Should the gay movement include support for plural marriage?

[MystikWizard]

I can agree with this.

I have no fucking clue where the hell you get off thinking this though.

Please elaborate on what your objections are.

 

[Kulindahr]

No no no.

But every time someone opposes same-sex marriage, we should accuse them of being on the payroll of the LDS cult and being in favor of polygamy.

Any time some politician opposes gay marriage because "it will lead to polygamy", we should all say, "Absolutely -- that's called 'freedom'! Now, what part of freedom don't you understand?"

If you're in favor of equality before the law for all, you can't tell them what form their love should take. If you think it's okay for people to tell others what form their love should take, then join the religious right -- they excel in that.

 

[Kulindahr]

I find it interesting how many people hold to a traditional western view ( marriage = 2 people ) in this case.

Yet will dismiss the traditional worldwide view marriage = man + woman

And also ignore the fact that plural marriage has been extremely common in history. I love pointing out to RW Christians that Solomon had several hundred wives....

Absolutely not.
....
Besides any of that, I personally do not agree with polygamy. Marriage should be strictly between two people, and only two people.

So you're just like the ReligioPublicans: what you think personally should be the rule.
What happened to believing in freedom?

 

[Kulindahr]

There is no plural marriage culture in the gay community. You have rare exceptions, but there is no societal drive to seek this type of extended family.

What difference does it make if there's no social drive?

Does that mean that before there was a "social drive" to get homosexuality tolerated, hanging them was just fine?

 

[Kulindahr]

don't care.

the polygamists can campaign for their own equality, when they're done raping 13 year olds and campaigning against ours.

Huh?

What does that have yo do with freely chosen relationships between consenting adults who love each other?

Or are you willing to accept the charge that all gays are pedophiles and child molesters?

 

[Kulindahr]

What do blacks have to do with this?

Gays complained loudly about how blacks aren't supporting the gay drive for civil rights. But if gays aren't supportive of civil rights for all forms of marriage, that's just hypocritical: if you aren't willing to support equality before the law for all committed interpersonal relationships, then you should be telling the blacks who oppose gay marriage that they're doing the right thing -- getting theirs, and not caring about anyone else.

 

[Kulindahr]

"I don't have to be gay to know that two gay people sharing a union is an abomination before the Lord."

You're doing the same thing there. You're defining your perception of another group as a reason why they will never be equal to you.

On gay rights issues, we argue that equality should not be based on perceptions of others but on inherent rights. I have difficulty seeing how this case is any different.

Precisely.
That's what almost all the opposition to multiple relationships comes down to: it doesn't fit someone's personal image of a real, proper committed relationship. That's what the religious right does, and that's what people here are doing.

I was about to say the same thing to you. Stop accusing me of trying to reason from a side I'm not part of and just look at the reason. I don't believe it's bad to be in a polyamorous relationship. It just is not equal to what two people share. Never can be by virtue of numbers. Three people sharing love together is not numerically equal to what two people have together. Having a marriage with as many people as you like is not fair to everyone else who has promised to devote themselves to just one person. Even if it were, there isn't the sort of academic or scientific consensus behind the merits of polygamy that is behind gay marriage.

So now you're reducing love to numbers.
What's the difference between that and reducing love to gender? They're both simplistic arguments without substance, because they try to limit love to your own form.

Why isn't it fair? How does it harm the dyads if there are triads or greater groups?
Answer: in the same way that letting people of the same sex join together harms those of opposite sex who join together.


What difference does scientific consensus make? Do you claim to be able to put love under a microscope? Or does love only count if scientists approve of it?
Either you're in favor of equality before the law for all, or you're in favor of special privileges. That's exactly what would have been the case if blacks had fought for "black rights" but then turned around and stood with whites to keep discrimination going against Asians: it wouldn't have been about rights, but about privileges.
Martin Luther King talked about the plight of the Negro, but he fought for those of all colors. Gays talk about the lack of freedom in marriage... and fight only for themselves.

 

[Kulindahr]

There are no parallels and I'm not simply saying polygamy and gay marriage are "just not the same." When somebody says "just" they don't give a reason. I gave a very good reason. When you divide you're marriage with many people it is inherently not equal to giving it to ONLY one person! Damn!

You need to step outside your worldview and look at what you're saying. You haven't given any reasons at all -- just your opinion. That's exactly the same thing the religious right does, and it's called by a very simple name: bigotry.

