Polygamy: More Common Than You Think
Polygamy is a popular punchline these days, from HBO’s drama “Big Love” to TLC’s documentary “Sister Wives” and the Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon,” written by the creators of “South Park.” Yet plural marriage is as serious an issue as it’s ever been—and is even on the rise in the West.
Warren Jeffs, the infamous leader of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints sect, is in an Arizona jail awaiting trial on charges of bigamy and sexual assault. North of the border, Canadian authorities have been trying to nab his co-religionists. In 2009, prosecutors charged Winston Blackmore and James Oler, two leaders of the fundamentalist community in Bountiful, British Columbia, with polygamy.
The case was thrown out on a technicality, but now Canada’s anti-polygamy statute, which dates to 1890, is being put to the test in a so-called “reference case.” In effect, the government is seeking an opinion from the court on whether the statute is valid. Opponents say that it violates the country’s commitment to religious freedom. “Consenting adults have the right—the Charter protected right—to form the families that they want to form,” Monique Pongracic-Speier of the Civil Liberties Association has said.
Supporters of the statute say that it’s not about persecuting religious outliers or maintaining a traditional definition of family for its own sake. Rather, it is about protecting human rights. The case has begun to inflame passions far from the rural communities of small Mormon breakaway groups.
Polygamy—or more specifically polygyny, the marriage of one man to more than one woman—has been widespread in human history. And it is becoming increasingly common, particularly in Muslim enclaves—including in Paris, London and New York.
A 2006 report by the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights reported that approximately 180,000 people were living in polygamous households in France. For decades, France allowed entrance to polygamous immigrants from about 50 countries where the practice was legal. When the French government banned polygamy in 1993, it tried to support the decohabitation of such couples if a wife wanted to move into her own apartment with her children.
In Britain, where immigration laws have banned the practice for longer, there appear to be about a thousand valid polygamous marriages, mostly among immigrants who married elsewhere, such as in Pakistan. Such families are allowed to collect social security benefits for each wife, although the government has apparently not counted how many are doing so.
In the United States, where numbers are more difficult to come by, anecdotal reports indicate underground communities of polygamists in New York City, particularly among immigrant communities from West Africa.
Where the practice remains common in Africa it cuts across religious lines. But in the West, it has been concentrated among Muslims and breakaway Mormon sects. Under Islamic Shariah law, a man is allowed to marry up to four women as long as he can provide for them equally. This should constitute a limiting factor, especially under conditions of poverty. But one way polygamists circumvent this problem is by getting their governments to support unofficial wives whose ambiguous legal status allows them to make claims for aid.
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What’s the big deal with polygamy?
@Sean
What’s the big deal with polygamy?
Sean, that statement is exactly why many of us object to redefining marriage to include gay couples–once you remove the requirement for opposite sexes, there is no reason to stop there. Anything goes.
My question was, why is it a big deal if polygamy were legal? It’s easy enough to outlaw, unlike same-sex marriage, but if it were legal, what would change? If TRI is now implying that that scarcity of gay people means they don’t have equal rights, I would counter that the rarity of polygamy means would should just go ahead and legalize it and see what happens.
When same-sex marriage is legalized, marriage isn’t being redefined, just extended for more possible participants. Marriage has not, until very recently, been defined as “one man, one woman, to the exclusion of same-sex couples.”
@Sean
My question was, why is it a big deal if polygamy were legal?
I know that I didn’t answer your question. (See below.) I was pointing out that gay “marriage” is part of a slippery slope.
If TRI is now implying that that scarcity of gay people means they don’t have equal rights…
TRI’s arguments against gay marriage are not based on the scarcity of gay people, saying that minorities can be deprived of rights simply because they are a minority.
…the rarity of polygamy means would should just go ahead and legalize it and see what happens.
Well for one thing, the rarity of polygamy is partly because it is illegal. If we legalize it, one of the things that we will “see happen” is that it won’t be so rare any more.
When same-sex marriage is legalized, marriage isn’t being redefined, just extended for more possible participants.
The exact same argument could be made in the case of polygamy: “Marriage isn’t being redefined, just extended for more possible participants”–more per marriage.
Marriage has not, until very recently, been defined as “one man, one woman, to the exclusion of same-sex couples.”
Oh, come on–only for the last couple of thousand years! You can argue that the traditional definition was unjust and oppressive, and that since we are more enlightened now, the traditional definition should be thrown out. But you can hardly argue that the traditional definition isn’t traditional!
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As far as what is wrong with polygamy, if you click the “keep reading” link, the author’s next sentence is: There are more serious problems that come with the practice of polygamy. My research over the past decade, encompassing more than 170 countries, has shown the detrimental effects of polygynous practices on human rights, for both men and women. See her article for more info.
