No, but Islam is.
I won’t repeat it all, but I think blowero is right: polygamy is a ‘women are property’ thing, and that’s all it’s ever been. Ever wonder why some powerful men have so many women?
Thank you. I hate it when my brain misfires like that.
I would like very much to hear them.
as for blowero and ** Marley23** regarding polygamy. You guys have to open up to more possibilities. If you allow same sex marriages, then you should allow multi-partner marrriages and in any combination. It can be one man with many wives, or one wife with many husbands (ooo I want pictures of that), or it could be all men or all women or multiple men and women.
As far as more chance of getting more diseases, what if all partners involved are non-promiscuous and are faithful to the partners? All marriages require a blood test before certification dont they? What if the polgamists include a (optional) fidelity clause in their particular marriage arrangement? There are simple ways around the disease aspect.
as far as consent among animals, one might suppose that the animal didnt object as a form of consent. I take it more as “If the guy wants to marry his male horse, who am I to judge what makes him happy?” The animal is property, its fate and responsibility rests on its owner, who can give consent for the animal. Think more like marrying your (really dumb) slave.
One does not logically follow from the other. Monogamy and heterosexuality are two different issues - you are conflating them.
What if you only want to marry it for its companionship?
What if you get whatever disease but not spread it to anyone else (and you have excellent health insurance)?
What if the genetic difference is so great that there is no possible way to get sick from the animal?
What if you use protection? or just cuddle? 
I see, its ok to EAT the animal but not have sex with it.
Its ok to imprison and restrict its movements but not give it property rights.
Its ok to use the animal for whatever reason (other than abuse) but not be allowed to elevate it to the same status as its owner, albeit just for the duration of the marriage.
Have you seen the lavish way some people treat their pets? Some people call them their children, why cant they say theyre their spouses? Ive seen people treat their animals way better than they treat other people and none of their animals look abused or emotionally insecure.
Thats the whole point of the OP. What is stopping you from doing that?
You’ve said this a dozen times already! It’s STILL not true! You’ve yet to offer a single reason why the two things are comparable, and every time blowero, myself or someone else explains why the two aren’t related, you ignore it and repeat the question! Is this your idea of a discussion??
Your explanation of legalized bestiality is ludicrous. The very nature of CONSENT is that you give it yourself, not that someone else gives it for you. And are you suggesting animals being molested by people don’t object? Are you suggesting that owning an animal is the same as raping it? Why do animals want or need property rights? What do anything of these things have to do with anything else?
I’ll have to think about it, but I think you’re now arguing that during slavery, rape was OK, on top of the other things. How is the far-out example you give similar to gay marriage, and what does it have to do with religion? What are these irrelevant comments about owning animals doing in this thread? You still haven’t even provided evidence for your intial jumping-off point, which was about marriage and morality, if you recall. Let alone the other ramblings.
This was also already answered in depth - you keep not reading or not understanding, so it’s taken up almost the whole thread so far. Do you have a response?
This is getting mind-bendingly stupid. Please use a little logic or I’m off this topic.
This is wrong in so many ways (where to start?).
First, more partners doesn’t mean more disease. Polyamorous relationships tend to have less infidelity, and infidelity is rampant among monogamous relationships. Disease is less likely in multiple partner unions.
Second, it is not always a man having more than one wife. If that were the case, we would be referring to polygyny. But there is such a thing as polyandry. And both models exist in various human societies through history, and even today. Hence the reference to polygamy. However, to account for even more relationship models, even outside any related to marriage, polyamory is the generally preferred term.
While your impression of it may be related to “treating women as chattel”, that simply expresses your ignorance of the topic.
Polygamists have not generally been religious, but I am not surprised that your exposure to the concept is mostly limited to the Mormon variety - which isn’t representative of either polygamists OR Mormons.
The fact is, it is much more common than you might assume, and it is often kept underground due to the social stigma. Some studies have reported as high as 28% of married couples have “an understanding that allows nonmonogamy under some circumstances”. It is often kept hidden from even family members, so it is generally thought to be much less prevalent than it actually is.
And I challenge you to show that secularism forced (or is forcing) polygamy out of Utah (or anything out of Utah, for that matter).
Finally, this issue being discussed in this thread, “Polygamy (and gay marriage)”, and I for one, would be glad if you and Marley23 joined the discussion there.
Oh, I guess I should have addressed the OP.
I believe that marriage in society today, less the religious influences, would include both gay and polyamorous family units. Monogamous heterosexual family units may still be the norm, but the other structures would be well represented, and they would not be socially stigmatized.
And I agree with others - inter-species relationships have no business being included in this discussion.
The situation is somewhat different here, sine mariages all are common law marriages (of course, many people marry in church too, but not only this marriage has no legal value, but also, by law, it can only follow the common law marriage at the town hall (which a little more than filling paper work in France… It’s done by an elected official, mayor or one of the major members of the town council, there’s usually a short speech, sometimes music, rings are exchanged, in the countryside it’s often followed by a little party for people like neighbors who aren’t invited at the major one, etc…)
Well, I disgress, anyway, personnally, I’m not opposed to same-sex marriage, polygamy, polyandry, etc…people should be able to do what they want (need I to say I’m an atheist, and by way of consequence, couldn’t care less about religious laws).
Which bring me to the conclusion that the state shouldn’t be involved in any way with marriage, because either the law limits the “options” available, either, it’s a total mess which can’t be regulated (for instance, let’s imagine a girl is married with two men, and one of them is married to another woman which isn’t married with the two other members of the trio…how would you regulate such situations?)
