incidentally, I'm not specifically ok with polygamy, 'poly' wasn't a cute shortening of polygamy. 'Poly' refers to multiple partners in a stable, committed relationship, regardless of gender. There are 'poly' arrangements ranging from 2+ women, 1 man, the reverse (2+ men, 1 woman), 2 men 2 women, etc.
I'm not particularly pro or anti poly; I actually don't have much of a stance on the practice of poly relationships at all. I have a political stance that barring a very good argument that the government needs to regulate something, the government shouldn't regulate it, and I've noted before and will note again that in the case of marriage, the null state (the government doing nothing exceptional for a potential state of marriage) is affording it standing as a legal marriage, not ignoring it. Hence, since I can't see a good reason for the government to regulate poly marriage, I don't think think the government should prevent poly marriage or refuse it legal standing.
for anyone who is interested in what a plural marriage looks like there is a show on TLC called "Sister Wives" that follows a family of 1 man and 3 women. In the first season they actually go through and add a 4th wife increasing the family to 1 husband and 4 wives. Then the State of Utah starts to get wind of the family and they are forced to move to Vegas to hopefully avoid legal persecution. When it comes down to it the family structure in the show is much better than having some guy with 5 baby moma's that dont communicate at all that are spread out and the father never sees half of his kids. Basically in this family the father rotates between wives spending 1 day at a time in each "house". The children all see each other as siblings and the entire family often gets together for full family trips and events. The wives basically split all things in the family equally. Not all of them work but financially they split all money. It's interesting to see how it works. It's also very far from brainwashing as in the show they show how some of the teenagers either struggle with the decision of whether or not they want to have a plural marriage in the future or even continue with their parent's religion.
There are a lot of issues with legalizing polygamy because the laws are not written in such a way to allow easy application in those situations. It is something that should be explored though and a good first step would be to at least repeal the laws that are meant to persecute those that are living in a plural marriage lifestyle.
There's no logical inconsistency in saying that polygamy should be allowed but not same-sex marriage, or vice versa.
I think the point was not so much that the two practices are intrinsically linked in some way, but rather that all the arguments in favor of Homosexual marriage seem to apply to polygamous marriage as well.
To which I would respond, thats not true. Because laws referring to guardianship, health insurance benefits, etc. would need to be drastically altered to accommodate polygamy and would need to be barely altered at all to accommodate homosexual marriage.
Polygamy is not psychologically a good relationship. The one on the multiple end (usually females) have a hard time feeling secure in their relationship due to not being "the one". However homosexual relationships have been found to be just as sound and psychologically healthy as heterosexual monogonus relationships.
I would think it's more that a lot of polygamists, at least Mormon polygamists, simply "like 'em young". You're talking about cults (FLDS and the like at least) where men are expected to have three wives, and where puberty is seen as an age of consent for marriage.
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I've always maintained that polygamy is cool in theory. In practice, however, the state of Utah has done a rather good job of demonstrating that it's misogynist as all ****. And ++ on the tax and property laws.
I've always maintained that polygamy is cool in theory. In practice, however, the state of Utah has done a rather good job of demonstrating that it's misogynist as all ****. And ++ on the tax and property laws.
Polygamy is not psychologically a good relationship. The one on the multiple end (usually females) have a hard time feeling secure in their relationship due to not being "the one". However homosexual relationships have been found to be just as sound and psychologically healthy as heterosexual monogonus relationships.
I would think it's more that a lot of polygamists, at least Mormon polygamists, simply "like 'em young". You're talking about cults (FLDS and the like at least) where men are expected to have three wives, and where puberty is seen as an age of consent for marriage.
no I"m talking about psychological research geared towards polyamerous relationships and how they develop differently and are unhealthy. Its similar to a form of abuse. However if your talking about an open relationship where its not so serious and you have as many partners as you want and not a commited relationship between X number of people.
the research and answers do extend to cults but the cult like mentality however is not the root of the problem.
The nice thing about marriage is that it's a ready-made agreement. The bureaucracy is all in place; you can update your insurance records, your banking information, etc very easily, because everyone knows what forms to hand somebody who just got married. There's very little practical difference when you extend that to same-sex couples.
