Posted on 01/20/2006 7:06:27 AM PST by SirLinksalot
Could Same-Sex Marriage Lead to Legalized Polygamy?
By Debra Saunders
When social conservatives argue that legalizing same-sex marriage could lead to legalized polygamy, same-sex marriage advocates either laugh or sneer. It's a scare tactic, they say. It'll never happen.
Last year, however, as Canada legalized same-sex marriage, Prime Minister Paul Martin commissioned a $150,000 study to debunk the polygamy argument. Big mistake: The study confirmed the scare tactic by recommending that Canada repeal its anti-polygamy law.
It also suggested that a legal challenge to Canada's anti-polygamy laws would succeed. "Why criminalize behavior?" asked Martha Bailey, one of the study's three law-professor authors. "We don't criminalize adultery."
Confession time: I am one of those who, for years, has argued that legalizing same-sex marriage would not open the door for polygamy. The limit for marriages would remain two, I argued. Two doesn't mean three or four.
Wrong. In these politically correct times, do-gooders expand definitions until words -- or institutions -- lose all meaning. Marriage can mean what you want it to mean.
And: If you don't prosecute all crimes in a category, you can't prosecute one.
That's essentially what Bailey argued.
The study recognized the "strong association between polygamy and gender inequality." Then the authors apparently decided that Canadian law should eliminate any legal unfairness -- in inherently unequal marriages.
One Kuwaiti wife can't move to Canada to live with her husband and another wife. That's unfair to the wife and unfair to Muslims. The study noted, "The parties most likely to suffer from this rule are the left-behind wives." To eliminate that inequity, these professors are ready to provide legal cover for all polygamous (and polyandrous) marriages.
"There's a logical extension to it," laughed Rob Stutzman, who worked on the Proposition 22 campaign in 2000, a measure that limited marriage in California to a union between a man and a woman. "If you accept the premise that marriage should be whatever relationships people want to enter into," he said, polygamy is legit.
Brad Luna of the Human Rights Campaign, which supports same-sex marriage, finds any linkage of polygamy to same-sex marriage "offensive." He warned against reading too much into one Canadian study. In America, he said, "two people is the defining element in our system of government on contractual marriage."
Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who has pushed for same-sex marriage in California, noted "a unique nature of a relationship with two. If you go beyond two, you can't draw a line anywhere else that isn't arbitrary." I agree, but the Canadian study gives me pause. The authors use a very American argument: that adults already are living in de facto polygamous relationships, so why make their arrangements illegal?
The answer is that even if authorities cannot and should not jail adults for group cohabitation, the state should not extend legal protections to those unions.
Extending marital protections to same-sex couples bestows equality. Extending protections to unequal unions protects inequality.
The Washington Times interviewed polygamous Mormons who argued they lead happy, harmonious lives. That may be, but the practice is poison for cultures at large. Rich men marry many wives. Poor men do not. Women have few opportunities and limited rights. It can't be good for the kids. Consider polygamy's most famous son: Osama bin Laden, whose father sired 54 children with 22 wives.
Many elites argue that Canada is 10 years ahead of America when it comes to gay rights. But when legal scholars are so progressive that they are willing to shove marriage back to the Stone Age, they reveal a culture with a death wish.
American advocates for same-sex marriage may want to reconsider supporting civil unions in lieu of same-sex marriage. Or some way to limit marriage to two adults.
This isn't the nanny state. It's the opposite. If you want to keep the government out of family life, don't legalize marriages that, when they dissolve, split property (and kids) between one husband and three wives.
The liberal strategy is desensitization.... present every single aberrant lifestyle as really "normal", present it in the media as such, and slowly let the rest of America get used to it.
Expect Hollywood to make a film similar to Barebuck Mountain that celebrates and is sympathetic the joys of Polygamy at the same time damning middle America for intolerance. The subtle message will be ... DON'T YOU SEE THE HELL YOU ARE PUTTING THESE GOOD AND DECENT PEOPLE TO BY REFUSING TO RECOGNIZE AND LEGALIZE THEIR "normal" RELATIONSHIP(s) ?
