How is the right of individuals to couple polygamously under a marriage convenant, different in scope and context, than the right of two gay men or women to couple under a marriage convenant? Both are situations where people are asking for their non-traditional coupling arrangement to be recognized by the state. If we allow for gay marriages does that open the door, even slightly, for an argument to be made for state recognized polygamous unions, or are we talking apples and oranges in terms of the relative rights involved in having these non-traditional unions recognized by the state?
My understanding of the Massachusetts decision is that it was based in part on the idea that the law encourages the formation of families, and to that end permanent unions are encouraged over temporary or fluid ones.
I would guess that the courts would see polygamous unions as impermanent and thus not under the umbrella of legally-encouraged marriage.
I dunno about the US, but up here in Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids discrimination on the basis of sex and of sexual orientation.
It doesn’t forbid discrimination on the basis of number.
Much as I would like it to be otherwise, I strongly suspect the answer is ‘No’. (Setting aside my usual nitpickery about distinctions between polygamous unions and multiple marriages as irrelevant to the question.)
There’s a great deal of social and legal inertia backing up the idea of a single spouse, which isn’t in the slightest bit challenged by not demanding that the spouse in question be of a particular sex.
On the other hand, the social changes and awareness required to deal with that mass of presumption and law may be rendered slightly less hefty by any sort of increased awareness that ‘family’ is not equivalent to ‘a man, a woman, and their offspring’.
Gay marriage will not really lead to polygamy, because no one is agitating for their right to wed sets of sisters right now. Unless you can draw a clearer relationship between the two practices, all ya got is a slippery slope argument.
I have to agree with 'PS. While I’m a card carrying member of the “slippery slope of gay marriage leading to polygamy” club, there just aren’t enough poygamists out there to agitate. Courts will be able to just say that polygamy is contrary to the interests of society, but gay marriage isn’t, so there! I’m not certain we’ll be seeing gay marriage in the US anytime soon, but whether we do or not, polygamy is off the table for a long, long time to come.
I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to marry two adult women, if all three of us consented to it. Heck, a strong pro-family argument could be made, since even if one of the wives dies/get divorced/etc, I still have another to help raise my spawnlings. Not to mention, we could have a dual-income household, and still have a spouse stay at home.
Seriously, if you are for gay marriage, then why would you be against ‘plural marriage? Sure, it isn’t traditional, but neither is gay marriage. It is a bit of a red herring to loudly worry about people ‘agitating for their right to wed sets of sisters’. We aren’t talking about incest here, just good ol’ fashioned polygamy.
I am quite certain that my husband and my mate would be quite impressed with your nuanced grasp of polygamy, 'possum stalker. I certainly am.
Personally, I have no problem with polygamy; if two people have a particular right, I don’t see the logic in denying it to three or more people. But the chance of it being legalized in my lifetime is effectively zero (but on the other hand, I used to think gay marriage had the same chance).
[Ahhh-nold] I tink polygamous marriage is someting dat shuut be between some men and some women. [/Ahhh-nold]
Speaking of slippery slopes, the pope is sure to be against polygamy on the grounds that it will enable Latter Day Saints to out-number Catholics in a generation or two.
Fundamentalist Christian and Zionist leaders will see polygamy as an effective way to stem the tide of polygamously produced populations in Muslim countries.
Everyone sees the winks, right?
More seriously;
Will state recognition of polygamous heterosexual marriages open the door to state recognition of polygamous gay marriages? Where will it all end? How many more alternative-marriage doors will we find? What about so-called “single-partner” or “solo” marriage?
OK, a convicted polygamist in Utah is citing the Supreme Court opinion in his appeal.
Here is the story…
As mentioned, there’s no big agitation for polygamy.
On another, more practical hand, there’s how the entire edifice of civil marriage/partnership is predicated on 1:1 unions. Enabling gay marriage (let’s assume it gets universally approved as marriage) requires no real change in any rules on community property, prenups, intestate inheritance, tax status, divorce, Social Security benefits, etc.
Polymarriage, OTOH, may confuse things. Are all the parties married to one another, or is it in parallel? If I have a house, and then I acquire 4 wives, is my house now half mine and half theirs, or 20% mine and 20% each of theirs? What if I got the house while I was married to the first one only? Does the first or longest-serving husband, or the mother-of-children wife, get first dibs on benefits over the latecomer? Do the multispouses hold a majority vote on whether to pull the plug on a vegetative one? Etc.
Actually, this has been debated before on this board. Some good points posted there, worht checking out.
