Marriage Equality Warriors: "Not without Polygamy"

[lopri]

So today we are drawing the line at gender equality, and refusing to consider the rights of any group that has the preference to engage in plural marriage. That's fine with me, because I don't wear my ideologue hat anymore, but as an intellectual exercise it is rather interesting and slightly ironic to witness the ad hoc justifications for denying rights to certain people coming from the mouths of those who probably consider themselves champions of all sorts of special rights.

Why do you think gender equality is an ad-hoc justification? It was the heart of this debate.

 

[Subyman]

I don't know to whom you're butt hurt remark was intended but it certainly wouldn't apply to me.

It wasn't intended for you, but the OP.

 

[werepossum]

In general, polygamy has always been about the repression of women. These fucks pass their daughters off to each other. There is a wealth of documentation regarding the amount of abuse that goes along with the polygamous marriage cult.

Polygamy is BAD for women, BAD for children and BAD for society. I would never support such a thing. Neither should you.

If you want your polygamy, move to the Middle East and bask in the glory of middle ages culture, otherwise keep your woman hating bullshit to yourself.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...gamy-show-my-five-wives-accuses-father-abuse/

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/05/5338/

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/11/fleeing.polygamy.hammon/

http://www.cbn.com/entertainment/books/shattereddreams.aspx

etc....

I have made this point before with respect to linkage between gay marriage and polyamory. There is indeed a historic link between polygamy and repression of women. That is not necessarily part of polyamory though, just a reflection that historically women have had little power. Polyandry is as likely as polygamy, especially where sex is driving the relationship. Perhaps more so; I've known far more women than men who could wear out multiple partners and still be good to go, including one who inspired the frustrated comment that roads should be paved with her pussy because unlike asphalt it could never be worn out. But certainly any legalization of polyamorous marriage would have to take this historic imbalance of power into account, since those cults still exist.

 

[Moonbeam]

Thats a lot of pre-nups.



I've pretty much spelled out my anti-poligamy arguments already in a somewhat haphazard fashion over several posts. I think most would argue that I am exactly right and there is no need for further discussion.

You spelled out nothing that I can see and I went back to check. Did I miss something. Care to sum them up in case I missed something?

 

[zinfamous]

I have made this point before with respect to linkage between gay marriage and polyamory. There is indeed a historic link between polygamy and repression of women. That is not necessarily part of polyamory though, just a reflection that historically women have had little power. Polyandry is as likely as polygamy, especially where sex is driving the relationship. Perhaps more so; I've known far more women than men who could wear out multiple partners and still be good to go, including one who inspired the frustrated comment that roads should be paved with her pussy because unlike asphalt it could never be worn out. But certainly any legalization of polyamorous marriage would have to take this historic imbalance of power into account, since those cults still exist.

hey man--help a brother out with some digits?

 

[dank69]

hey man--help a brother out with some digits?

Just look for the girl with the "beat it up" tramp stamp.

 

[WHAMPOM]

Why noy polygamy, we can practise serial polygamy now,(marriage-devorce, remarriage-divorce to infinity) they just want to practise it in parallel. Just like that old time religion, multiple wives, concubines, handmaidens, "Husband, I your wife am barren, lay with my handmaiden and I will claim the child as mine."

 

[SMOGZINN]

I will only example some practical issues that will follow institutionalized polygamous marriage. I could engage in a higher level of generality but I do not think that is necessary to show why polygamous marriages would change the institution of marriage in the U.S. while a marriage between two persons of the same sex does not.

You are partially right about this, and I think you are going to see that the poly community is going to be okay with a civil union solution whereas the gay community was not and for good reason. They gay community was fighting for equality, and we have already accepted that you can't be equal but separate. The poly community is not fighting for equality, but to remove an abridgement of our freedom to marry.

I'll try to answer some of these, but I can't help notice that a number of these are not any different than problems already faced by a monogamous marriage.

Who will offer health insurance to employees' spouses, if an employee may have an unlimited number of spouses?

This is a problem, no doubt. I think the right argument here is that we should not be abridging my freedom in order to make it easier on the insurance companies.
How well do you think that argument would go over if they were trying to tell people they could not have more than one kid? Who will offer health insurance to employees' children, if an employee may have an unlimited number of children?

How long the spousal immunity should last when the entire gang members enter into a group marriage?

What about the 5th Amendment? How are we supposed to get gang members to testify when almost anything they testify to will incriminate them as well?
The reality is it is nearly impossible to compel a person to testify anyway. I imaging that they will do it the same way they do it now, by offering them deals that make it in their best interest to cooperate. I doubt this will make a big difference. Why don't criminals pair off and marry each other already? Because image is still important, and they won't want to be married to each other because the first group to do it will get mercilessly mocked by everyone.

