Posted on 03/22/2006 8:01:47 PM PST by neverdem
WASHINGTON — And now, polygamy.
With the sweetly titled HBO series “Big Love,” polygamy comes out of the closet. Under the headline “Polygamists, Unite!” Newsweek informs us of “polygamy activists emerging in the wake of the gay-marriage movement.” Says one evangelical Christian big lover: “Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights battle.”
Polygamy used to be stereotyped as the province of secretive Mormons, primitive Africans and profligate Arabs. With “Big Love” it moves to suburbia as a mere alternative lifestyle.
As Newsweek notes, these stirrings for the mainstreaming of polygamy (or, more accurately, polyamory) have their roots in the increasing legitimization of gay marriage. In an essay 10 years ago, I pointed out that it is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two persons of (2) opposite gender, and if, as gay marriage advocates insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one’s autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement — the number restriction (two and only two) — is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice.
This line of argument makes gay activists furious. I can understand why they do not want to be in the same room as polygamists. But I’m not the one who put them there. Their argument does.
Blogger and author Andrew Sullivan, who had the courage to advocate gay marriage at a time when it was considered pretty crazy, has called this the “polygamy diversion,” arguing that homosexuality and polygamy are categorically different because polygamy is a mere “activity” while homosexuality is an intrinsic state that “occupies a deeper level of human consciousness.”
But this distinction between higher and lower orders of love is precisely what gay rights activists so...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Polygamy affects more people though. All the children, who have to get along with all their half-siblings, their many squabbling moms, and one worn out dad.
"Who's gonna take it away from the polygamists? Muslims?"
The Amish.
One husband is enough.
My husband and I watched the HBO show, and it certainly doesn't make polygamy look like fun.
Yeah, the guy gets lots of sex, but all of the wives are demanding things like redecorating their homes, a new car, etc.
It really doesn't look good from a woman's point of view.
Better than saying that love between two men means sex.
What a horrible state of society when we relate male bondage, love, admiration, adoration, and mutual respect as homosexual. It is no wonder there is so much violence among the ignorant.
An excellent point.
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
Why do gay activists get mad about polygamy?
We saw a little of the series "Big Love" on the HBO free preview weekend on DISH last weekend. Typical tv fare, wanting something unnatural to appear all sweethearts and roses. These three families all living side by side, sharing a husband and father, being so loving and not jealous or anything. It just ain't natural, I tell ya!
If you've ever seen anything on Louisiana's 'Southern Decadence Days', monogamy does not fit into the gay lifestyle. these guys are trying to distance themselves from polygamists and find they logically cannot because they use the same arguments, and when you examine their lifestyles and how many relationships they have that never last on average a couple years, and are in 'committed' relationships that allow for 'Thursdays off' and such, they really are living polygamist lifestyles. They're just trying to fool themselves.
It may sound wierd, but even they have standards they won't cross...
If marrying a member of the same sex is an intrinsic state, I don't see why marrying more than one wife can't be an intrinsic state too.
Intrinsic state = blue State
What transparent sophistry Sullivan employs. Any argument that advances his cause that can be "sold" to the ignorant masses, he'll use.
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