Poly is different. I'm not against polyamory, as practiced by grownups who can give informed consent (not barely pubescent girls "marrying" the local cult leader). But there are a lot of moving parts involved in a poly relationship, pretty much by definition, and it's difficult to graft a legal framework designed for two people onto that. Maybe there will eventually be a consensus on what a good "poly marriage contract" looks like, and that could serve as the basis for new laws, but there isn't one yet.
There's no logical inconsistency in saying that polygamy should be allowed but not same-sex marriage, or vice versa.
I think the point was not so much that the two practices are intrinsically linked in some way, but rather that all the arguments in favor of Homosexual marriage seem to apply to polygamous marriage as well.
To which I would respond, thats not true. Because laws referring to guardianship, health insurance benefits, etc. would need to be drastically altered to accommodate polygamy and would need to be barely altered at all to accommodate homosexual marriage.
I think you're actually just agreeing with me here.
The issues that come up and the arguments for and against them are fairly different from each other.
The only thing linking them is that they're both changes from the status quo and they're both not accepted by most Christian sects, and so some of the arguments against them are merely appeals to tradition or Biblical authority (of course, that plays right into the homosexualists' hands, since they might point out that similar appeals to tradition and Biblical values were made against interracial marriage!).
No moral qualms here. However, there's a pretty severe practical issue: children. TIME ran an article a month or few back about the subject, featuring a man with three wives and over twenty children (link). With population being the issue it is, is it really necessary to produce so many kids? Granted, the same thing is possible with only one spouse, but it's a lot harder.
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This is not one of those slippery slope questions intended to reduce homosexual marriage to an absurdity such as pedophilia or bestiality.
The crucial elements that separate those two things from the rest are consent (animals and children cannot consent) and the law (not that I care about laws per se, but obviously bestiality and pedophilia are illegal and for good reason).
In the case of polygamy, the parties can consent. Other partners can even be required to "sign off" on a potential 2nd/3rd/4th/etc. marriage, so that basically everyone involved would have to give their consent to a new partner.
In a sense, if you're in favor of maintaining the status quo when it comes to marriage, then I guess that would rule out both homosexual marriage and polygamy.
But if you are in favor of changing the status quo, then why shouldn't polygamy be included at that point?
There are many people with passionate views about marriage here. I have asked countless times for said people to define what a legal marriage is to them, why it is needed, what benefits accrue to society from it, and so on. Yet, I have received nothing but obscuration, non-answers and/or accusations of homophobia. Therefore, this is me doing an end-around on the subject and attempting people to actually answer the question about a subject that they allegedly feel so strongly about.
In fact, we could adapt marriage into something like a general partnership and everyone would be happy.
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People currently have poly relationships. It isn't for everyone, but hey, neither is marriage.
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Ain't that the bloody truth.
On topic: Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'm a Christian who is all for legalizing gay marriage and polygamous marriages.
I'd like to echo Nis and say that the whole thing should be legally treated as a general partnership.
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There's no logical inconsistency in saying that polygamy should be allowed but not same-sex marriage, or vice versa.
The only reason they are linked is that they're both not the status quo and that you can argue from the Bible against both (of course, you can argue from the Bible in favor of polygamy as well). The fact is, of course, that argument from tradition is a pretty weak argument, and that not everyone follows the Bible (and there are many religions which recognize polygamy and same-sex marriage).
So, neither of those are actually good arguments though. And once those crappy arguments are dismissed, there's really no reason to connect same-sex marriage and polygamy, in any way. If you have a good argument against same-sex marriage, use it. If you have a good argument against polygamy, use it. But you can't argue against same-sex marriage simply by referring to the supposed wrongness of polygamy, or vice versa.
So the premise of this thread (suggesting that I should support polygamy if I support same-sex marriage) is pretty dumb, if you ask me.
As it turns out, however, I don't have a problem with polygamy, per se.
But if I did, the arguments I would make would bear little relation to the arguments I make in favor of same-sex marriage.
I have a problem with abusive situations like in the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints - but that's a mark against the way they practice polygamy, not polygamy itself. That type of abuse can be outlawed without outlawing polygamy.
I think polygamy would require significant restructuring of the law. I don't think it would be wise for the law to make it possible to accrue significant tax benefits through plural marriage, for example. I think also that organized crime might consider, in extreme cases, the fact that spouses cannot be forced to testify against each other.