How will INS monitor the naturalization processes of unlimited foreign spouses who group-marry a U.S. citizen?

How do they do it now with monogamous marriages? I imagine they will do it the same way, it just might take longer due to the extra man hours involved in investigating. This is something the poly community will just have to accept.
I personally don't think this is a problem, who even cares if a few people are able to become American Citizens by marriage?

If spouse A divorces her/his spouses out of a group marriage and remarry one of them in the future, what are the legal statuses of the other spouses in relation to the spouse A?

I have talked about this already, most of these sorts of problems are solved with a 'one marriage,many people' approach to group marriage. The answer in this case is that if 4 people are married and one wants a divorce they all get divorced, and then the 3 that still wants to be married have to get remarried. If the 4th wants back in at a later date then the 3 has to end their marriage and create a new one with the 4th.
This might sound complicated, but it is no more so than monogamous marriages. I have a monogamous friend that at age 43 has been married and divorced 5 times but has only had two wives!

Which spouse in the group marriage should have a custody of a child if the child's natural parents die in an unfortunate accident and the rest of the spouses want to divorce?

This is probably the most problematic issue there is in poly. What the poly community would like the law to be is that at the time of a child's birth everyone in the poly marriage is considered by law the child's legal parents, and that if the poly-family breaks up that all parties retain parental rights, that would include stuff like visitation and child support. If the biological parents should die, the child would remain with the rest of the poly-family.

If that poly-family should break up then a court will have to decide just who gets custody just like they do in the case of a monogamous divorce.

If a spouse in a group marriage takes a child to a foreign country and does not return, what happens?

The exact same thing as if that should happen to a monogamous couple. There is no difference here at all.

We can make these up (and multiply them) all day.

And I can answer them all day, because the answer to most of them are that it is not really different than the solutions we already use in monogamous relationships.

 

[piasabird]

Actually due to those people wanting welfare and child support from Uncle Sam Adults (using term loosely), or people of child bearing age 12-50, often are opting not to get married and often have children with 1 or more fathers not bothering to form permanent relationships, and this is a kind of Polygamy where the Mother has multiple boyfriends.

A lot of problems are caused by the government either making the tax code dependent on marital status or the government paying women to have children. Much of the root cause can be traced back to the government either having laws or not enforcing them. Then there is the possibility of one sex taking advantage of the other perceived weaker sex. Another important issue is that Marriage laws are different in Every state and people often elope to another location and get married. Maybe we do really need a national standard for marriage law. Often states just complicate everything. I could see doing away with state government altogether.

 

[Annisman*]

Here's my question, why does the government give marriage benefits ? I'm guessing it's to help promote population growth. Man + Woman ususally = kids. So why do the gays get benefits now ? Couldn't I say they are discriminating against us single folk ? IMO marriage benefits are stupid, either everybody should get them or just get rid of them altogether. Now that marriage has nothing to do with creating children (according to our government) let's take it a step further and strip all benefits from married couples.

The gays getting marriage 'rights' is the start down a road where marriage is completely pointless, it used to be special, it used to have meaning it now has almost none.

 

[Moonbeam]

Here's my question, why does the government give marriage benefits ? I'm guessing it's to help promote population growth. Man + Woman ususally = kids. So why do the gays get benefits now ? Couldn't I say they are discriminating against us single folk ? IMO marriage benefits are stupid, either everybody should get them or just get rid of them altogether. Now that marriage has nothing to do with creating children (according to our government) let's take it a step further and strip all benefits from married couples.

The gays getting marriage 'rights' is the start down a road where marriage is completely pointless, it used to be special, it used to have meaning it now has almost none.

You throw around the word meaning as if you knew what it is and yet you can't possibly know what meaning is and make the statement you just did. I will ask you them, what is the meaning of marriage. Perhaps you will now see that you actually have no idea.

 

[crashtech]

Why do you think gender equality is an ad-hoc justification? It was the heart of this debate.

I think you misunderstood my post. I don't think gender equality is an ad-hoc justification, in fact, that sentence doesn't even make much sense to me, since gender equality is a well-established concept. I'm not really planning on participating in this thread and I'm not subscribed, if you want to talk about it feel free to PM me.

 

[bshole]

I have made this point before with respect to linkage between gay marriage and polyamory. There is indeed a historic link between polygamy and repression of women. That is not necessarily part of polyamory though, just a reflection that historically women have had little power. Polyandry is as likely as polygamy, especially where sex is driving the relationship. Perhaps more so; I've known far more women than men who could wear out multiple partners and still be good to go, including one who inspired the frustrated comment that roads should be paved with her pussy because unlike asphalt it could never be worn out. But certainly any legalization of polyamorous marriage would have to take this historic imbalance of power into account, since those cults still exist.