There are decent people who live nice quiet lives and have poly relationships. In Illinois, if one of the marriages is recognized by the state, then the anyone cohabiting with the married couple, even if they have not married either of the married couple by any means, has commited the crime of marrying a bigamist. The bigamist himself or herself is a felon.
Although these laws are not often enforced AFAICT, they could be. I wonder if the recent sodomy law rulings will have any affect on them. Although I can’t find a definition of cohabit, I think that someone who merely boards with a married couple would not be considered a bigamist, so what makes the conduct illegal are private activities, such as sharing a bed. Note: I don’t mean just having sex or committing adultery. Illinois also has the crime of adultery, but that requires the conduct to be open and notorius.
i think this pretty much says it all.
the court ruled that there was no compelling (legitimate) interest on the part of society to prohibit same-sex unions, so they are protected by the due process clause of the massachusetts constitution.
insofar as marriage is a meaningful social institution, i believe it would be very easy to demonstrate that limiting the number of spouses a person could have is a legitimate interest of society. consider, for example, if there were no limits. a person could then marry so many people as to render null the reasons the state grants special rights and priveliges to wedded couples in the first place. once that is done, placing the limit at two is rather arbitrary, but certainly convenient, and the law always needs a line, no matter how arbitrary.
No, and here’s why.
The argument in favor of gay marriage (legally speaking) is that the government must have a COMPELLING state interest that justifies denying equal protection of the laws on the basis of sex. Currently, a man can marry a woman, but not another man. This is sex discrimination, and the government’s reasons for this are not particularly compelling.
On the other hand, the government needs only a rational reason to limit the institution of marriage to two people, to people above age 18, to people who aren’t first degree relatives, etc. There are plenty of rational reasons for doing all of the above. Maybe they’re not compelling, but they don’t have to be.
Ultimately, yes, but not necessarily in the way that you’re thinking.
As you pointed out, the current system of marriage doesn’t work very well if it’s expanded to multiple individuals. However, the widespread acceptance of gay marriages that I suspect is coming will cause people to be more aware of the difference between religion “marriage” and secular “civil union”. Once the institution of marriage becomes a binding agreement that can be entered into by any two consenting adults, it will be much easier to create altered or lesser versions of these agreements. Polyamory can work just fine if the participants have what amounts to “contracts” that grant some but not all of the rights of civil unions.
Eventually, perhaps we’ll find better ways to adjust to multiple-partner marriages, but establishing that the government views marriage as a secular contract is the first step to acceptance.
What is wrong with polygamy? Note I am talking about the marriage between ADULTS, who enter into such a contract with full knowledge and are able to give informed consent. Most Poly unions are quiet and no one really cares- and they don’t make the news.
No marrying sisters, or your daughter, or 16yo “brainwashed into thinking this is Gods will” kids. Or having them all on welfare to support your fat patriachal ass. These are the very rare poly cases- which DO get media attention.
In and of itself, nothing “wrong” IF the rights of all parties – including their responsibilities and entitlements before the state and other parties in their respective families – are clearly laid out and properly protected vis-a-vis each other AND external parties. As mentioned before, at some point our societies determined the most efficient way of doing that layout and protection was to make the full rights and burdens of marriage accrue to only a 1:1 union, and the whole set of law on the matter is based on that. (And once more with feeling: Civil Marriage is not about people loving each oter, it’s about a whole set of legal rights, duties and entitlements involving property, inheritance, powers of attorney, taxation, next-of-kinship, child custody, etc. )
But heck, already, if they DON’T insist on calling it “marriage” and claiming the fullness of legal rights/entitlements, consenting adults can be as polyamorous as they want (e.g. that old bastid Hefner and his 7 living plastic dolls), and they are protected by their basic rights as free humans including the right to walk away, and even sue for “palimony” in some jurisdictions.
(As to the status of children: that has already been solved in some jurisdictions such as mine, where there’s equality of status for all children whatever the marital status of the parents; there is no such thing as a “bastard” under the Law here.)
To restate what TVAA said the “gay marriage” issue MAY lead to an eventual social acceptance of “call it anything but marriage” Civil Unions (given the culture resists accepting that there is really no reason to have Civil Marriage correspond absolutely to Sacramental Matrimony), from which then there may evolve something to provide Polys some legal rights and entitlements. But it’s not like anyone’s banging on the doors.
No, it isn’t sex discrimination, since women can’t marry women either. Both sexes are being treated equally. A law that said men can’t marry men but women can marry women would be discrimination.