[QUOTE=diggleblop]
If same sex adults can get married, why not two consenting family members? Why not polygamists? Consenting adults are consenting adults. To be honest, I think marriage should be banned for everyone.
[/QUOTE]
I knew someone would bring up incest.
[QUOTE=diggleblop]
If same sex adults can get married, why not two consenting family members? Why not polygamists? Consenting adults are consenting adults. To be honest, I think marriage should be banned for everyone.
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Substitute (t#394072; p#37, “banned”, “legally derecognized”)
[QUOTE=ragerdude]
However, some on the other side argue that we (that is, we who support SSM) must be consistent and thus also support legalized polygamy for the same reasons. They use this as a rebuttal to our claims, attempting to make us contradict ourselves.
(Or, they claim that the adoption of SSM will, in fact, inevitably lead to the eventual adoption of polygamy.)
[/QUOTE]
The argument currently being used in America for SSM seems to be on a discrimination basis: a man should not be prevented from marrying another man just because he is not a woman; the law is discriminating based on his gender.
Whether or not this logic is accepted, there is no way to wedge poly marriages into it. Some people are legally able to marry men, some people are legally able to marry women. No one is legally able to marry more than one spouse.
Everyone is currently treated the same insofar as poly marriage goes: no one is allowed it. Some people are treated differently insofar as wanting to marry a man: if you’re a woman it’s allowed, if you’re a man it isn’t.
[QUOTE=col_10022]
At least polygamous marriage has a historical precedent, gay marriage does not. I don’t see how you can support gay marriage without supporting polygamy on any principled basis.
[/QUOTE]
The historical precedent is that women are on about the same level as cows. The more you own, the wealthier you are. Not a good precedent. There are historical precedents for all sorts of gruesome things and as our culture becomes more civilized and evolved we run screaming from them.
That gay marriage has no historical precedent may actually be a good thing. We get to set a new, more enlightened precedent.
[QUOTE=levdrakon]
The historical precedent is that women are on about the same level as cows. The more you own, the wealthier you are. Not a good precedent. There are historical precedents for all sorts of gruesome things and as our culture becomes more civilized and evolved we run screaming from them.
That gay marriage has no historical precedent may actually be a good thing. We get to set a new, more enlightened precedent.
[/QUOTE]
Can’t we set a new enlightened precedent for polygamy? What is the principled arguement for allowing gay marriage but not polygamous marriage?
**Lightray **hit the nail on the head, as far as I’m concerned.
Bricker nailed this one in post #17.
If the legislature voted to make same sex marriage legal, then any argument of a slippery slope is silly and not applicable.
However, the way that SSM seems to be getting implemented around the nation is through the courts via an argument of equal protection under the law. If we have to change the definition of marriage to give gays equal rights to marry, then it does stand to reason that we have to change the definition of marriage again to give polygamists equal rights to marry.
[QUOTE=Debaser]
Bricker nailed this one in post #17.
If the legislature voted to make same sex marriage legal, then any argument of a slippery slope is silly and not applicable.
However, the way that SSM seems to be getting implemented around the nation is through the courts via an argument of equal protection under the law. If we have to change the definition of marriage to give gays equal rights to marry, then it does stand to reason that we have to change the definition of marriage again to give polygamists equal rights to marry.
[/QUOTE]
I’m back on the “marriage contract” concept here. ISTM that, whatever your personal views on “open marriages” may be, one key element of traditional marriage is an exclusive contract. “Forsaking all others” in the vows; “Thou shalt not commit adultery”; etc. If there’s mutual consent that “sex with Joe doesn’t constitute adultery under our private agreement,” then that’s acceptable from a legal standpoint; it’s your private business (see Lawrence v. Texas). But the legally recognized relationship does not contemplate it.
To say that equal protection implies that your choice of spouse should not be limited on the basis of sex does not impinge on that exclusitivity concept. Joe and Fred can contract exculsivity as well as Sam and Mabel can.
I am not personally opposed to the general concept of multiple persons in a marriage. But it does require a redefinition of terms that gay marriage does not. Period. (And note Lilairen’s example of her own relationship – she is de facto in a marital relationship with two men, one of them her de jure husband, who is himself in a similar relationship with two or more women including her – but she is not herself married or in any other relationship with the other women to whom her husband is de facto married.
It sounds to me like a legal recognition of polygamous arrangements, which is after all what this is discussing, would entail not new statutory arrangements so much as a statute granting legal recognition to something parallel to a condominium agreement: “The party of the first part and the party of the third part agree that they will enter into a marriage with the parties of the second, fourth, and fifth parts, but this shall not be deemed to constitute them as married to each other. In the event that any party shall withdraw from the marriage, that shall not work to break the marriage unless only two parties remain members of it.” Etc., etc.
Repeat: this is not an argument against legal recognition of polygamy. It’s an assertion that that recognition is going to require some complex legal arrangements to be legally contracted. (Me, if I were head of the Association of Domestic Relations Lawyers, I’d be gung ho for this – it’s a gold mine for lawyers with that sort of expertise in what happens when marriages go south!)
[QUOTE=Lightray]
The argument currently being used in America for SSM seems to be on a discrimination basis: a man should not be prevented from marrying another man just because he is not a woman; the law is discriminating based on his gender.
Whether or not this logic is accepted, there is no way to wedge poly marriages into it. Some people are legally able to marry men, some people are legally able to marry women. No one is legally able to marry more than one spouse.
Everyone is currently treated the same insofar as poly marriage goes: no one is allowed it. Some people are treated differently insofar as wanting to marry a man: if you’re a woman it’s allowed, if you’re a man it isn’t.
[/QUOTE]
Except there is still “discrimination”, but now on the basis of marital status: John can marry an unmarried woman (or man, once SSM is legal), but not a married one.
I guess. I think that’s the “slippery slope” people are afraid of.
Me? I just think everyone who wants more than one spouse should have to sit down with a bevy of lawyers and hash out a contract as if it were a corporation with multiple partners. Pre-nups all around. New people want to enter or children are born? New contracts, riders, and addendums written. Marriage, as it stands now, is a great set of “one size fits all” contracts that are entered into en masse, rather than being drawn up to fit the couple’s particular circumstances.
That, in itself, is a new idea. Weeks used to be spent drawing up marriage contracts between families, discussing everything from dowries (how much money her family would give the couple) to bride prices (how much money his family would give either the couple or her family), number of cows and sheep and sheets and pots the new couple would recieve, where they would live and - most importantly - what would happen to all their stuff if the marriage were ever dissolved.
Frankly, I’d like to see **everyone **forced to go back to such a system. At least it’d prevent starry-eyed romantic blindness and make people face the actual legal entanglements they’re getting into, even with only one partner.
[QUOTE=Polycarp]
one key element of traditional marriage is an exclusive contract.
[/quote]
Another key element in a traditional marriage is that a man and a woman are entering into the contract, not two men or two women.
Changing marriage to allow more than one person and changing marriage to allow same sex couples are both a change from what a marriage has traditionally been. They aren’t the exact same thing, but the concept is the same.
You aren’t simply seeing a group of people being excluded (ie: “Blacks aren’t allowed to marry.”) You are seeing a group of people that want to change the definition of what a marriage is to include a new type of relationship. If not changing it to meet thier requests is discimination, then don’t we have to change it to meet everybody’s requests?