And the questions of divorce and child custody and so forth would be much more complicated. You'd also have to be clear at all times who is married to who (if a man has three wives, are the wives married to each other, or only to the man? If one wife divorces him, how does the shared property get split up?) and you'd need some way to deal with networks of marriage in the case that, say, a man has multiple wives and one of his wives has multiple husbands - what is the relationship between the extra wives and the extra husbands? Is there one? Do we need to account for this possibility, or is it so unlikely to occur that we can just allow the courts to deal with it on an ad hoc basis?
If there's any argument against it you'd get from me, it would simply be that it's too much work to account for all of the possibilities. Of course, that doesn't preclude simply allowing only more simple arrangements and forcing those who want more complicated ones to have to come up with the contracts themselves. I don't, in any case, consider these legal complications to be insurmountable, but they would take some thought.
These issues, of course, do not arise at ALL in the situation of same-sex marriage. But for some reason I'm supposed to think that the strength of my arguments for one is related to the argument for the other?
Also, what would the relationship between Wife and Wife be?
Are they both married to the husband, or do they have some relationship between eachother?
Say we have H/Wa/Wb. (No children, no will, just these people)
H dies intestate. Wa/Wb split the estate. Pretty easy.
Wa dies intestate. Does all of her estate just go to the husband?
H dies and Wa dies, both intestate. Does Wb get everything, or would Wa's estate escheat?
That aside, whats the problem with polygamy? Is there anything inherently bad about it?
This is the difference between polygamy and gay marriage. Polygamy negatively impacts society at large, gay marriage doesn't. Of course, we have to decide whether the benefit of increased liberty by allowing polygamy is worth this tradeoff. I happen to think it's not, but I could see arguments being made that it is.
Marriage is an enormous legal aspect of life and, iirc, one of the main issues for homosexuals is that they cannot receive the legal benefits/what-have-you with marriage.
Thus, homosexual marriage is both a social and legal issue. You're literally preventing a select group of people their legal rights on the sole claim that their sexual orientation is all wrong. Doesn't sound right, does it?
Polygamy is not built into the legal system, and does not have the same legal rationale behind it that homosexual marriage does. Is it possible to rewrite the laws to allow polygamy? Sure, but the obvious legal ramifications and issues that arise from that is, I think, so utterly overwhelming that no sane person will seriously try it.
Mostly this. Marriage is a legal system for dividing assets and legal right. By entering more than two people into the marriage contract, it creates all sorts of legal issues. Not to mention that traditional polygamy is a system that has usually existed a system for maintaining control or ownership of the women involved (although there are examples of single wife-multiple men marriages that have interesting sociological reasons in different cultures).
For instance - do all the wives have to agree to accept a new wife? If yes, doesn't that limit the man's rights? If no, doesn't that infringe on the other wives' rights in the marriage contract?
Is it a contract between everyone involved or a contract between individual parties, so a man's two wives aren't married to each other? What if a there is a man married to a woman who is married to another man, who is married to another woman? If the first man is the sole survivor, is he entitled to the last woman's assets? If everyone is married 'together', do they all have to agree to a divorce unanimously for someone to leave the marriage contract? Does a second wife have parental rights to the first wife's children because they are all 'married' together? Does a third wife have the right to avoid testifying against a first wife in court? And these are just the questions I thought of off the top of my head.
Although ethically, I suppose I don't really have a problem with it if those confusing legal issues can be worked out. My only problem would be that historically there tends to have a cultish aspect and forced marriage aspect to it, especially because that kind of marriage was when marriage was still essentially an ownership or guardianship of a man over a woman.
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As for a societal view it could alter things a little probably not.
As far as the law goes this one is complicated. First out "marriage" laws are extremely antiquated which leads to tons of problems. The whole idea of marriage is a religious thing and it should stay that way. I don't agree with homosexual marriages or polygamy in marriage because most religions disagree with them. This is the whole separation of church and state thing again for me.
We should not have marriage, but civil/legal unions from which no religious stigma is attached. Then laws that really only effect society can be judged using common sense and reasoning.
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The reason we have strong anti-polygamy laws on the books which have been upheld in the courts is that polygamy at the time those laws were written meant splinter/fringe Christian polygamy, for example Mormon polygamy, and that style of polygamy is deeply intertwined with cult behavior, child abuse, rape, child rape, expulsion of adolescent males, and a host of other dangerous behaviors.
