I guess I should not have thrown down the gauntlet on that one.
There are two separate issues. You want to get the laws that make living with multiple partners illegal? That is simple, just repeal the law. That would be similar to the way Lawrence v. Texas struck down anti-sodomy laws.
But if you want the government to license multiple partner marriages and grant privileges similar to current marriages, more will need to be determined. Answer the questions in 116 and 120 for a start, and I hope you answers match CitizenPained’s, otherwise you two(and by extension everyone else asking for poly marriage recognition) will need to compromise.
I already said that a proper poly marriage needs to have all partners consenting. That eliminates your problem.
Wouldn’t be any different than any other two-bio-children-agreement.
Dio is against poly marriage for moral reasons. I don’t take much of what he says in that regard to heart. He thinks that those who don’t wish to participate in mono marriages are immature and immoral. That kind of thinking is, sorry, rooted in bigotry and ethnocentricism. And sometimes anti-religious sentiment.
If poly marriages were allowed, states would define terms (eg, number of wives) and the courts would have to figure out what happens if/when those marriages have problems.
Again, if you want to put children into the issue and then say it was no problem for ss couples, I’d suggest you pause and look at glbt family law.
Children used to go to the hetero partner. Now it is not always the case. Reproductive technology has also put forth questions regarding responsibility, child support, whatever.
Or how about men who care for children their whole lives only to find that they are not the biological fathers?
Family law is always messy. Yet it can be done.
No. The courts exist for a reason, and sometimes figuring out the messes of what the law entails is part of it. There are many cases where the courts dealt with messy situations. The Fourteenth Amendment comes to mind: Jim Crow, segregation, discrimination, etc.
What about domestic partnerships? Do you think it is okay to allow domestic partnerships and not marriage?
I don’t know exactly what more you want me to define.
Sorry, but not all movements have had people that were 100 per cent in agreement. Suffrage and Civil Rights come to mind.
That sounds familiar. How does what I do affect what you do?
I don’t want to be married at all, ever. I don’t need to do anything. I answered the question of the OP, which was basically, “Is this a slippery slope?”
It depends on what the courts say. If the Court rules for ssm based on this, then possibly. If the Court rules for ssm based on that, maybe not.
Thank you, Dutchman. SSM is more foreign to the world than polygamy, but it does not make either more or less worthy.
You sound just like any one else opposed to a change you can’t understand, Strassia. The arguments for (and against) ssm and polygamy are quite alike.
How does spousal privilege work in a poly relationship?
How does equitably splitting the assets work when one person leaves (divorces) in a poly relationship?
Who can make medical decisions for an incapacitated spouse in a poly relationship?
How does child custody work in a poly relationship is someone leaves?
Who do Social Security Survivor benefits go to?
Do employers have to offer medical insurance to all spouses in a poly relationship?
In the absence of a will how does inheritance work (e.g. if someone was in the relationship for ten years and the “new” spouse was in for six months are assets split evenly of weighted)?
Does an employer have to grant family leave every time a baby is born to a poly couple (say the guy has four wives…they could pop a baby out every 3 months in rotation…does dad get leave every time)?
When wrongful death benefits apply are the benefits multiplied because there are more spouses?
I am sure I could think of more but that is a start.
When, in order to accommodate a new class of partnership, you make an across-the-board change that affects existing partnerships. In the debate over SSM, the argument that we should do away with all legal marriages and only have civil unions, with ‘marriage’ relegated to religion only, is an example of this.
While I’d like to see a world full of civil marriages, I wouldn’t actually advocate for the government to butt out of all marriages (much as I’d like) as it does serve a common good. The state has an interest in promoting marriage.
Monogamy had nothing to do with Christianity. That’s not a Christian doctrine. The Bible endorses polygamy and nowhere says that men can have only one wife. In the Biblical conception of marriage, women are simply chattel property. Men don’t even have to be faithful to their wives, their wives just have to be faithful to them.
I’m not against poly marriage at all. Please don’t make up things I’ve never said
I’ve never said this either. You are fabricating this shit. I’ve never shit about the “morality” of it. I don’t have any moral opinion about it at all. I HAVE said that polyamorous people are immature, and I’ll stand by that, but that’s not the same as saying they’re “immoral,” and I’ve never said a thing about people not wanting to be in monogamous marriage.
Oh, good, glad to see you have no objection to poly marriage. Since you argued about it for several pages in more than one thread, I was all kinds of confused. Let this post be your cite!
Dio doesn’t think that poly marriages are ones of love or religious duty (as we know what he thinks about that), but rather a convenient fucking arrangement.
He also thinks that marriage is not a fundamental right and polys are being denied anything, so maybe not all of the anti-polys here are in agreement.
