Has The Gay Marriage Slippery Slope Started? Slate Writer Calls for Legalizing Polygamy

Mediaite ^ | April 24, 2013 | AJ Delgado

[DH]

All that I had to read was “As a conservative who supports gay marriage, and has done so for quite some time” and instantly knew where this was going.

Apparently the writer was confused as to what a “conservative” was. He sure as heck knew what a queer was however.

[Jack Hammer]

Personally, I will never be satisfied until the law is changed so that I can marry half a dozen midgets, my horse, and my pet cocker spaniel.

[warchild9]

1. For all you thumpers, there’s Biblical precedent.

2. Lawyers would looooove the new complications in divorce law.

3. Why not? By all statistical indicators, traditional marriage is dying as an institution. Change is interesting! (Yes, that’s sarcasm.)

4. I’ve been married for 25+ years. Would never do it again.

[broken_arrow1]

As a conservative who supports gay marriage..."

Sorry, I stopped listening after that part.

[Adder]

They already are calling for the abolishment of age of consent laws or lowering them to meaningless levels, like say, 10.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1c4_1346382415

disgusting...

[theBuckwheat]

Curiously, when advocates of gay marriage are asked if their policy also would allow polygamy or polyandry, they recoil in horror and insist that it does not. However, logic demands that it does. I would ask how same-sex parents are going to react in the future when, for example, Utah public schools officials require that teachers instruct the children that LDS-related polygamy is just as “normal” as same-sex “marriage”. The fact that this will be an issue will show yet again that gay “marriage” is not about marriage at all it is about forcing the rest of us to approve of repugnant sexual immorality, something that LDS polygamists never demanded.

After same-sex marriage causes polygamy to be recognized polyandry won’t be far behind. Brave new world!

It is time to get government out of regulating a private religious institution. Government has its own morality that people adopt because of how pervasive government is in our lives. Jesus said that marriage was defined by God and not man, and man cannot undo what God has done. (Mark 10:9)

Therefore, people who God would not join are not married in His eyes even if the State says they are. Whatever civil union these people are in, it is not and can never be marriage.

[Travis McGee]

[randita]

Polygamy, but only if you’re atheists. It won’t be permitted for Mormons or other sects which practice polygamy on religious grounds.

(I’m not sanctioning polygamy under any circumstances. I’m just pointing out hypocrisy as the left has been relentless about pursuing and exposing any instances of polygamy based on religious traditions.)

[Pollster1]

Polygamy will be great for all those married men who don’t think one wife is enough, and for all those divorced men who don’t think one ex-wife is enough.

[supercat]

The closest thing to a universal human behavior which appears to have been common among all human societies that have ever thrived, at any time in history, is the recognition that a woman may be bound in marriage to exactly one man, and such a woman would as a consequence be off-limits to all men except her husband. The fact that a marriage must involve exactly two people is common but not universal--what is universal is that a marriage involves exactly one man. A marriage involving one man and two women would fit that pattern. A marriage involving two men and zero women, or two women and zero men, would not.

If a society has equal numbers of males and females seeking marriage, then for every man who takes two wives there would be another man who would be unable to find any. Polygyny may be workable in a society where the number of females seeking marriage significantly exceeds the number of males, but is problematic in a society where the numbers are more balanced.

I wish conservatives would stop arguing about marriage from a religious standpoint, since such arguments justify a "separation of church and state" counter-argument. The idea that marriages involve exactly one male cannot be a consequence of "religious bigotry", since it was common in societies even before religions were developed.

[supercat]

However, logic demands that it does.

Polygyny is far more justifiable than "marriages" in which the number of males is not exactly one.

[supercat]

Polygamy is a way for making women slaves to men.

Whether or not polygyny is allowed should logically be a function of the relative populations of males and females seeking marriage. If, for whatever reason, the number of females seeking marriage exceeds the number of males, a requirement that males only take one wife will prevent some women from having a husband. In a society where women have few employment prospects, denying a woman a chance to be a "slave" to a husband may force her into an even worse fate.

