# Gay marriage, then polyamory, please. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 12, 2004, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145 "2004-01-12T08:09:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145/41 "2004-01-15T01:03:21Z")
Polyamory does not lend itself to our socioeconomic system. I have no problem with the morality of a polyamorous relationship, committed or not, but it makes no sense to convey the benefits of marriage into such a relationship. A Polyamorous marriage need never end. It can keep adding members and surviving the loss of other members. It’s continued existance is not predicated upon the survival or continued participation of its members. This is a very important distinction. A traditional, or gay marriage exists only as long as both members survive or remain committed to it. It is in fact a defintion of their relationship and not an independant entity in and of itself. Because a polyamorous marriage can survive independant of its members, it is a legal entity in and of itself. Like a corporation, it becomes a legal “person.” Since we already have corporations, and partnerships that exist as legal entities I would advise anybody interested in such relationships to use the appropriate format which has already been created for just such multiple person lasting endeavors. There is no reason to create a new category, or add polyamory into a category, like marriage, to which it simply does not fit. For a long time I was not sure if I could support gay marriage because of the slippery slope of polyamory and such. Once I realized that Polyamorous relationships actually **are** significantly different from two person arrangements, I realized that it simply was not an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145/42 "2004-01-15T01:25:17Z")
(Argh. Having to log myself in again for /every single post/ is maddening. I hope the boards stabilise RSN.) > [@Shodan](#): > > “Hard cases make bad law”, they say. I don’t mean to involve your personal life in this discussion, but what about cases where partners disagree about important decisions? I have seen it happen even in cases where there is supposed to be one decision-maker, as in the executor of a will. > > I expect that most of the issues will arise in situations where people got “married” without any pre-nuptial agreements. Then the union breaks up, or some crisis occurs, and there is no clear path of decision or of responsibility. Family law is messy, even for heterosexuals. To be honest, I haven’t discussed that with them as of yet (it hasn’t come up as an issue, though I expect that we’ll wind up having a number of nuts-and-bolts conversations when we’re near enough to each other that it’s relevant), and for the most part I trust them to be able to resolve amicably. I expect that at some point I’ll put together some documents expressing my opinions about that sort of thing as I get to them, and I’ll expect them to follow my preferences. (When I was working in a law office I prepped several multiple-designatee health care proxies; I expect the way they actually work in practice is that the first name listed is contacted, and if unavailable it goes on to the second, and so on.) There’s a wide variety of level of negotiation and documentation among polyfolks I know; there are a few who have extensive work done. (When I get to the point at which it would be sensical to have legal documents prepped, I’ll probably be looking at the Our Little Quad website, because they’ve got a lot of extensive stuff worked out for handling their property and kids and other issues. I happen to know a few of the people in that family peripherally.) > [@IWLN](#): > > I am not sneering at your lifestyle and I’m sorry if the word has a negative conotation for you. “Lifestyle” is a very charged word in non-mainstream groupings. The basic problem with the use of the word is that it connotes that a person’s choice of life-partners is on the same level as their decorating preferences and how often they go out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse. There is also no actual “lifestyle” associated with a particular orientation – my “lifestyle” is pretty much the same as that of any stay-at-home childless partner of a techie in our age, economic group, and region. (I bet from that brief description you can come up with a pretty good idea of how I live, which is, after all, what ‘lifestyle’ means – do you have any clear idea of how I live from the fact that I’m poly?) Polyfolks have a particular issue with the word, or at least some of them do; apparently “the lifestyle” is a common euphemism for swinging, and a lot of polyfolks want to be sure they’re thoroughly separated from swingers, often for political/ideological/social acceptability reasons. (Personally, I don’t get especially het up over that one, because anyone who could possibly imagine me as a swinger has reality problems beyond my capacity to address.) > [@IWLN](#): > > Gay marriage is about being included in the existing marriage laws and I still believe what you’re asking for is a lot more complicated. I wasn’t trying to trivialize it, but still see it as a choice and completely different from the gender issue. I agree with you that poly marriage is a lot more complicated. I’m sorry that I gave the impression otherwise. The fact of the matter is, frankly, I’m not any more capable of having a stable, healthy monogamous relationship than most gay people are of having a stable, healthy heterosexual one. My emotional stability is, I think, better without a partnership than with just one, but it’s hard to tell (given that my husband and I have been together for over nine years, and my memory’s not what it ever was). I shut down on developing new serious attractions at two, like people who are wired for monogamy don’t develop new attractions when they have one healthy relationship. (My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t really have a preference; he can comfortably do either a monogamous relationship or a poly one.) I have a great family. All three of the other people in my family (my partners and their partner) are supportive of different parts of my work. I’m dealing with a difficult decision that’ll probably have a big effect on all of our lives if I go one way on it, and I’ve gotten nothing but support whatever way I go, and help from my partners’ other with thoughts about how she made a similar decision. We’ve got a wide variety of skillsets and life experiences that we can bring together, different life-paths that will serve as examples to our children, a broader support network for those children when we have them. We have enough adults that we could potentially buffer someone being out of work without risking going on the dole, or even handle a stay-at-home parent or lengthy homeschooling without worrying about making ends meet. I’m a sane person these days, who’s contemplating