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I don't know . . . This book was all about freedom, but polygamy too! |
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.
Very true. One could argue that quantity should have been easier to change than gender.
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I don't know . . . This book was all about freedom, but polygamy too! |
For example, it's illegal to import certain animals. Why can't a man just marry them and bring them in as his wives/husbands???
And why shouldn't a python, for example, or a chichilla have the right to vote--as somebody's spouse, they certainly should be allowed to become citizens, with all the rights other citizens have???
And just think. PETA could marry the Chicago stockyard and protect all their husbands and wives from becoming steaks.
The Left is certainly lacking in imagination.
Polygamy is in the Bible and was part of the Mormon faith for awhile. Were either of those situations influenced by Pillow biting?
hey! yeah!
and what about that Lazarus Long???
heck yeah.
What, no "Santorum Alert"? :^)
Duh!!!
You can make the case Poligamists' have MORE right to marrage, because they can actually have children.
marrrage = marriage
Correction. There are no polygamous Mormons. Any member of the church practicing or promoting polygamy is excommunicated.
If same-sex marriage is legal, it's hard to make a legal argument against consentual, adult incest ebing sanctioned with 'marriage.' Though the reproductive angle provides a hurdle to acceptance, voluntary sterilization of one or both (opposite-sex) parties would remove that problem. In any case, same-sex incestuous couples would have the same case that same-sex couples now are pressing, wouldn't they? There are endless doors flung open with these arguments.
Marriage is a legal contract. In order to have a contract, all parties must be able to consent. Animals and children cannot give legal consent.
It's a doctrinal issue, not a legal one.
Maybe, but the perfect sequels -- since they're already dealing with sheepherders -- would be "A Boy and His Ewe," and "A Man and His Ram." The barrier against polygamy isn't the only wall about to come tumbling down if Hollywood has its way. Their agenda no doubt includes films about bestiality, incest, necrophilia, pedophilia and every other warped, deviant psycho-sickness the human mind is capable of. They are out to destroy every vestige of Western culture, with help from the willing and litigious ACLU, and Soros, the Progressive Insurance guy, People for the American Way and other sicko Left Wing organizations including first and foremost the Demcrat Party.
It certainly seems a hard argument to make. The arguments used for same sex marriages are all around "loving relationships who are denied certain perks". They focus on the loving relationships and try to make it seem exactly like a normal relationship except for one little difference.
http://www.dailyiowan.com/media/paper599/news/2006/01/18/Metro/a.Happy.Average.Family-1434660.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.dailyiowan.com
I think the fact that there aren't 3 percent of the population that are incestuous is the only thing that will prevent this from going forward. Sodom was destroyed, morally and spiritually, with simple homosexuality and that should be enough to really start the downhill slide.
Though the reproductive angle provides a hurdle to acceptance, voluntary sterilization of one or both (opposite-sex) parties would remove that problem. In any case, same-sex incestuous couples would have the same case that same-sex couples now are pressing, wouldn't they? There are endless doors flung open with these arguments.
If 3 percent of the country is gay and does the things that they do in secret, imagine what will be done in secret when this is open and acceptable and even encouraged?
But that's because smoking leads to health problems which can drive up their insurance costs.
Gay sex doesn't have any associated health problems associated with it.....
Oh. Never mind.
I guess if you get to make up the definitions, anything's possible. Most of us would argue that the defining element of marriage is a man and a woman, not simply "two people".
After all, they aren't yet arguing that ANY two people can get married.
Yet!
BTW, in some states, a minor (i.e. a child) can give legal consent to an abortion--without the knowledge of her parents.
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