I have never argued against it at all. That’s an absolute falsehood. I’ve only argued that it’s not a civil right, and that restricting federal marriage benenfits to two people does not raise any equal protection issues, since nobody is being discriminated against. That is not the same thing as saying I think it should be illegal. I’ve never said that. I am consistently on record on this board as saying I’m not opposed to legalizing plural marriage. I’ve said it repeatedly in this thread. You have a pernicious, obnoxious dishonest habit of making up things people never said.
This is true. I don’t respect it. I think it’s selfish and immature, but so are a lot of relationships. I have never, ever said I think it should be illegal, though.
Federal recognition and benefits are not a fundamental right, that’s correct. Where did you get the idea that they are? Show me where the Constitution says marriage is a right.
That is simply false. No where does the bible say that God is in favour of it. It is true that the practice occured without sanction prior to Christianity, but it was certainly not lauded as a preferred practice.
"Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband "
I remember that quote of Paul’s from somewhere in the new bible.
Neither Buddhism or Christianity endorse polygamy in their fundamental writings and both of their fundamental writings frown upon it.
There is a difference between consenting and participating. I am married. Should I be able to, with my wife’s consent, enter into a second marriage that does not include my wife? If I marry A and B, both with full knowledge of the other and consent to the arrangement by all, can they be two distinct marriages with no carry over from A to B? I would be married to A and B, but they would have no legal relationship to each other. If not, why not?
In most states paternity is assumed by the father unless he contests it at the time of birth, even if he is not the biological father. If there are two husbands, does paternity attach to both?
The problem is that states have defined and the number is currently 1 wife (or in some states two total spouses of whatever sex).
What hetero partner?
What does this have to do with SSM?
Of course it can be done. It is just significantly different than either the status quo prior to SSM being recognized or how it will be when SSM is universally recognized.
I think you misunderstand what the courts will do. They can strike down laws and statutes. They can interpret laws and statutes, but only to a certain degree.
They could strike down all laws making it illegal to live in a polygamous relationship as they struck down sodomy laws. That would be simple, and I completely support such an outcome (I would need to see the decision to see if I support the legal reasoning, but that doesn’t matter here).
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What about domestic partnerships? Do you think it is okay to allow domestic partnerships and not marriage?
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I don’t care. I have said repeatedly that I have no problem with poly marriages as long as the law is sound.
Here are three simple and basic ones:
How about how many partners can be in a marriage?
Can three, informed, consenting adults enter into two separate marriages (A marries B, and with A’s consent, B also marries C. A and C have no direct relationship)?
Can new spouses enter an existing marriage?
Once you figure those answers out you need to figure how those answers will affect property and custody.
I set my limit at .75%, not 100%. What is you limit? Should the government spend hundreds of legislative hours for the concerns of 1 person?
If you rewrite the marriage laws badly enough they can all be stricken down. The government does not have to provide any of the privileges and protections of marriages. It could just stay silent on the subject leaving millions of people to scramble to write up the type of halfway to marriage contracts that SSM opponents recommend to to gays.
Some are, and some aren’t. The problem is the only arguments against SSM come down to “it’s icky” and “God said it is bad”. That is not the case with poly marriages.
Much more importantly, the only thing that SSM changes is a gender requirement. That is it. Nothing else need change. If poly marriages where that easy we would not be having this debate.
Here is an analogy I think fits:
If a ski slope only allowed wooden skis for years, then under pressure started allowing fiberglass skis, that would not be a slippery slope to allowing snow boards. I have nothing against snow boards. I don’t care if people ride snow boards down a slope, but I can see that fiber glass skis create no new requirements for slope where snow boards do.
That is all I, and most of us in this thread are saying. Poly marriages require significantly more changes to the law than SSM.
Judges usually decide that don’t they ? Thats why we have divorce lawyers
The spousal committee.
The Family Court Judge decides just like always.
The Spousal committee of the family corporation, a legal entity.
Is that the case now? Well yes, for a price.
Why must assets be split. The marital assets belong to the marital corporation. If a bunch of wives want to dissolve or divorce from the marital corporation after the death of the patriarch, The can go to the family court judge if neccessary.
every baby has the right to a parent on family leave.
What is so difficult ? Now that we have same sex marriage, the sex of the partner or partners is simply irrelevant. All the laws applicable to marriage can be amended by replacing “spouse” with “spousal committee”
Just how hard is that.
And I could come up with answers, but I’ve given this issue enough of my attention.
You’ve just shut my wife and I out of poly marriage entirely. She has her partners of choice. I have my partners of choice. Not once have we ever both liked a partner enough that we would BOTH want to enter into a marriage-type arrangement with them.