being able to take action in the world again (I had a nasty nervous breakdown with complications several years ago, and my family’s given me the strength and support so that I can now imagine being something other than a burden). I’m pretty lucky, not only in my family, but in the way it works out with the law as currently formulated; half of the relationships in my family can be and are protected with legal marital bonds. I can afford to travel occasionally to visit the half of the family that lives on the other coast. That’s not too bad as things go. I don’t even have to worry (yet) about the sort of malicious thug that tried to get some friends’ kids taken away using the fact they were in a multi-adult household. (The friends got some benefits out of being out as poly; when the police went to talk to the school authorities and such, the school authorities said something to the effect of, “Yeah, all those caring adults involved with taking care of those children. Lucky kids.”) Hey, I’m sorry I came on quite so strong there; it sort of stung to get a response that read to me as, “If there aren’t enough of you to pass a certain threshhold of relevance, I don’t care about you or your families”. ---
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145/43 "2004-01-15T01:51:41Z")
> [@furt](#): > > I’m not trolling for dates. I’m just your average 33-year-old single guy who hasn’t found the right person. > > But there is a meanigful point behind it, though. Polyamory, if it became common, would affect the marriage market. Perhaps, but it probably wouldn’t make it harder for you to find your mate. It might even make it easier. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145/44 "2004-01-15T02:50:55Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > That’s a fair point. > > But the question remains if you can advocate for gay marriage because forming relationships amidst consenting adults is a basic human right, and still exclude multiple marriage. Why, in other words, is it OK for two gays to be married, but not three? Well, I wasn’t looking at the philosophical question, but merely the practical one, and that for practical purposes a gay marriage is more like a traditional marriage than it is like a multiple marriage. Philosophically, you can make the argument that you lay out…that if you say forming relationships between consenting adults is a human right, then gays should be married and also people should be allowed to marry multiple partners. However, there’s another gay marriage argument that its possible to make. If you start with the premise that monogamy is beneficial and should be promoted (and, I know, not everyone in this thread will agree), you can make the argument that the state should allow gay marriage because marriage promotes monogamous relationships. Marriage puts pressure on a couple to stay together and be faithful to each other. Obviously, that doesn’t always happen, and we all know that people cheat on their spouses, get divorced, and married life isn’t always happily ever efter. However, the marriage gives a couple a reason to stay together. So, there’s no reason to assume this won’t also happen for gay people who get married. So there’s one potential argument for gay marriage that doesn’t “open the door” to multiple marriage. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145/45 "2004-01-15T04:37:53Z")
> [@](#): > > **Lilairen** said: > Given that none of the people to whom it matters are likely to accept a poly marital arrangement in the first place, they’re not off your market because of it. There are those who enter into relationships with other people for reasons other than actual interest in that person. Or people who’ll do it just because it’s ‘in vogue’ to do so. I also wonder how many people would enter into a relationship thinking it was monogamous and then one day their SO says ‘Hey by the way, I’m a poly-amorous/gamous person.’ ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145/46 "2004-01-15T05:22:06Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > I also wonder how many people would enter into a relationship thinking it was monogamous and then one day their SO says ‘Hey by the way, I’m a poly-amorous/gamous person.’ I know a fair number of relationships that have had that set of circumstances happen to them. Not everyone is especially self-aware about this sort of thing, or upfront, and also, people change. I’ve also seen the circumstance where people were upfront about being poly, and started a relationship with that known ahead of time, only to learn that the person on the other side was pulling an “/I’ll/ be the one to convert this one to monogamy” or “I’ll be the one to satisfy her” or “I’ll be able to lure him away from his others and have him all to myself.” Of the relationships I’ve seen that had that sort of beginning, I’ve seen a variety of outcomes. Some of them have ended due to what turns out to be relationship-breaking incompatibility. Some have found compromises that keep the relationship technically monogamous while being sure the poly person’s needs are met (I know one such relationship where the important thing for the poly partner is that they need to feel able to love and burble, even if they don’t pursue those feelings towards a relationship; another one that sets things snuggle-okay at parties, and so on). Some relationships of that sort open on a strict heirarchy (the monogamous partner is given promises to have the status of sole marital partner, and the poly person has other less committed relationships). Some open, but with other forms of restiction, sexual or otherwise. Some open without restrictions, or with temporary ones. Sometimes, but not often, the monogamous partner also becomes poly (one of the rare examples of this is the formation of my own family). From my observation, how that resolves seems to depend on how strong the various people’s needs are, and how well they can articulate what those needs are so that commitments can be made that might address one person’s needs without denying another’s. So a poly person whose real need is to be able to express how she feels about people without needing to have a relationship with them could make a commitment to exclusivity that I, who need two partnerships, could not. I, on the other hand, can make a commitment to a closed relationship that someone whose need is to not feel hemmed in in a relationship. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145/47 "2004-01-15T06:46:51Z")
At one point, someone in the discussion said that the legal precedent of gay marriage in Canada would lead inevitably to polygamous ones. Regardless of my own feelings on the subject, I was forced to point out that under the Charter of Rights, sex and sexual orientation are prohibited grounds of discrimination. Number is not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gay-marriage-then-polyamory-please/224145.md?page=2)