Ah! So that's it! You base your opposition to polygamists' "right" to marry on whether or not you know any.
You look around, and you see only monogamous marriages (you think) in your town, your workplace, your neighborhood, or your church. It's easy to get caught up in thinking that the rest of the world is pretty much like the people you know.
Out there in the cities, or in suburbia, a lot of people, liberal, conservative, and mushy middle, know polygamist people.
Are you so "mean spirited"--to use your term--that you would deny these harmless folks the right to marry whom they want? Don't you know, their marriage doesn't affect your marriage?
On the other hand, if I knew of a multiple arrangement where the people involved were otherwise seemingly intelligent, and really were operating out of free will, I might be open minded enough to accept them as friends. It might just be out of curiousity to see if they really were all OK with the arrangement, I just can't see how it might work in a practical manner!
The polygamists I've met are nice people. They made the decision to reject monogamy for their personal lives, in harmony with their personal religious beliefs.
You're deluding yourself if you paint them all in your mind as living in a man's "personal harem" with "subservient women." You really have no idea what you're talking about, since you haven't met any polygamists personally. Your opinion is therefore based on a bigoted notion of the persons whom you impose your views on.
Now, since you believe the courts should base their decision on polygamy according to your preconceived notions, what do you think will be the result when those notions are on trial? "Don't allow John to marry Sue and Mary, because they are social misfits." That's simply bigoted.
Denying marriage to polygamists based on bigotry is a sure recipe for the courts to make polygamy legal.
Instead, polygamists should be denied marriage based on the moral beliefs of the majority. But as you see, that legal standard was dismantled by the courts, in order to create homosexual marriage.
I would also have to feel sympathetic towards them, too. Brainwashed women who believe a manipulative man don't inspire my understanding, just my pity.
Out there in the cities, or in suburbia, a lot of people, liberal, conservative, and mushy middle, know polygamist people.
Ok, substitute "polygamist" for "homosexual" in my response, but even if there are only 1% of people in the US who are homosexual, there are a FAR fewer number that are polygamist. And you know it, too.
Are you so "mean spirited"--to use your term--that you would deny these harmless folks the right to marry whom they want? Don't you know, their marriage doesn't affect your marriage?
It's true, another set of people's living situation does not affect my own. And yes, I do question their right to state sanction for that relationship, just as the religious conservatives do for gay relationships. The difference is, there are a LOT more people willing to grant so-called "marital" rights to a homosexual couple than would grant them to a polygamist group. I guess that's just the tyranny of the emerging majority on this issue.
Look, the difference here is that you think that homosexuals and polygamists are sick, misguided individuals. For me, its just the polygamists, when we're talking about only the two groups. Conservatives need to deal with the fact that there are a lot of folks in the mushy middle, and at least a sizable minority of us over on the conservative side, who feel the same way.
Your opinion is therefore based on a bigoted notion of the persons whom you impose your views on.
My opinion is based on the only instance of polygamists I've seen, which is on websites that they themselves put up. If I had an opportunity to know some polygamists personally, I might have a different opinion, but I doubt it.
Instead, polygamists should be denied marriage based on the moral beliefs of the majority. But as you see, that legal standard was dismantled by the courts, in order to create homosexual marriage.
The problem is that you think that you're in the clear majority. It might be true in your town, or your workplace, or your social group, or in your church. But its not the way things are in the nation as a whole. The courts have dealt with the fact that, as a society, learned people have been moving away from the model of homosexuality as a combination of sin and mental illness.
Like it or not, that explains today's vote. If the same vote had happened even ten years earlier, it would have gone the other way.