Here is a weird one, it actually costs the state tons of money to support polygamy because they can't legally marry. It is to their financial benefit to lack the ability to legally marry. I like the figure of 65% of polygamists being on the dole. Thoughts? Mine is to deport every last one of them....

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/and...2006/05/how-polygamy-affects-your-wallet.html

You may or may not agree with polygamist Warren Jeffs' lifestyle, and you may or may not think he is indeed the dangerous criminal the FBI says he is, but would you believe Jeffs and his followers are costing you money?

"Their religious belief is that they'll bleed the beast, meaning the government," said Mark Shurtleff, Utah's attorney general. "They hate the government, so they'll bleed it for everything they can through welfare, tax evasion and fraud."

It makes some sense. Polygamists have multiple wives and dozens of children, but the state only recognizes one marriage. That leaves the rest of the wives to claim themselves as single moms with armies of children to support. Doing that means they can apply for welfare, which they do. And it's all legal.

"More than 65 percent of the people are on welfare ... compared with 6 percent of the people of the general population," Shurtleff said.

 

[werepossum]

Here's my question, why does the government give marriage benefits ? I'm guessing it's to help promote population growth. Man + Woman ususally = kids. So why do the gays get benefits now ? Couldn't I say they are discriminating against us single folk ? IMO marriage benefits are stupid, either everybody should get them or just get rid of them altogether. Now that marriage has nothing to do with creating children (according to our government) let's take it a step further and strip all benefits from married couples.

The gays getting marriage 'rights' is the start down a road where marriage is completely pointless, it used to be special, it used to have meaning it now has almost none.

How can something be special by limiting it to 96% of the population???

And an even better question - by what right do the 96% get to make something they have special by excluding the 4%?

In ages gone by, left-handed people were considered abnormal and suspicious, even though they form 10% of the population. The very word "sinister" is Latin for left-handed. Suppose we allowed only the "normal" right-handed 90% of people to marry. Would marriage then be special, or would it simply be constrained with an artificial and stupid limitation?

 

[werepossum]

Here is a weird one, it actually costs the state tons of money to support polygamy because they can't legally marry. It is to their financial benefit to lack the ability to legally marry. I like the figure of 65% of polygamists being on the dole. Thoughts? Mine is to deport every last one of them....

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/and...2006/05/how-polygamy-affects-your-wallet.html

Can't deport them because virtually all American polygamists are native-born, but I'd certainly put Jeffs in prison for being a deadbeat dad. Even if that takes a court order to get a DNA sample. In prison plus no conjugal visitation means no more little Warren Jeffs.

Personally I'm not buying the "bleed the beast" argument. There simply aren't enough of this kind to even get on the radar. I believe they are just useless prats who want free money.

 

[bshole]

Can't deport them because virtually all American polygamists are native-born, but I'd certainly put Jeffs in prison for being a deadbeat dad. Even if that takes a court order to get a DNA sample. In prison plus no conjugal visitation means no more little Warren Jeffs.

Well what about the meme that the majority of polygamists are ACTIVELY anti-American? That they are trying to bleed and break the system? As somebody who was previously unaware of their scandalous welfare lifestyle I suddenly find myself in the position of supporting the legal modification of their status. It infuriates me that they knowingly and purposely create as many kids as possible to ramp up their welfare payments and to bleed the state. This strikes me as a criminal act.

Oops, just saw the second part of your post....

Personally I'm not buying the "bleed the beast" argument. There simply aren't enough of this kind to even get on the radar. I believe they are just useless prats who want free money.

So I guess you kind of answered that already....

By the way, are you pro-polygamous marriage or anti?

 

[cabri]

Here is a weird one, it actually costs the state tons of money to support polygamy because they can't legally marry. It is to their financial benefit to lack the ability to legally marry. I like the figure of 65% of polygamists being on the dole. Thoughts? Mine is to deport every last one of them....

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/and...2006/05/how-polygamy-affects-your-wallet.html

Deport to wheare? Most of what is being discussed is related to people that are legal US residents.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Here's my question, why does the government give marriage benefits ? I'm guessing it's to help promote population growth. Man + Woman ususally = kids. So why do the gays get benefits now ? Couldn't I say they are discriminating against us single folk ? IMO marriage benefits are stupid, either everybody should get them or just get rid of them altogether. Now that marriage has nothing to do with creating children (according to our government) let's take it a step further and strip all benefits from married couples.

