I suppose that gay people are lucky straight people don’t feel that way about gay marriage. My desire to be in a polygamous marriage is the same as my desire to be in a same-sex one: none. But I would like to live in a society where people can form the families they want to form.
That’s often true. But it’s because they’re playing into people’s prejudices about polygamy and hoping that they overcome their more rational consideration of gay marriage. I’m saying that they’re both worthy of support. Why don’t more people say so?
People who oppose gay marriage could write basically the same response. Gay people can get married, just to people of other genders. If you want a spouse of the same sex, tough luck. You can bloody well make do with the opposite sex just like everyone else.
Adam and Eve! Not Adam and Eve and Jim!
This is true, but it’s not unique to polygamy. It’s to do with a marginalized culture that practices it. There are lots of places where poor young women are pressured into marrying rich old men. There are also cases where poor young boys are manipulated into sexual service of older male pedophiles. In fact, people opposed to gay marriage often bring up the latter (and conveniently leave out the former) when trying to disparage the idea of gay marriage. But there’s no reason that either would be the norm or the model for a legal concept of polygamy.
Wealthy men already have access to as many women as they want and can convince to have sex with them. After all, you don’t have to get married, and there’s no social stigma to serial monogamy and little to having multiple partners simultaneously. The only thing, as far as I can tell, that they’re forbidden to do is form a legal family and get the rights and responsibilities of marriage, if say they actually do care about each other and want to form a lasting bond.
I don’t think there are a lot of women out there who could be convinced to be in a polygamous marriage but not convinced to be in a polygamous relationship without marriage. So I don’t see how allowing the marriage increases wealthy and powerful men’s ability to have more than their fair share of women.
My understanding of Dan Savage’s position is that monogamy is not a necessary ingredient to a marriage. Fidelity still is, in the sense that you must be faithful to the agreement that you make with your spouse. That doesn’t necessarily mean only having sex with them; it means agreeing about who and how you’re going to have sex, and sticking to the agreement.