Free Republic

Traditional marriage advocates have long argued that once you establish that marriage is simply a contract between consenting adults, polygamy is a necessary logical outgrowth. And every time we attempted to raise this point, others explained to us to shutup. Well, it seems that shutup time is done as polygamists are celebrating The Supreme Court's decision as well. Buzzfeed reports:The Supreme Court’s rulings in favor of same-sex marriage Wednesday were greeted with excitement by polygamists across the country, who viewed the gay rights victory as a crucial step toward the country’s inevitable acceptance of plural marriage. Anne Wilde, a vocal...

Looks like there is a slippery slope after all and gay marriage really could lead to polygamy. According to U.S. News and World Report, polyamory advocate Anita Wagner Illig said that gay marriage is setting the standard to make polygamy and polyamory legal. “We polyamorists are grateful to our [LGBT] brothers and sisters for blazing the marriage equality trail,” said Illig, who is the head of polyamory advocacy group called Practical Polyamory. Anticipating the Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage this week, US New’s reporter Steven Nelson interviewed Illig to see how polyamorists and polygamists feel about the possibility of...

Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy? We can only hope. Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end...

Before America embarks on changing the concept of marriage, I hope they will at least agree on examining cultures that do not define marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman. In their eagerness to achieve their goals, the pro gay marriage enthusiasts are marching towards what they perceive as progress and modernity while ignoring lessons from other cultures, history, basic human nature and the horrific and negative unintended consequences of redefining "marriage". Islam's definition of marriage is one man and up to four women where loyalty in the marriage is required only from the woman towards the...

Also, “it’s just bad faith to forbid the brother and sister on these putative health grounds” The words in the title and subtitle were spoken by one of the leading thinkers and advocates in favor of gay marriage, University of Chicago Professor Martha Nussbaum, in a speech she gave at Cornell Law School in 2009 (video and discussion below). I was reminded of those words after Dr. Benjamin Carson created a stir when, during a television interview, he made the following comment (emphasis added). Marriage is between a man and a woman. It is a well-established fundamental pillar of society,...

Author: B. Carmon HardyReviewer: Lowell C. BennionCategories: History of the Church, Pioneer PeriodJournal: 33:2In recent years, studies of Mormon plural marriage have multiplied almost as rapidly as polygamous families did more than a century ago. With this book, Cartoon Hardy, who teaches American history at California State University in Fullerton, has made a major contribution to our understanding of the solemn covenant of plurality. His study, The Mormon Polygamous Passage (1831–1911), began with his 1963 dissertation on "The Mormon Colonies of Northern Mexico," and he has steadily expanded that research ever since. Solemn Covenant, Hardy's first book, serves as a...

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was questioning former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, a pro-gay marriage Republican. She brought up a very interesting question during the exchange: If gay marriage is legal, what about polygamy? Sotomayor asked, "If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?" before referencing "polygamy and incest among adults," as reported by Matt Canham of the Salt Lake Tribune. The argument is an illustration of a broader issue about the culture of American society. To agree that gay marriage is indeed protected by the "equal protection" clause in the Constitution, wouldn't the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here's Art in Windsor, Connecticut, as we go back to the phones. Hello, sir. CALLER: Rush, how you doing? RUSH: I'm fine, sir. Thank you. CALLER: Look, I just think, you know, there used to be laws that said black people can't marry white people. I don't think this is any different. I mean, if you're gay and you want to marry somebody who's gay, marry somebody who's gay. That's your business. What is the business of the state government or the federal government telling me who I can and can't marry? RUSH: You are serious with...

The joke about Unitarians is that they’re where you go when you don’t know where to go. Theirs is the religion of last resort for the intermarried, the ambivalent, the folks who want a faith community without too many rules. It is perhaps no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Association is one of the fastest-growing denominations in the country, ballooning 15 percent over the past decade, when other established churches were shrinking. Politically progressive to its core, it draws from the pool of people who might otherwise be “nones” – unaffiliated with any church at all. But within the ranks...

Boris Dittrich, a former Dutch politician, was behind the gay marriage campaign in Holland (Sebastiaan ter Burg / Flickr) The politician who masterminded the gay marriage campaign in Holland says that “group marriage” is now being discussed in the country.Boris Dittrich, a former Dutch politician, gave a video interview about how he successfully introduced gay marriage. He said, “There is now a discussion in the Netherlands that sometimes people want to marry with three people and maybe even more.“But that’s the beginning of something completely new and that will take a lot of years I guess.”Dittrich was speaking to a French...