You keep measuring love by arithmetic, but love doesn't care about arithmetic. Here's a parallel to show that:

By your reasoning, a family with two children would be inherently unequal to a family with just one. It wouldn't be fair to the first child to have a second one, because parents giving their love to two children is inherently not equal to giving it to ONLY one child! Damn!

If three people love each other, it could be argued that it's actually a better relationship, because each person has two people fully committed to him/her, not just one. So four would be better than three, and five better than four....

...which is just silly, and proves that your argument is silly as well: love is love, and arithmetic is irrelevant; two isn't better than three, nor is three better than two -- they're just different.

 

[Kulindahr]

I really gauge what's best for society not by my own conceptions of what is best, but what people who really are qualified to pontificate about it say. For the time being there is no reason among sociologists to say that polygamy should be a right.

Red alert!

This man has no clue what human rights are.


JockBoy, rights don't come from sociologists! Rights come from being people, and being in charge of yourself. If a person has a right to choose his kind of relationship, then all people do, and that means whatever kind of relationship they might choose.
Your position boils down to government having a legitimate authority to dictate what kind of relationships are acceptable. Given that foundation, you should have no complaint if Congress passes an amendment to the Constitution saying that marriage has to be heterosexual, and for life.

 

[Kulindahr]

Resoundingly irrelevant!!! Non-sequitur of the highest order...

The dynamics are not important in determining if polygamy should be legal. It's what polygamy is, the dilution of the commitment two people make to be married. There are no laws specifying that more than two people can't have a love triangle or quadrangle, or higher orders, nor should there ever be, or even that they shouldn't have families. Though looking at where polygamy is practiced, it's quite horrifying what they do to young girls, and frequently minors are removed from those situations.

How do you know it's a "dilution" if you've never been there? How do you know it isn't a multiplication?

BTW, your argument about "where polygamy is practiced" is like arguing against gay marriage because masters used to anally rape their salves.

 

[Kulindahr]

Let the tangents devolve into spirals of nonsense

It wasn't a tangent -- he's going at the core of your reasoning.

Why not?

From what I've read, and people I've met; I think that multiple relationships, say Triads, offer more, not less, than traditional pairing.

They might be wondering why you would want to limit yourself so, and parcel out your love in such small portions...

I heard that exact same thing from a trio at a bar in Portland one evening: they felt sorry for all the couples, who only had one person to be there for them.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm neither religious nor a bigot. It's asinine to suggest you could just have as many lovers as you want and say it's equal to what me and my boyfriend share!

As Nine of Clubs pointed out, the people in a four-way relationship might agree with you -- except that they'd be saying that your mere twosome is a pale thing next to the glory of four people giving their full love to each other!

Love isn't subject to arithmetic.

 

[MystikWizard]

Just what you admitted to as your personal opinion. I don't see why you believe marriage should only be between two people, and I don't see why such a limitation needs to be stipulated and codified.

Because even though I am not religious, I do believe that marriage should be between two people, and only two people who love each other. The more spouses one takes, the more it clearly becomes a relationship more so about sex, as opposed to an actual relationship of love.

Your spouse needs to be someone special. "The One", in other words. Not just some floozy to call your husband/wife to have sex with and reap the benefits from the State, as Soramoro also elaborated on to great extent.

No, it should not be added to the Gay marriage issue. THere are many reason why but most of all because the outlawing of polygamy has actual legal reasons behind it an not simply religious ones. The one main issue that I can remember of the top of my head is taxes. Everyone knows that people get tax exemptions for having dependents. Polygamy allows huge amounts of tax evasion for a person to have 50 wives and hundreds of children and never really have to play any money to the government because of dependent benefits. This possible and highly probable situation would wreak havoc on the way we do Taxes and to allow this would call for an entire overhaul on the tax system that requires more time and effort that could even be calculated. Imagine the tax system now and how complicated it is and having to redo the whole thing and teach it to people. There are more reasons against polygamy that have nothing to do with religion like family benefits at work that would all but disappear if Polygamy were allowed. I don't think anyone wants there family health care benefits taken away from their jobs (if you need me to elaborate on how this would happen I will be more than happy to just let me know). There are more but I don't have time to list them.

Besides I truly believe that the way things work in America is that if enough people want something to happen it will happen. That has proven itself to be true throughout our history. There s no reason for Gays to pick up the Polygamy Flag because there are people out there who will pick it up if they want it. There is no need to join a fight that you don't need to be in.