So thanks, but no thanks–your proposed “solution” is bigoted against the (in my experience) majority of poly people, if we’re expected to form a single large group marriage.
ETA: This also goes for Dutchman. Sorry, guys–not every poly situation is a “giant equally-partnered group”, and it’d serve a relatively small proportion (and, in my experience, the most immature and abuse-prone portion at that–that is, the religious polygamists (one man many wives)) of polyamorous folk.
The most common poly arrangement in my experience is a V or N, not a triangle or square.
What are you looking for? A group marriage for unconsenting partners to accomodate you and your wife? That will never happen period. Group marrige isn’t for everyone. Neither is SSM or SSM, singe spouse marriage.
If you require all partners in a PM to give consent before adding a new spouse, you’re either going to have vanishingly few PMs, or a bunch of wives browbeaten to sign on the dotted line to add another wife to the pot.
I Corinthians, but Paul wasn’t talking about how many spouses a person should have, he was saying they shouldn’t fornicate outside of marriage, and he was speaking with a cultural context (the Roman Empire) in which monogamy was the norm.
Legal monogamy predates both Christianity and Judaism by thousands of years, and sexual monogamy probably predates human evolution.
Solomon had 700 wives. Nowhere does the Bible condemn polygamy, and nowhere does it mandate monogamy. Moreover, it says that if a man’s brother dies without offspring, the living brother is supposed to fuck his widow and knock her up.
The Bible says a lot of other fucked up shit about sex and marriage, but nowhere does it mandate monogamy. That was a pagan thing.
Buddhism has no real doctrine on marriage at all, except that it often advises against it.
I’m looking for an answer to why you think “legalizing poly marriage” is as simple as “legalize equal-status group marriage” when that’s a vanishingly uncommon form of poly attachment.
Where the hell did you get “unconsenting” from? The most common form of poly attachment is of the form of a V, N, or longer singly-connected line. For example, Alice is married to Bob, who’s married to Alice and Carol, who is married to Dan. Dan doesn’t want to be married to Bob or Alice, and he doesn’t have to be. Carol wants to be married to both Bob and Dan, but not Alice.
Consider the following diagram with - representing the above “marriage” relationship.
A-B-C-D.
When your interpretation of the law can determine what happens to Carol’s teenage, paternity-test-refusing kids when she and Bob (and ONLY she and Bob) divorce, when your interpretation of the law can determine what happens to Bob’s assets when he dies, then it might be ready for prime time. For that matter, when your interpretation of the law can determine what happens when Carol announces she’s going to also marry Edward–with Bob saying “OK” and Dan saying “No way!”–then it might be useful to legalize poly marriage.
Who was saying it was for everyone, again? I’m saying “we’re all a happy family” is not a common poly commitment model in the active, current poly community–it is pretty much only common with the multiple-wives-one-husband types who are most prone to abuses of their spouse(s). Therefore your proposed solution is, at best, naive.
Your answers are so thin on detail as to barely merit the term “answers”.
Ever seen the difficulty in many divorces of splitting marital assets? The cases can go on for years. You think saying everyone is part of a martial corporation answers any of the difficulties involved? A marriage and a home can not be equated to a corporation. John had four wives, one wants to leave, how does she take her share of the house? Assume John cannot pay her in cash. Can she force the sale of the house? Can John stop it because that would leave him, his three wives and numerous kids homeless because they will not have the money to buy a new home?
Spousal privilege…Mary, Sue, Jane and Liz are married to John. They are not married to each other. Is what Mary says to Sue privileged?
Custody is hard enough in monogamous marriages that break up.
What if one poly marriage wants one spouse to be supreme for making things like medical decisions. Another poly marriage wants all the spouses to be a part of medical decisions. Which one should be mandated by law? If all the spouses vote what happens if one spouse is not available to vote? What if the spouses split evenly on what should be done?
If the dad can get parental leave from work and rotates spouses having babies he can be out of work for a year or more straight and still have a job. The employer has to suck that up.
For health insurance I have a scam where I will let anyone marry me, with an ironclad pre-nup, so they can be on my healthcare policy. They will agree to pay me $10/month. I figure with 1000 wives that is easy money. Or are you going to arbitrarily limit how many people a person can marry?
The devil is in the details and just saying the courts will work it out is no answer.
Zeriel, I really don’t care about your wife and her partners, but the question was in regards to legal spousal rights. I don’t mind or care who cohabitates with whom, but some states do and they can prosecute you for it.
As far as legalities go, the ‘square’ arrangement works best. As you pointed out, that, to you, is the most widely ‘abused’ form of marriage, so why not give those women some legal protections?
For decriminalization, your model works just fine.
