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United States News Title: Now that Butt pirates can get married, It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy Welcome to the exciting new world of the slippery slope. With the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this Friday legalizing same sex marriage in all 50 states, social liberalism has achieved one of its central goals. A right seemingly unthinkable two decades ago has now been broadly applied to a whole new class of citizens. Following on the rejection of interracial marriage bans in the 20th Century, the Supreme Court decision clearly shows that marriage should be a broadly applicable right—one that forces the government to recognize, as Friday’s decision said, a private couple’s “love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family.” The question presents itself: Where does the next advance come? The answer is going to make nearly everyone uncomfortable: Now that we’ve defined that love and devotion and family isn’t driven by gender alone, why should it be limited to just two individuals? The most natural advance next for marriage lies in legalized polygamy—yet many of the same people who pressed for marriage equality for gay couples oppose it. This is not an abstract issue. In Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissenting opinion, he remarks, “It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.” As is often the case with critics of polygamy, he neglects to mention why this is a fate to be feared. Polygamy today stands as a taboo just as strong as same-sex marriage was several decades ago—it’s effectively only discussed as outdated jokes about Utah and Mormons, who banned the practice over 120 years ago. Yet the moral reasoning behind society’s rejection of polygamy remains just as uncomfortable and legally weak as same-sex marriage opposition was until recently. That’s one reason why progressives who reject the case for legal polygamy often don’t really appear to have their hearts in it. They seem uncomfortable voicing their objections, clearly unused to being in the position of rejecting the appeals of those who would codify non-traditional relationships in law. They are, without exception, accepting of the right of consenting adults to engage in whatever sexual and romantic relationships they choose, but oppose the formal, legal recognition of those relationships. They’re trapped, I suspect, in prior opposition that they voiced from a standpoint of political pragmatism in order to advance the cause of gay marriage. In doing so, they do real harm to real people. Marriage is not just a formal codification of informal relationships. It’s also a defensive system designed to protect the interests of people whose material, economic and emotional security depends on the marriage in question. If my liberal friends recognize the legitimacy of free people who choose to form romantic partnerships with multiple partners, how can they deny them the right to the legal protections marriage affords? Polyamory is a fact. People are living in group relationships today. The question is not whether they will continue on in those relationships. The question is whether we will grant to them the same basic recognition we grant to other adults: that love makes marriage, and that the right to marry is exactly that, a right. Why the opposition, from those who have no interest in preserving “traditional marriage” or forbidding polyamorous relationships? I think the answer has to do with political momentum, with a kind of ad hoc-rejection of polygamy as necessary political concession. And in time, I think it will change. The marriage equality movement has been both the best and worst thing that could happen for legally sanctioned polygamy. The best, because that movement has required a sustained and effective assault on “traditional marriage” arguments that reflected no particular point of view other than that marriage should stay the same because it’s always been the same. In particular, the notion that procreation and child-rearing are the natural justification for marriage has been dealt a terminal injury. We don’t, after all, ban marriage for those who can’t conceive, or annul marriages that don’t result in children, or make couples pinkie swear that they’ll have kids not too long after they get married. We have insisted instead that the institution exists to enshrine in law a special kind of long-term commitment, and to extend certain essential logistical and legal benefits to those who make that commitment. And rightly so. READ MORE On The Bench Justice Scalia Is a Homophobe By BARNEY FRANK Primary Source It Is Accomplished By ANDREW SULLIVAN The Big Idea Gay Marriages Are Better Than Straight Ones By EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH But the marriage equality movement has been curiously hostile to polygamy, and for a particularly unsatisfying reason: short-term political need. Many conservative opponents of marriage equality have made the slippery slope argument, insisting that same-sex marriages would lead inevitably to further redefinition of what marriage is and means. See, for example, Rick Santorum’s infamous “man on dog” comments, in which he equated the desire of two adult men or women to be married with bestiality. Polygamy has frequently