The reason we haven't overturned those laws in the modern world are that it's pretty hard to drum up much of a movement to overturn them. It's relatively easy to see gays as victims of oppression; they can't just choose to fall in love with a person of the opposite sex and thus achieve happiness. It's harder to see polys as victims of oppression; first, there's not much of a group identifying as 'poly', and second, who hasn't been attracted to someone other than their partner at some point? We (if we adhere to society's default morality) consider resisting those attractions to be noble and virtuous, and succumbing to them to be immoral. In that light, poly doesn't look like an 'alternative lifestyle', it looks like 'being weak and wanting to be rewarded for it', however unfair that characterization might in fact be.
Personally, I'd be perfectly prepared to recognize poly marriage provided other laws kept the cult polygamy in check (that shouldn't be too difficult to write into the law, I'd imagine). I don't consider it my place to become the champion of a cause like that (though if real victims of repression can make a case similar to the one made by gay advocates, I might change my mind on that - I doubt it will happen, but I'm by no means sure of it), but I'd vote for it if a sensibly written ballot measure went up for a vote in the next election.
However, for legal reasons, I do think polygamous marriages would need to have special contractual requirements:
-All other spouses would need to consent/approve of the new spouse in writing.
-Marriage contracts would need to spell out what marriage rights/obligations primarily go to which spouse (medical decision making, inheritance, child stuff, etc.) to avoid scenarios where one spouse dies or becomes incapacitated and the other spouses have conflicting/clashing interests.
What are the chances i am the only Male in an all Female debate thread?
Incidentally, I'm not specifically ok with polygamy, 'poly' wasn't a cute shortening of polygamy. 'Poly' refers to multiple partners in a stable, committed relationship, regardless of gender. There are 'poly' arrangements ranging from 2+ women, 1 man, the reverse (2+ men, 1 woman), 2 men 2 women, etc.
I'm not particularly pro or anti poly; I actually don't have much of a stance on the practice of poly relationships at all. I have a political stance that barring a very good argument that the government needs to regulate something, the government shouldn't regulate it, and I've noted before and will note again that in the case of marriage, the null state (the government doing nothing exceptional for a potential state of marriage) is affording it standing as a legal marriage, not ignoring it. Hence, since I can't see a good reason for the government to regulate poly marriage, I don't think think the government should prevent poly marriage or refuse it legal standing.
There are a lot of issues with legalizing polygamy because the laws are not written in such a way to allow easy application in those situations. It is something that should be explored though and a good first step would be to at least repeal the laws that are meant to persecute those that are living in a plural marriage lifestyle.
I think the point was not so much that the two practices are intrinsically linked in some way, but rather that all the arguments in favor of Homosexual marriage seem to apply to polygamous marriage as well.
To which I would respond, thats not true. Because laws referring to guardianship, health insurance benefits, etc. would need to be drastically altered to accommodate polygamy and would need to be barely altered at all to accommodate homosexual marriage.
I would think it's more that a lot of polygamists, at least Mormon polygamists, simply "like 'em young". You're talking about cults (FLDS and the like at least) where men are expected to have three wives, and where puberty is seen as an age of consent for marriage.
On phasing:
...how? It's banned there too.
no I"m talking about psychological research geared towards polyamerous relationships and how they develop differently and are unhealthy. Its similar to a form of abuse. However if your talking about an open relationship where its not so serious and you have as many partners as you want and not a commited relationship between X number of people.
the research and answers do extend to cults but the cult like mentality however is not the root of the problem.
Poly is different. I'm not against polyamory, as practiced by grownups who can give informed consent (not barely pubescent girls "marrying" the local cult leader). But there are a lot of moving parts involved in a poly relationship, pretty much by definition, and it's difficult to graft a legal framework designed for two people onto that. Maybe there will eventually be a consensus on what a good "poly marriage contract" looks like, and that could serve as the basis for new laws, but there isn't one yet.
The issues that come up and the arguments for and against them are fairly different from each other.
The only thing linking them is that they're both changes from the status quo and they're both not accepted by most Christian sects, and so some of the arguments against them are merely appeals to tradition or Biblical authority (of course, that plays right into the homosexualists' hands, since they might point out that similar appeals to tradition and Biblical values were made against interracial marriage!).