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So what's wrong with polygamy (polyamory)?

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031601312.html

And now, polygamy.

With the sweetly titled HBO series "Big Love," polygamy comes out of the closet. Under the headline "Polygamists, Unite!" Newsweek informs us of "polygamy activists emerging in the wake of the gay-marriage movement." Says one evangelical Christian big lover: "Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights battle."

Polygamy used to be stereotyped as the province of secretive Mormons, primitive Africans and profligate Arabs. With "Big Love" it moves to suburbia as a mere alternative lifestyle.

As Newsweek notes, these stirrings for the mainstreaming of polygamy (or, more accurately, polyamory) have their roots in the increasing legitimization of gay marriage. In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement -- the number restriction (two and only two) -- is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.
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I was listening to NPR and during one segment (don't know which one) they mentioned that possible gay rights measures would open the door for polygamy. So, other than anti-LDS bigotry and American xenophobia, what's wrong with polygamy?
 
Nothing at all. It should be a matter of choice. We don't want people getting backstreet plural marriages.
 
https://www.slate.com/id/2138482/

Uh oh. Conservatives are starting to hyperventilate again. You know the symptoms: In a haystack of right-wing dominance, they find a needle of radicalism, declare it a mortal danger to civilization, and use it to rally their voters in the next election. First it was flag-burning. Then it was the "war on Christmas." Now it's polygamy. Having crushed gay marriage nationwide in 2004, they need to gin up a new threat to the family. They've found it in Big Love, the HBO series about a guy with three wives. Open the door to gay marriage, they warn, and group marriage will be next.
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https://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/938xpsxy.asp

AFTER GAY MARRIAGE, what will become of marriage itself? Will same-sex matrimony extend marriage's stabilizing effects to homosexuals? Will gay marriage undermine family life? A lot is riding on the answers to these questions. But the media's reflexive labeling of doubts about gay marriage as homophobia has made it almost impossible to debate the social effects of this reform. Now with the Supreme Court's ringing affirmation of sexual liberty in Lawrence v. Texas, that debate is unavoidable.

Among the likeliest effects of gay marriage is to take us down a slippery slope to legalized polygamy and "polyamory" (group marriage). Marriage will be transformed into a variety of relationship contracts, linking two, three, or more individuals (however weakly and temporarily) in every conceivable combination of male and female. A scare scenario? Hardly. The bottom of this slope is visible from where we stand. Advocacy of legalized polygamy is growing. A network of grass-roots organizations seeking legal recognition for group marriage already exists. The cause of legalized group marriage is championed by a powerful faction of family law specialists. Influential legal bodies in both the United States and Canada have presented radical programs of marital reform. Some of these quasi-governmental proposals go so far as to suggest the abolition of marriage. The ideas behind this movement have already achieved surprising influence with a prominent American politician.
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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/gay-marriage-and-polygamy_b_49928.html

Do you support the concept of gay marriage?

That used to be an unimaginable question. Not "unimaginable" in a negative sense, but "unimaginable" in the original, neutral definition of the word: "unable to be imagined," or "not imaginable." The concept of two people of the same sex being married wasn't even raised in the American conscience until the 1990s (or perhaps late 1980s -- I haven't researched the actual date, this is from my own recollection). After that point, of course, the idea has grown in prominence in the American political debate, both pro and con.

But now, mostly due to a Mormon running for president, the issue of polygamy is also inserting itself into the political debate. So the question must also be asked: Do you support the concept of polygamy? If so, why? If not, why not?
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So because a couple of Mormon (LDS) guys are running for president polyamory is a hot button topic? As if the LDS church has been campaigning to legalize polygamy for the last hundred years or so. Newsflash America, Mormons could care less about legalizing polygamy, and if gay marriage has to be legalized first they're down right opposed to it. Am I wrong?
 
I'd rather have polygamy marriages rather than gay marriages.
but thats just me.

MAN AND MAN SHOULD NOT GET MARRIED.
woman and woman should get NOT married


marriage is between a man and a woman. simple as that.

if gays want something like marriage they should use another word for it maybe "gayrriage" or "sickness" or whatever they wanna call it. screw gay marriages.

not that i have anything against gays
 
What about homosexual polygamy?


I have a feeling 5 gay men married to eachother under one roof wouldn't get much done.
 
Gameface said:
other than anti-LDS bigotry and American xenophobia, what's wrong with polygamy?
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Absolutely nothing if you're talking about adults choosing to live a lifestyle not considered normal by society.

