shira
Diamond Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 9,500
- 6
- 81
CONSENSUAL AGE.
Get it yet?
You're missing the point. In deciding whether to allow or proscribe a behavior, the state determines the overall impact of the behavior - for good or ill.
Right now, polygamy is illegal in the U.S., because it's clear that polygamy almost always entails child abuse: polygamists collect together in communities, and the furtherance of their multi-wife ways leads to coercion of underage females, since that's the primary way men wanting more wives can ensure themselves of a ready supply: force the 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old girls to marry while they're still under the control of their parents.
Legalizing polygamy among "consenting adults" would do nothing but make the child abuse even more difficult to prevent. So the state has a valid reason for keeping it illegal.
Edit: I think you're hung on the phrase "consenting adults," as if that solves everything. But let me provide you with an analogy:
Suppose there's a move to legalize possession of nuclear armaments by private citizens "of sound mind." Would you support passage of such a law?
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