[jonrick46]

" In a society where women have few employment prospects"

What would cause the natural balance of men to women to shift so there was considerably more women than men? War? Infanticide of female babies? In such societies where there is a shortage of men, women will fill in the employment gap. If that did not happen, that would be a dangerous society for both men and women.

If there was a shortage of men to women due to a large number of men killed off in war, that shortage would be temporary as the natural balance would restore itself. The natural sex ratio favors more male births, and that ratio changes due to the age of the parents, stress, the stage in the mother's ovulation cycle and other factors can increase that ratio. So should any polygamous remedy, which I doubt would even happen, would never be necessary due to the natural balancing functions of human biology. Your hypothetical situation does not consider the realities of natural law. Also, the reality is there is always a surplus of both men and women in a society who never get married. If the surplus of unmarried women is much higher than the surplus of men, more men would take advantage of the greater availability and would get married where before they would have stayed single.

[supercat]

What would cause the natural balance of men to women to shift so there was considerably more women than men?

That polygyny has existed historically suggests that conditions existed in which allowing it it was considered better than forbidding it. I wasn't in Jerusalem circa 400BC, but my impression is that employment prospects for men vastly exceeded those for women. As such, even if the numbers of unmarried men and women were equal, that wouldn't imply that the number of men who were eager to get married would equal the number of women who were likewise eager. I do not wish to imply by any stretch that sex discrimination in employment that existed throughout ancient times was a good thing; I was merely suggesting that it's not hard to see how such things could lead to conditions where polygyny might be better than the alternatives, given that the discrimination did in fact exist.

Further, while I don't wish to suggest that polygyny should be legalized today, I would suggest that it is in fact less absurd than "marriages" which do not involve exactly one male and at least one female. It's not clear why a marriage involving two females and one male should be considered less acceptable than one involving two females and zero males. Indeed, only if the former would be recognized could the latter make sense (if a man with two wives were to die, the women might continue to live together, maintain their household, and raise their children).

I would consider it reasonable for the government to recognize civil unions of people who are ineligible to marry, with such unions being agnostic to the legitimacy of sexual relations. In some cases, it might even be proper for siblings to join in such unions (e.g. if two siblings, both of whom have children, are widowed, it may be better for each child to be raised by a parent along with an aunt or uncle, than by one parent alone), but civil-union laws expressly forbid recognition of such unions.

[jonrick46]

“Polygyny” (the practice of having multiple wives) has been with man since prehistoric times. It is the more specific term than “polygamy,” which refers to the practice of having multiple spouces (male or female) Polygyny ties in to that male polymorphous sexual nature which in his biological past put him in the role of the dominate sexual bull in a tribe of women. Throughout the ages this male polymorphous sexual nature has put man in contact with all sorts of sexual objects both non-organic and organic. Many of them have given him dangerous sexual diseases and physical injury.

I, like you, am opposed to polygamy, both female and male. And, limiting (but not squelching) man’s unchanneled sex drive, as found with homosexuality (for starters), is the first purpose of civilization.

For a great read on the subject, here is Dennis Prager’s fine analysis. I would recommend you save it for your reference.

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/PragerHomosexuality.php#.T7FZOLE1bRo.facebook

[supercat]

Throughout the ages this male polymorphous sexual nature has put man in contact with all sorts of sexual objects both non-organic and organic.

I would posit that one of the major purposes of the institution of marriage is to allow people to be born of identifiable parentage. If a woman engages in sexual relations only with one man, then any children she bears will have a known father (the husband). If a woman relations with more than one man, the paternity of her children may no longer be certain. Note that the establishment of children's parentage does not rely upon the male having relations exclusively with one woman. No matter how many women a man sleeps with, she can still be quite certain of being the biological mother of any child born unto her.