The gays getting marriage 'rights' is the start down a road where marriage is completely pointless, it used to be special, it used to have meaning it now has almost none.

You are an ill-informed, pants-wetting, ninny. I'd pity you if I thought your condition was due to something else besides your own apathy for the truth.

 

[Annisman*]

I am looking at marriage from the point of the government here, tell me why a gay marriage should get the benefits of a hetero child producing marriage ? You can't, you might say it's for equal rights but it defeats the purpose of those benefits. Tell me why then we have marriage benefits. They should be gotten rid of.

 

[dank69]

I am looking at marriage from the point of the government here, tell me why a gay marriage should get the benefits of a hetero child producing marriage ? You can't, you might say it's for equal rights but it defeats the purpose of those benefits. Tell me why then we have marriage benefits. They should be gotten rid of.

Why should a hetero couple who cannot conceive children get marriage benefits? Should the government not give benefits to old couples?

 

[zinfamous]

I am looking at marriage from the point of the government here, tell me why a gay marriage should get the benefits of a hetero child producing marriage ? You can't, you might say it's for equal rights but it defeats the purpose of those benefits. Tell me why then we have marriage benefits. They should be gotten rid of.

Your argument is the same dead horse that has been beaten and tossed into the river years ago.

Your argument assumes many false things:

--Only hetero marriages can produce children (not true)
--Heteros only marry to produce children (not true)
--Married couples are required to produce children as some rule of marriage (not true)
--Apparently, there is no need for adoption in this world. Likewise, raising adopted children does not deserve the same federal benefits as rearing one's spawned children (again, not true)
--All hetero marriages are capable of producing children (guess what? This isn't true, either)

 

[SMOGZINN]

I am looking at marriage from the point of the government here, tell me why a gay marriage should get the benefits of a hetero child producing marriage ? You can't, you might say it's for equal rights but it defeats the purpose of those benefits. Tell me why then we have marriage benefits. They should be gotten rid of.

Here is a real serious question that you need to answer before going any further with this line of argument.

Do you believe that humans ever needed a government benefit to encourage reproduction?

Unless you answer to that question is, 'Why, yes! We were in danger of extinction because everyone just kind of got tired of sex, and if it wasn't for that sweet tax benefit we would all just spend our time on more entertaining endeavors.' then your argument is full of shit.

 

[Moonbeam]

I am looking at marriage from the point of the government here, tell me why a gay marriage should get the benefits of a hetero child producing marriage ? You can't, you might say it's for equal rights but it defeats the purpose of those benefits. Tell me why then we have marriage benefits. They should be gotten rid of.

They should get the benefits because of the constitution. If any government benefits are extended to the married then married gays get them too. It's just that simple. You don't have to deserve or earn your rights. They are guaranteed. Do you know anything about being an American citizen?

 

[TheSlamma]

I am looking at marriage from the point of the government here, tell me why a gay marriage should get the benefits of a hetero child producing marriage ? You can't, you might say it's for equal rights but it defeats the purpose of those benefits. Tell me why then we have marriage benefits. They should be gotten rid of.

These qualify for the tax break:
child or stepchild
foster child
sibling or step-sibling
descendants of any of these, such as your grandchild

You can then also deduct for these relatives if they are also dependent on you:
Siblings, including half or step-siblings
Parents, grandparents or any other direct ancestors
Stepparents
Aunts or uncles
Nieces or nephews
Fathers-in-law, mothers-in-law, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law

Time to dump the tax break dependent write off argument.

 

[werepossum]

Well what about the meme that the majority of polygamists are ACTIVELY anti-American? That they are trying to bleed and break the system? As somebody who was previously unaware of their scandalous welfare lifestyle I suddenly find myself in the position of supporting the legal modification of their status. It infuriates me that they knowingly and purposely create as many kids as possible to ramp up their welfare payments and to bleed the state. This strikes me as a criminal act.

Oops, just saw the second part of your post....
So I guess you kind of answered that already....

By the way, are you pro-polygamous marriage or anti?

I'm not really either. In general I prefer the maximum individual liberty, which is pro-polyamory. However, the history of polyamory here is polygamy, usually based on wacko religious cults and usually with a powerful subculture of coercion which extends to the girl children who get recycled as wives, which pushes me toward opposition. As a conservative, I prefer my social change cautiously implemented, so if pressed I'd probably vote against even though that offends my libertarian side. Polyamorous marriage has actual direct serious complications, unlike gay marriage, and where potential changes have actual direct serious complications I want them very thoroughly vetted before being adopted. Also, in my experience polyamorous relationships tend to be transient and non-exclusive, which argues against redefining marriage for them. But as I said, I've no strong feelings either way.