ROME, March 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Boris Dittrich, the homosexual activist called the “father” of the political movement in favor of Dutch gay “marriage”, has admitted that group marriages of three or more people, is the next, inevitable logical step in the dismantling of the western world’s traditional marriage laws. In a video interview with Yagg, the French online homosexual magazine, Dittrich, a former Dutch MP and homosexualist activist working for Human Rights Watch, related the carefully laid-out plan that established first public acceptance legal civil partnerships, which in turn led inevitably to changing the definition of marriage. The redefinition...

SALT LAKE CITY — Joe Darger and his wife, Vicki, walked through the Capitol shaking hands with lawmakers like any other citizen lobbyist. What exactly they’re asking their lawmakers to do is a little more unique: decriminalize polygamy. “The way we are persecuting a particular religious group of people is wrong,” Joe Darger said. “It’s morally wrong, it’s ethically wrong, and we need to look at it. It hasn’t worked for 150 years and we need to change it.” Darger, a polygamist with three wives, Vicki, Valerie and Alina, is hoping to get lawmakers to start considering the idea of...

Australian activists for same-sex marriage have always insisted, that it will not lead to polygamy or polyamory. Never, ever, ever. Gay marriage is just like traditional marriage, except for the sex of the spouse. Activist Rodney Croome wrote last year that “studies show most LGBTI people want to be part of a two-person marriage, while partners in polyamorist relationships (most of which begin as heterosexual unions) say they don’t want their relationships recognised as marriages.” Former Greens leader Bob Brown described a push for polyamory as “nonsense”. This is a crucial point for supporters. If they were to concede that...

<p>The Associated Press on Thursday updated its stylebook so that married individuals will be referred to as husband and wife, regardless of whether they are in a same-sex marriage. The change comes a week after the AP received criticism for an internal memo designating the word "partners" for individuals in same-sex marriages.</p>

You knew it was coming. Scientific American — which often pushes cultural agendas as much as scientific ideas — has an article informing us that polyamorous people have so much to teach the rest of us about life. From “The New Sexual Revolution: Polyamory May Be Good For You“ One thing that seems to unite the polyamorous community is a real enthusiasm for digging into emotions. Honesty, openness and communication are cornerstones for polyamorous relationships, Holmes has found. “They’re talking a lot, they’re negotiating a lot, they’re bringing their feelings to the table a lot,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently opted for two cases pertaining to same-sex marriage. Windsor v. United States challenges the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Had Edith Windsor's deceased “spouse” been a man she would have been saved $363,000 in estate taxes. The other concerns the Ninth Circuit’s overturning Proposition 8; a successful ballot initiative which prevented same-sex marriage in California. Leave lawyering to lawyers, but when pendulums swing sometimes they return like wrecking balls smacking those who previously prodded the pendulum. Government, at least Washington, should not interfere in marriage. It has, sometimes at the insistence of those most adamantly...

They used to call them “swingers.” Not anymore. These days, like most “alternative lifestyle” groups, they’ve adopted a new, more clinical-sounding description – polyamorist – and incorporated it into the names of a small but growing number of advocacy and social networking organizations. As the battle over the true definition of marriage heats up nationwide, they want a place on the front line. Polyamorists now want a seat at the table of "equality" and "tolerance." “Polyamorist” means “lover of many,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Polyamorists maintain more than one sexual relationship at a time, with the full...

A notary in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo has sparked controversy by accepting a civil union between three people. Public Notary Claudia do Nascimento Domingues has said the man and two women should be entitled to family rights. She says there is nothing in law to prevent such an arrangement. But the move has angered some religious groups, while one lawyer described it as "absurd and totally illegal". The three individuals, who have declined to speak to the press, have lived in Rio de Janeiro together for three years and share bills and other expenses. Ms Domingues says they...

Controversy has been sparked as the first civil union between three separate partners was registered in Tupã, in the Northwestern region of Sao Paulo state, Brazil last week. The three-person union has shocked religious groups in the country, and sparked further concerns that the traditional family unit is being further eroded by the current day society. The actual declaration of the union between the man and two women was in fact made three months ago, but it finally became public this week. Notary officer, Claudia do Nascimento Domingues, has explained that the three partners lived together and wanted to publicly...

Joe Darger, from Salt Lake City, Utah, lives in a house with his three wives and their 24 children. His polygamous marriage is illegal in 50 American states - and has resulted in him being excommunicated from the Mormon church. But Joe, a fifth generation polygamist, believes his is the correct way - and says he wants to fight to have his plural marriage officially recognised by society. The fundamentalist Mormon appeared on the breakfast television show alongside his three wives, 42-year-old twins Vicki and Valerie, and their 43-year-old cousin Alina. Vicki and Alina have been married to Joe for...