If you're talking about a small community that raises young girls to believe polygamy is God's plan, then I believe there's something wrong. Very ****ing wrong.
 
I have nothing against the concept as long as it all involves consenting adults. I believe the bias against it currently is that many times it does not involve consenting adults. Still, that hardly makes the practice when it does (involve consenting adults) wrong, IMO.
 
The idea of legalizing plural marrige is much more complicated than simply letting consenting adults do as they please. It would have some pretty huge welfare and tax implications if left unchecked. I wouldn't care if polygamy were legal, but I do NOT like the idea of polygamists, their wives,and their multiple children being able to tap into the welfare system at will. I'm really not a big fan of a guy with 13+ kids not paying a dime for stuff like school lunches, etc. while everybody else is expected to.

If legalized, I'd also like to see a cap on how many dependants polygamist's could claim on their taxes. If that's the lifestyle you choose, that's fine, just don't expect the American taxpayers to pay for it.
 
jazzman12 said:
The idea of legalizing plural marrige is much more complicated than simply letting consenting adults do as they please. It would have some pretty huge welfare and tax implications if left unchecked. I wouldn't care if polygamy were legal, but I do NOT like the idea of polygamists, their wives,and their multiple children being able to tap into the welfare system at will. I'm really not a big fan of a guy with 13+ kids not paying a dime for stuff like school lunches, etc. while everybody else is expected to.

If legalized, I'd also like to see a cap on how many dependants polygamist's could claim on their taxes. If that's the lifestyle you choose, that's fine, just don't expect the American taxpayers to pay for it.
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Well said. As I understand it, most polygamist families have just one couple that are married in the eyes of the law and all other wives are religious marriages. Then they can collect welfare and govt assistance for being "single mothers" with children.
 
Or we could avoid all these questions and doubts and definitions and make just one:

Marriage is between one man and one woman.

Wouldn't that be more simple? (not necessarily trying to say it's right or wrong. Definitely not going to open that can of worms. I'm just going on the simple and easy answer..)
 
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DutchJazzer said:
I'd rather have polygamy marriages rather than gay marriages.
but thats just me.

MAN AND MAN SHOULD NOT GET MARRIED.
woman and woman should get NOT married


marriage is between a man and a woman. simple as that.

if gays want something like marriage they should use another word for it maybe "gayrriage" or "sickness" or whatever they wanna call it. screw gay marriages.

not that i have anything against gays
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Thanks for clearing that up.
 
jazzman12 said:
The idea of legalizing plural marrige is much more complicated than simply letting consenting adults do as they please. It would have some pretty huge welfare and tax implications if left unchecked. I wouldn't care if polygamy were legal, but I do NOT like the idea of polygamists, their wives,and their multiple children being able to tap into the welfare system at will. I'm really not a big fan of a guy with 13+ kids not paying a dime for stuff like school lunches, etc. while everybody else is expected to.

If legalized, I'd also like to see a cap on how many dependants polygamist's could claim on their taxes. If that's the lifestyle you choose, that's fine, just don't expect the American taxpayers to pay for it.
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Some of them already do this. They have the single mothers live off of the welfare system. They use the money they get to support the whole group. This while the fathers of their children are stinking rich and take care of them anyway.
 
DutchJazzer said:
I'd rather have polygamy marriages rather than gay marriages.
but thats just me.

MAN AND MAN SHOULD NOT GET MARRIED.
woman and woman should get NOT married


marriage is between a man and a woman. simple as that.

if gays want something like marriage they should use another word for it maybe "gayrriage" or "sickness" or whatever they wanna call it. screw gay marriages.

not that i have anything against gays
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They are sick and wrong and screw them but.....

Yeah sounds like you are totally cool with gay folks.
 
I agree with what most people here are saying (except that absolutely idiotic Dutchjazzer). As long as it's between two consenting adults, why the hell not? I do think it could, and probably would, lead to even more abuse of the current welfare system. There may be ways to create new laws (requirements) for polygamist households to qualify.
 
gregbroncs said:
Some of them already do this. They have the single mothers live off of the welfare system. They use the money they get to support the whole group. This while the fathers of their children are stinking rich and take care of them anyway.
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Exactly. I think most current polygamists won't push for the legalization of polygamy because it may cut into their welfare as well as the fact that they already believe that their plural marrige is already legal in a religious sense. They like flying under the radar and reaping all of the benefits.
 
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