been a part of these slippery slope arguments. Typical of such arguments, the reasons why marriage between more than two partners would be destructive were taken as a given. Many proponents of marriage equality, I’m sorry to say, went along with this evidence-free indictment of polygamous matrimony. They choose to side-step the issue by insisting that gay marriage wouldn’t lead to polygamy. That legally sanctioned polygamy was a fate worth fearing went without saying. To be clear: our lack of legal recognition of group marriages is not the fault of the marriage equality movement. Rather, it’s that the tactics of that movement have made getting to serious discussions of legalized polygamy harder. I say that while recognizing the unprecedented and necessary success of those tactics. I understand the political pragmatism in wanting to hold the line—to not be perceived to be slipping down the slope. To advocate for polygamy during the marriage equality fight may have seemed to confirm the socially conservative narrative, that gay marriage augured a wholesale collapse in traditional values. But times have changed; while work remains to be done, the immediate danger to marriage equality has passed. In 2005, a denial of the right to group marriage stemming from political pragmatism made at least some sense. In 2015, after this ruling, it no longer does. While important legal and practical questions remain unresolved, with the Supreme Court’s ruling and broad public support, marriage equality is here to stay. Soon, it will be time to turn the attention of social liberalism to the next horizon. Given that many of us have argued, to great effect, that deference to tradition is not a legitimate reason to restrict marriage rights to groups that want them, the next step seems clear. We should turn our efforts towards the legal recognition of marriages between more than two partners. It’s time to legalize polygamy. *** Conventional arguments against polygamy fall apart with even a little examination. Appeals to traditional marriage, and the notion that child rearing is the only legitimate justification of legal marriage, have now, I hope, been exposed and discarded by all progressive people. What’s left is a series of jerry-rigged arguments that reflect no coherent moral vision of what marriage is for, and which frequently function as criticisms of traditional marriage as well. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 47.
#1. To: no gnu taxes (#0)
just to correct the discussion - because the govt grants tax benefits to married hetero couples via marriage which do not extend to gay pairings this allowed for a charge of unequal treatment under the law. That is the basis of the whole argument. If you are trying to use polygamy to ban gay marriage then the argument fails because polygamy is still banned.
I think civil unions largely gave them the same benefits, but I can't say I believe in that either. Why are we legitimizing gross perversions? The slippery slope has begun.
Why are we legitimizing gross perversions? The slippery slope has begun. Civil Unions would have been the way to go but the social conservative wing of the GOP wanted to make sure that no granting of any rights to gay couples was the norm and those absolutist idiots cost the GOP and the nation greatly now - including that stupid nonsense of changing the constitution to ban gay marriage which I think had the opposite effect of turning people against the GOP. Also, the civil unions the GOP talked about were not granted the same rights as a married couple when it came to many benefits like Social Security, etc. If Civil Unions were supported early on in the Clinton admin then this would not be an issue any longer. After that my legal knowledge gets fuzzy. This gay marriage is an affront to dignity but it's too late and we lost.
Had the decision been made by the people, maybe. But, like abortion, the decision was made by the U.S. Supreme Court and forced upon all 50 states. It's been 42 years. Is the abortion issue settled? No longer debated?
Reagan legalized abortion as gov of California before Roe V Wade. The solution is to minimize the need for an abortion rather than an outright banning which is impossible.
After abortion was made legal nationwide, the number of annual abortions doubled. Your plan isn't working. Who said anything about banning? Why not simply return the decision back to each state? If history is a guide, that should reduce the number 50%.
Who said anything about banning? Why not simply return the decision back to each state? If history is a guide, that should reduce the number 50%. What plan? Did the nation offer conception till 18th year free health care to take burdens of the potential mother? Free child care so a woman can have a child and go to school or go to work? Etc. The so called right to lifers offer shit incentives to mothers to keep their child.
#53. To: Pericles (#47)
Those "incentives" were not present prior to Roe v Wade and the number of annual abortions was half what existed after. "The so called right to lifers offer shit incentives to mothers to keep their child." I wish. What is it now --70% of children in the inner cities are born to single mothers? You want to icrease incentives and get that number up to 90%?
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