June 26, 2015: It's time to legalize Polygamy (which is 1 of reasons to lower age of consent to TEN

Welcome to the exciting new world of the slippery slope. With the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling this Friday legalizing same sex marriage in all 50 states, social liberalism has achieved one of its central goals. A right seemingly unthinkable two decades ago has now been broadly applied to a whole new class of citizens. Following on the rejection of interracial marriage bans in the 20th Century, the Supreme Court decision clearly shows that marriage should be a broadly applicable right—one that forces the government to recognize, as Friday’s decision said, a private couple’s “love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family.”

The question presents itself: Where does the next advance come? The answer is going to make nearly everyone uncomfortable: Now that we’ve defined that love and devotion and family isn’t driven by gender alone, why should it be limited to just two individuals? The most natural advance next for marriage lies in legalized polygamy—yet many of the same people who pressed for marriage equality for gay couples oppose it.

This is not an abstract issue. In Chief Justice John Roberts’ dissenting opinion, he remarks, “It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage.” As is often the case with critics of polygamy, he neglects to mention why this is a fate to be feared. Polygamy today stands as a taboo just as strong as same-sex marriage was several decades ago—it’s effectively only discussed as outdated jokes about Utah and Mormons, who banned the practice over 120 years ago.

In many places in the US, it was as low as 10 well into the second half of the 19th century. Delaware was the lowest, at 7.

If I recall correctly, it was even lower in some states in the 18th century.

I wrote a paper on it once, and was shocked beyond belief. It began changing with Napoleonic Law, iirc, which is why it was raised in Europe before here.

https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/24

One my my grandmothers married at 13, had my father 10 or 11 months later, and by the time she was 20 had four children.

An argument used against the idea of marrying a goat is that the goat cannot give consent.

Well, then neither can a person who has been found to be incompetent to care for themselves. So people who say consent is required would have to approve of county clerks denying the mentally retarded or people with dementia the right to marry each other, anyone else, or as many people who they love even if they are gay, interacial, dwarf and bipolar, which would make it mandatory for county clerks to be bigoted and also compel them to violate the Americans with disabilities Act.

Or something like that.

I can't wait for the confusion that a child custody case brought by a Cherokee traditionalist is heard and the argument is made that a brother of a deceased mother should be awarded custody of the mother and father's children because in Cherokee custom the children were not raised by the father but by the brother of the mother. If the definition of marriage is now wide open in the law then so must be the definition of family and in some families then the rights of the uncle exceed the rights of the biological father ...

And speaking of marriage, there's the muslim "marriage for a day"... are clerks now obligated to issue certificates to the same person every twenty four hours when he changes spouses after a quickie divoces?

In the case of polygamists then will the clerks have to issue one marriage license and let everyone have a copy or does a separate license have to be issued for each person in "the" relationship? And what if each of the hundred spouses lives in a separate county- do we then need multiple licenses issued in each county?

And it will be quite entertaining when a polygamist in a divorce where both parents are polygamists with multiple spouses is forced to pay support for all of the people and children involved...could be hundreds of people. Imagine what the calendar would look like when trying to figure out visitation rights now that marriage means anything anyone wants it to mean.

Isn't judicial activism fun?

If dairy goats could be found to consent to marriage to a human, the question is, who issues the marriage license - the county, the farm bureau, or the US FDA, or the Dept of Agriculture?

And double the sets of kids. Now who is going to do all that work to feed, cloth, ins, education, and all the things kids need. Since I raised 3 I know how much that cost. And they still come back to Mom when they get in financial hot water for medical. Youngest just txt I think I just re-fractured my foot. Which means a visit to the ER Ortho Clinic after 4 and me coughing up his co-pay. He was off work several weeks the first time.

WE will get stuck with paying for the kids produced by Polygamy. They will be like the Duggers 20 kids.

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