So, IMO, marriages should be private and possibly contractual matters, and the state should deal only with the consequences : for instance, it could grant money to people who raise a child, without regard for the legal status of the “agreement” between the parents, or if such a thing exist, could grant the same advantages to people living together (for instance, the right to stay in a rented appartment for the survivor). The contractual agreements should be open to everyone, be they a straight or gay, or even two old brother who decided to live together in the family house, etc…
In other words, IMO, it’s not the state business to regulate who can live with whom, who can get benefits and who can’t, on the basis of their assumed sexual/love relationship (or lack thereof, like in the two brothers example…or of part of the regular, straight marriages 
)
Comparable? why should they need to be comparable or related? I am opening up options and new possibilities to marriage partnerships. The choice would be up to the partners themselves. I am not saying gay marriages lead to polygamy or becomes a legal precedent for them. I am saying that polygamy should be allowed and in various combinations. What are the actual reasons that this is not permitted? You stated that polygamy is a “woman as property” thing, well how does that apply if 3 men get married to each other? If 3 lesbians want to be married to each other and take one man as a lifetime sperm donor and child caretaker (and he’s happy with that), how is that making the women out as chattel?
In business (where religion seldom has any influence in its laws) partnerships are made by pairs, multitudes and whole entities that are not even human beings such as trusts, estates and corporations. Why cant marriages be set up like business partnerships?
Just to add that of course, the lack of state recognition of marriages wouldn’t prevent people from marrying in whatever way they want (like in the way precribed by their religion), in a church/temple/groove if they want so, etc…It just mean that it wouldn’t give to this bond any particular legal value.
Here’s a question originally posted by scotandrsn in an apparent attempt to enlighten X~Slayer regarding the lack of causal relationship between xianity and morality:
Here’s X~Slayer’s reply:
X~Slayer, do you find it all ironic that 6 of the 8 examples of socially sanctioned immorality that you cite are/were done by predominantly christian societies?
But that is so unfair tho. Take this anecdote. A man from a rich family comes out of the closet and is publicly disowned by his family. He became penniless and homeless until he met his life partner. His partner, while not being rich had some means and invested in his dream. The disowned son slowly became rich again while his partner stayed home and supported him. The years go by and they were happy together. They had a marriage ceremony which wasnt binding and all thru the years the disowned family never so much as tried to contact him even after all his attempts to reconcile.
One day the disowned son developed brain cancer. He fell into a coma and the prognosis was terminal. Because he went into a coma before any legal papers were signed, all his assets, property, his business and the millions he gained from it legally goes to his next of kin, the family that disowned him. They promplty had his lifesupport discontinued and his life partner couldnt even decide how or where he was to be buried. The family that hated him had that right.
I think its time that gay marriages are allowed legally and socially.
It’s what he’s most familiar with, Aramis. Would you be happier with, say, suttee, the death-guards of the pharoahs, the death-guards of the chinese emperors, african slavery of africans, the jannisaries of the Ottoman empire…
AZCowboy, given that Slayer keeps saying over and over again that ‘if you allow gay marriage, you HAVE for some reason to allow polgamy,’ I’m not taking the blame for keeping this topic going even though I agree it’s tangential to what we’re trying to talk about here.
not at all. Those were just off the top of my head. I can probably google a better sampling of atrocities done in the name of god in various other religions. Those were just the ones I was most familiar with being of the Judeo-Christian faith educated in western style values and historical slant.
given a second thought i can also offer examples of communist state sponsored murders (an atheist society) in the USSR, China and Cambodia. Mayan human sacrifices, Rome’s method of christian eradication, Samurai code of Bushido, and modern terrorism. Religion is a powerful tool in the hands of megalomaniacs.
To get back on track, marriage (or at least mating) predated religion. I rather suspect that religion was used to certify common practices, which could be enforced better if the gods required it. Clearly in the Middle East multiple wives were common, so god endorsed them. When society evolved, and this became uncommon (as in Rome) God changed his mind.
If we rationally considered whether various forms of marriage should be legal, without considering religion, do you think that marriage would disappear? I rather think we are genetically programmed for monogamy, or at least some of us.
I got married in a ceremony where no gods were mentioned. (This is possible.) We’ve been married 25 years this month, so I rather think that God is not all that important.
Marley23, then perhaps you could respond to this argument, that I stole from another thread:
And then this:
Can you provide a single example of a modern polygamous culture where women are treated as property? And then please note for me how “monogamous” cultures prevent or deter powerful men from having so many women.
I don’t see how polygamists and people who support gay marriage are in the same boat in this regard. The only thing they have in common is being un-traditional. That’s the argument Rick Santorum has been making: they’re both unusual and outside of the traditional defintion, ergo they are bad and undermine the American family, common with bestiality and incest.
I’m contesting that consenting union between two people of the same sex does them no harm and can be said to benefit them, thus it should be legal (and I see no convincing reason it shouldn’t be). On the other hand, I think polygamy can be harmful and thus shouldn’t be legalized. Supporting one unpopular idea doesn’t mean you’re obligated to support another.
To use the most well-known group in this country, I doubt many polygamous Mormons (very strong Christians) will be campaigning on behalf of gay rights or bestiality.
I think letting a man aggregate wives IS treating women as property by itself. Is someone going to contest that Brigham Young was kind, caring and attentive to all his several dozen wives? Is the argument that he loved them all and had to marry them all?
They don’t prevent it. But that’s hardly an argument for polygamy- it just shows how some men treat women; women don’t often get a fair shake in this culture either.
Out of sheer curiosity, while polyandry surely exists, are there any stats comparing the number of polygynous marriages with the number of polyandrous marriages? Or polyandrous cultures vs. polygynous? I doubt they’re in proportion. Certainly Mormonism and fundmentalist Islam allow one and not the other; my guess would be that those two alone tip the balance significantly in favor of polygyny.