Defend Polygamy

It seems to work for Hugh Hefner, and he's not even married to any of them.

If you follow Judaism Christianity or Islam the arguments for polygamy are pretty powerful ( Abraham, Isaac, Mohammed etc. practiced it who are we to criticize?). From a modern "consenting adults should be albe to do whatever they wan't" viewpoint it also seems unimpeachable. I can't think of any argument for gay marriage that doesn't apply on its case.

Unfortunately, marriage is much more than a contract. It's deeply intertwined with our culture, including the economy. I think the elephant in the room in the gay marriage issue is children, and it would be the same for polygamy in my head. Civil unions may be a civil contract between consenting adults, but children greatly complicate the equation.

gay marriage "brings polygamy in" insofar as ppl try to define marriage as "one man one woman" against homosexual relationships.

By flaying the definition of marriage, gay marriage does not necessarily validate or sanctify other relationships such as polygamy. But the legal basis behind marriage and polygamy is then brought much closer together; how can the state then argue against polygamist marriages except on moral grounds?

Not that I'm not sure it isn't worth figuring out those quandries, mind you.

The difference is that in many cultures (Arab, Mormon, Ancient Chinese) Polygamy is/was not just legal, but was actually the norm. In fact, the further back into human history you go, the more common it is. (And also, conversely, the harsher the prohibitions against homosexuality.) Yet many of the cultures which have practiced it in the past (most notably the Judeo-Christian tradition of the Old Testament which all these God-botherers base their arguments on) have abandonned it.

Does this point to an idea that perhaps it is an inherently unstable model which is exploitative of one gender over the other which more "advanced" civilisations have since moved beyond, as their concept of "female" grows from chattel to citizen? Or does this point to the idea that it is one particular cultural tradition which has culturally dominated the other traditions? Perhaps it slipped into the conquering Judeo-Christian model along with other Classical Greek thought, when the Official State Religion of the Roman Empire model of Christianity supplanted the early Jewish Messianic sect. And if this is the case, well, the Classical Greek model as popularised by Plato posited that it was one soul joined to one soul, fullstop, and gender was just not an issue.

You have two traditions here. There is a survival (or even expansion) model where you have one male impregnating as many females as he can support, and non-reproductive sex (i.e. homosexuality) is forbidden. In another, stable model, you have single partner linked to single partner, regardless of offspring outcome - or gender.

I know which makes more sense to me, and which would work for me, and which wouldn't.

But thing is, if people are going to bring their godbothering traditions into it, they should at least understand the full tradition, and what it entails.

Plus, really, if we're getting into this, taking sides: Dowries vs. Bride Prices. You want more wives? You gotta pay for 'em! If you have to be stuck with one wife, she's gotta bring you half of Aquitaine in the deal!

Seriously, I once joked with my parents, asking how much of a dowry they would provide me with, as an incentive to get married. My father replied "I don't think so. We're African. We're going to get a good bride price for you. I expect seventeen goats or you're not leaving my kraal!" (Maybe this is the real reason HSA doesn't want to get married!)

This doesn't have to be the case, if you envision legal polygamy
as any number of concurrent two-person unions. Any custody battle
would still remain a matter for only the two parents.

On the main issue, I hate to insert myself precariously, but
polygamy makes more legal sense to me than gay marriage; after
all, as previously mentioned, polygamy is a traditional custom
for a large percentage of humanity. Is there any society
with a longstanding tradition of gay marriage?

The first question might be: is there any longstanding society? We're always going through changes, the roman empire lasted a long time but certainly wasn't the same from beginning to end.

Another issue (as I always bring up in these discussions) is that the definition of 'gay,' or queer sexuality as we know it, is a fairly modern definition. Before we started cataloging our desires so meticulously (thank you freud), same-sex friendships that involved physical contact were not uncommon, and occasionally they would last a lifetime (although more commonly they would happen before heterosexual marriage).

Before men had to be so worried about being 'gay' or 'straight,' they weren't concerned about what a long hug or a kiss with another man might mean or what it might lead to. Not to mention sharing a bed with another man, which was frequently more practical than it was romantic--Abe Lincoln shared another man's bed for three years as a young lawyer because he needed somewhere to sleep.

So there are plenty of examples of same-sex romantic relationships(mostly between men) that we can find in history, from the greeks and romans to the samurai to native cultures in the americas/polynesia/siberia, but they were different from today because society is completely different--desire has been so fully medicalized, with one type of behavior highlighted as normal and all the rest stigmatized.

conservative groups claim that, if a
referendum on gay-marriage was held, they would win by a
landslide - while the gay activists claim the exact opposite.
why not just settle the issue?

Utah moves to legalize polygamy

The divorce rate is still too low apparently.

"We want to spend money to prevent the gays from marrying in another state, but goddamnit, our lack of legal spouse buckets is just government discrimination!"

I think one of the barriers I have with Big Love (though I do watch it regularly) is that I will always find Bill a little offensive. Call me small-minded, but using religion to justify having three wives just seems wrong. "I can regularly fuck three different women, they'll all do my bidding, and I get salvation for it? shit yeah!"

uh yeah to be clear this isn't utah moving to legalize polygamy, this is a small minority of polygamists in utah trying to get some traction w/ political leaders who are very very anti-polygamy and failing for the most part. reading, it is easy.

x-post

like why did you call it "Utah moves to legalize polygamy" when you could have called it by the actual title of the article and then you wouldn't be lying?

a good thing about this thread being revived is it is reminding me of ilx's halcyon days when the likes of Squirrel_Police roamed free.