Then, expect another Oscar and Golden Globe multi-award for the same film and expect it to be the talk of the town in PEOPLE's MAGAZINE.
You read it here first.
Its all in the playbook of subversion:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1561529/posts
"Could Same-Sex Marriage Lead to Legalized Polygamy?"
Of course. And the NAMBLA/ACLU characters want same sex adult/child unions also.
Why wouldn't it? If it is determined by some court (and then upheld by SCOTUS) that the "equal protection" clause prohibits discrimination in marriage laws to allow gay marriage, how could it not be held to also allow polygamist marriages?
Also, one of my big disappointments when Gavin Newsome and SF were handing out marriage licenses to any gay couple that wanted them was that some polygamists didn't attempt to also get marriage licenses. Would have been an interesting situation had their requests been denied.
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Exactly. This is one of the reasons that morality can only originate with God.
It's just as easy to redefine quantity as gender. Anyone claiming that one is obvious and the other is over the line is kidding themselves. Particularly in a society where one single court case can plow under any and all precedent with a ruling from the bench.
Just curious, isn't polygamy already legal? I mean if not how do they get away with it in Utah? I'm not being facetious, I've always wondered how Mormons could get away with polygamy but in any other state if a guy is married to two women he gets arrested. Any one know?
I'm sure some fundementalist Mormons are hoping it will. They've been skirting the polygamy laws for decades.
"Why criminalize behavior?" asked Martha Bailey, one of the study's three law-professor authors.
Sounds like an open invitation to burglarize this person's house and assault them. After all, why criminalize behavior? Just because she doesn't get aroused by such actions doesn't mean no one does. Everyone's lifestyle is equally valid.
Currently, they usually have one legal marriage, then the rest of the wives are married "in the eyes of God" but not with the State.
Polygamy is still illegal, and Mormons have been prosecuted in the past for it.
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Could Same-Sex Marriage Lead to Legalized Polygamy ?
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Sounds like a good question to ask presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. After all, his prophet had many wives.
"Why criminalize behavior?" I love it when LIBERALS talk, they can show us some REAL GENUINE STUPIDIDTY! But seriously folks. I have a goat that I'm VERY fond of. Can I just take him to canada and make it all legal and stuff? lol
SNL has joked about incest quite a bit and they have also joked about child molestation. That's where it starts, then the jokes become more detailed and more frequent.
ping
"Could Same-Sex Marriage Lead to Legalized Polygamy ?"
What on earth would be the rationale for NOT allowing it?
Now that we're cruising into the post-JudeoChristian era?
Well, here's a look at what awaits us, as we rush back to the good
old days that proceeded the strictures imposed by the Judeo-Christian
model for the homebuilding unit--
WARNING: ADULT content in linked article:
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/homosexuality/ho0003.html
They ask why not legalize polygamy??!! Geez, do they think employers will cover two, three, five spouses? Or that the government will extend social security benefits to that many? Do they all jointly own the house, the checking account? What about foreign marriage? Can a bunch of jihadis get second, third or fourth marriages to American lefties and get free passes here? Do we really want third-worlders bringing their four wives here? I don't understand how people CAN'T see the complications. Much worse than gay marriage, IMO, once you get past the ick factor.
LOL!! IOW, what's good for the goose is not good for the gander!
A young co-worker once asked me what I had against gay marriage. I responded by asking her what she had against pedophilia. "Ewwwwwwwwww! That's sick!" was her answer, to which I replied, "Exactly."
According to Forbes some 460 of 500 of the top companies are all too eager to cover same sex marriages. This is bound to cost a fortune in insurance and retirement, and other costs but they are all too eager for those bright, creative, sensitive, well groomed gay people to be on the payroll.
And why stop at polygamy, why not allow incestuous marriage or marriage between children and adults?
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