You were replying to a question I had intended for puzzlegal. Most of my comments in reply to yours were aimed mainly at her.
Right. So put another way: Your marriage with your spouse is assumed monogamous as the vast majority are.
If legal polygamy opened the question with your spouse, you’re looking at a fundamentally different contract* than the one you signed up for.
*I don’t necessarily mean that in the legal sense. The legal questions of polygamy would be myriad, but the fact remains, marriage in practice is something you honor, respect and understand the ground rules on a basic, human level between you and your partner before you even slip on the rings.
These are far better reasons against it than that “it is too complicated.” Case in point. Our tour guide in Egypt’s husband took a second wife when he was tired of her. The second wife of course had the benefits of being married. The situation became intolerable, and our guide asked for, and got, a divorce. This wasn’t hard to get, but she lost out on her dowry and the kinds of benefits divorced spouses in the US get. Here the husband would have had to divorce her, and give her a settlement, before being married to the second wife, there he did not.
So I agree - the reason for polygamy not to be legalized is that it is inherently unfair to the partner who is one of several partners. Even if we allowed one women with multiple husbands here, the same could happen with a man being at a disadvantage.
Yes, in most places where polygamy is practiced, existing spouses have little to no rights prevent their partner taking additional spouses.
I don’t think that would fly in the US, though.
I refuse to accept “I don’t like that things are changing” as an argument against change, whether it’s forms of marriage, family structures or the dilution of the particular “race” (seriously, those White Genocide people are insane). Things are always changing. Show an actual demonstrable harm or GTFO.
In the modern era, the definition of marriage has been changed from “two consenting adults of the opposite sex” to “two consenting adults.” PERIOD.
I’ll never forget one anti SSM protestor telling me “Someone in Australia married his dog.” I shot back “That’s strange. Australia doesn’t have GAY marriage yet.” Another protestor said “They’ll be having sex in the streets. I told him to show me where in the decision it said that, because I must have missed it.”
Am I wrong in thinking that those who support the right of any person to marry whomever they chose, should stop using terms like “same sex marriage” and “gay marriage”? When you use those terms, it sounds like it supposed to be something different than “regular” marriage. It is not!
What’s wrong with “marriage equality”?
“Same-sex marriage” is marriage, but in a conversation specifically about same-sex marriage it adds a certain amount of clarity to be specific.
In other contexts, “marriage” is fine. I wouldn’t say “my friends Pat and Chris just got same-sex-married”; I’d just say they got “married”.
While I’m in favor of legal, state-sanctioned same-sex marriage (and in fact took an active, if small, role in bringing it about in my state), I’m pretty sure that it is in fact a new thing.
Your cites are questionable. From your own cites:
And, in the case of the “two-spirit” phenomenon in indigenous American cultures, one party to the relationship did not identify as a male.
I sometimes look into these thread hoping I’ll spot the way in which someone is affected by someone else’s marriage. I really don’t understand some people’s militant stance against SSM. And the thing about someone marrying their dog- don’t marriage licenses require the signatures of the participants? AFAIK, paw print’s aren’t allowed on legal documents.
Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet produced a purported revelation with a commandment from God to practice polygamy. This revelation is still part of the Mormon canonized scriptures as Section 132 in the LDS Doctrine and Covenants.
In Section 132, Joseph’s first wife, Emma, is commanded to accept the other wives or be destroyed, something she didn’t agree with, so she threw away the copy shown to her by Joseph’s brother, Hyrum. Within that section, the right of the first wife to accept or refuse other wives is called the Law of Sarah, from Abraham’s wive. However, there is a loophole what if the first wife disagrees, the husband is exempt from the Law of Sarah, and can take other wives without his first wife’s consent. Consequently, that rule is pretty meaningless.
Any of the Mormon (using the term generically for followers of people who believe in the Book of Mormon, and not specifically that of the LDS faith) followers who believe in polygamy, believe it comes from that revelation, and hence that there really isn’t a need for consent from the first wife. In practice, the independent polygamists are much more likely to obtain consent than members of fundamentalist groups such as the FLDS.
I think Evan Wolfson used “same-sex marriage.” Personally I use “same-sex marriage” when I need to refer to that specific subcatgory because it’s strictly accurate – it includes bisexual people who are marrying someone of the same sex (and even straight people if any choose to do so).
“Gay marriage” and to a lesser extent “marriage equality” open the arguer up to someone raising the fact that even in jurisdictions that don’t recognize marriages between people of the same sex, all people, gay, straight, bi, and anything else, have an equal right to marry if you don’t take their feelings into account; no one would stand in the way of an asexual man marrying a lesbian if they both wanted that. The fight is not for the right of gay people to marry, but for the right of gay people, and everyone else, to marry their respective partners (within reason).
Best I can tell, there are three arguments:
[ol]
[li]The circular “now I have to live in a place where same-sex couples can get married”[/li][li]Slippery-slope arguments[/li][li]Moral/religious arguments along the lines of “if we allow this the country will no longer be under divine protection and I’ll be eaten by locusts”[/li][/ol]
The only other reason I’ve seen is that “redefining” marriage to also include same sex couples somehow lessens the meaning of the word “marriage.” That also have never been explained.