Edit: Have you ever heard of the Proverb if you chase 2 rabbits you will catch neither. Ultimately I think Polygamy should be left out because adding it does neither cause any good. It simply connects them in a way fatal to both. Neither would be achieved defeating the whole point of the cause in the first place. If you want achieve either you have to do so separately it is just the way things work especially in our current system of government.

 

[MystikWizard]

No tax benefit overrides the cost of living. The argument that polygamy would somehow be devastating to the tax code is inefficient too---the tax code needs to be overhauled anyway. It also overlooks all those who get married to a so-called "The One" for the same purposes. It's also an entirely subjective argument that only two people can share some unquantifiable and unqualitative assertion and any combination higher cannot. That argument can easily apply to only two people of the opposite sex, and there is even the argument that the tax code requires offspring, to which a same sex couple aren't 'naturally' allowed to produce.

No, not only do I not buy your argument for my personal perspective, but more importantly I fail to see it as valid for public policy. You can feel that way all you want, however. I don't care to change your mind. I do care to keep you from forcing your beliefs on the rest of us.

Well, all I can say is good luck with that one. Gay Marriage is a struggle enough as it is, much less trying to get polygamy recognized across the country.

My best advice is to finish one battle, before you start the other ... because trying to lump both in the same battle, is going to result in not one, but two failures. It's challenging enough for the Gay Community to get Gay Marriage passed, but anyone looking to lump both into the same battle, and want those battles to occur simultaneously, is plain and simply being selfish. And they know damn well that the rest of the country will simply shut both efforts down at the same time, and be done with it. That's not based on Ideology, as in what you are doing. That is based on Reality.

What would your perspective be if you do not receive any tax benefit for having more than one spouse, out of curiosity? Also, regarding adopted children, they can be claimed as a Dependent, just as if they were your own biological child. So, I don't see how that argument is relevant.

 

[Kulindahr]

^

This is one more reason why we should abandon trying to change the definition of marriage, and go for something open to all that supersedes, while including, marriage. Then it would be just one battle: for equality before the law for all.

It would take away the common chant in the PacNW, of "Special Rights!", because we could legitimately respond that we are plainly seeking equality for all -- even for people who hate us! -- that we are fighting to stop the government from telling people what sort of personal relationships are acceptable and what aren't.

I find that when I frame it as a matter of getting the government to stop telling us what we can or can't do, a lot of otherwise conservative people become willing to sign on -- whereas if it's a matter of "gay marriage", they'll fight it tooth and nail, because that comes down to government telling people what they can and can't do.

 

[hotatlboi]

The more spouses one takes, the more it clearly becomes a relationship more so about sex, as opposed to an actual relationship of love.

I have to again object to this line of reasoning. You are imposing your own definition on someone else's relationship. You can't generalize everyone's relationships or why they have them. How do you know that multi-partner arrangements are always about sex? Seems like a pretty arbitrary analysis to me.

 

[hotatlboi]

Plural marriage lessens the meaning of marriage because you are giving it to as many people as you want, while everyone else is devoted to just one person.

"Gay marriage lessens the meaning of marriage because it reverses thousands of years of tradition of husband and wife and says you can can marry whatever people you want."

I swear it's almost incredulous to me how you can fail to see these parallels in your reasoning.

 

[Kulindahr]

You can only give your full love to one person.

Then it must be evil and wicked of parents to have more than one child.

Again: love is not subject to arithmetic.

 

[Kulindahr]

When you spread your love life to other people rather than keeping it to only one? Yeah that lessens the meaning of marriage!

Are you sure it doesn't raise marriage to a higher standard -- more giving, less selfishness?

You haven't offered a rational argument yet, only an attempt to treat love like a pizza. But the thing about love is that if you love more than one person, you can give each one the whole pizza, and still have a whole one left.

 

[Kulindahr]

When you spread your love life to other people rather than keeping it to only one? Yeah that lessens the meaning of marriage! There is no parallel at all. If I were arguing for tradition, and I'm not, then yeah I could see a parallel.

It's entirely parallel: you're operating from an a priori assertion, and it doesn't matter if those come from tradition, your personal feelings, a seance, or a drug-induced vision.

You should ponder this old camp song:

"Love is like a magic penny:
hold it tight, and you won't have any!
Lend it, spend it, you'll have so many
they'll roll all over the floor!

Love is something, if you give it away, you'll end up having more."