@Sean Marriage certainly has to be redefined in order to include SSM. — Marriage by definition is opposite sex unions. Since that is the definition, to make SSM possible the definition has to be changed. It has always been defined that way throughout history.
Note the continuation of this theme from what Sean said in another thread…
Back to Sean…
Okay Sean you don’t want marriage to be redefined then I’ll agree to that. We’ll keep the definition just “one and and one woman” and leave all references to same-sex couples off of it.
Lawrence v Texas actually stated the basic definition of marriage: marriage is about the right to have sexual intercourse. That’s the definition, and it has traditionally only been possible for a man and a woman to have sexual intercourse.
A legal marriage is an eligible couple that consents to the obligations and is then allowed to conceive offspring together. It is never given to couples that are ineligible because they are prohibited by law from conceiving offspring together, because that would be a complete contradiction of the definition of marriage. So it would not change the meaning of marriage to give a marriage license to a same-sex couple, because they are not prohibited by law from conceiving offspring together. It would change it more to give it to incestuous male-female couples unless we also repealed incest laws to allow them to have sex and reproduce.
“The right to have sexual intercourse” is synonymous with the right to reproduce, to conceive offspring together. Sexual intercourse happens between persons, not body parts. A woman has sexual intercourse with a man, not with his penis. It refers to actions that might result in offspring being conceived, so it includes artificial conception like using turkey basters or petri dishes (I might be alone but I’m right about this). So sexual intercourse is actually possible for same-sex couples, if they go to a lab and have artificial gametes made from stem cells. It is not possible using their own bodies for same-sex couples, but it is possible using a lab. So we can certainly give a marriage license to same-sex couples to conceive offspring together, and we certainly should insist on it if they intend to do it. It makes no sense to allow them to conceive offspring but prohibit them from marrying. But we should not allow them to make offspring together. People should only be allowed to make offspring with someone of the other sex.
Glenn, we don’t have to provide any recognition like CU’s. I have proposed them in my compromise as a way to stop achieve the goals of stopping same-sex marriage in every state and preserving marriage as a man and a woman, but we could also enact the law against human manufacture and stop same-sex marriage without CU’s, if we can. That’d require a harder push on your side though, because there won’t be anybody helping on the other side. But if you can do it, go for it.
“But you can hardly argue that the traditional definition isn’t traditional!”
Ok, well since women were traditionally the property of their husbands, and legally subordinated to them, why not keep that tradition alive? Since marriage was traditionally a lifetime commitment, why not outlaw divorce, in honor of tradition?
We seems to be will to redefine marriage to meet the ever-changing needs of straight people, but not for gay people. Why is that?
“Okay Sean you don’t want marriage to be redefined then I’ll agree to that. We’ll keep the definition just “one and and one woman” and leave all references to same-sex couples off of it.”
I think it’s perfectly fine to redefine marriage, if that’s what you want to call it when straight people and gay people get equal access to it. But nobody called it “redefining voting” when women got the right to vote. Nobody called it “redefining nursing” when men became nurses.
It sounds like some terrible breach of protocol to “redefine” something. Like all the rhetoric surrounding same-sex marriage, it’s long on fear-mongering, and short on substance.
“Lawrence v Texas actually stated the basic definition of marriage: marriage is about the right to have sexual intercourse. That’s the definition, and it has traditionally only been possible for a man and a woman to have sexual intercourse.”
So let me get this straight, so to speak: people get married in order to get the right to have sexual intercourse. So every second of every day, somewhere on the planet, a man gets down on his knees, and asks a woman, “will you marry me, so that we can have the right to have sex?” Really? What, exactly, were they doing in the bedroom prior to the proposal, and did they break any laws when they did it?
@Emma
The problem with making polygamy, or marriage between two people of the same sex, legal is that it is the state has no right to redefine marriage.
Marriage came before any form of government, and a government that attempts to redefine marriage forfeits that government’s right to exist.
@Emma
Correction:
The problem with making polygamy, or marriage between two people of the same sex, legal is that the state has no right to redefine marriage.
Marriage came before any form of government, and a government that attempts to redefine marriage forfeits that government’s right to exist.
They were breaking the fornication law in my state. And even if there weren’t breaking a law, marriage would still be about the right to have sexual intercourse. Do you agree that married couples have the right to have sexual intercourse and the right to create offspring? That should be a yes or no question, I am not interested in your opinion about unmarried sex, just about whether married couples have the right to create offspring.
@John Howard Lawrence vs Texas may give a particular definition of what marriage includes, but not the definition of what marriage has been for thousands of years. Webster’s original dictionary of 1828 defined marriage the way it was recognized for all those years: “The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity, and for securing the maintenance and education of children.” Genesis also gives as the reason for marriage being that “the two shall become one.” This “oneness” includes a spiritual oneness, whether or not the individuals are God-fearing.
@Sean You argue about traditions that weren’t universal and want to apply that argument to traditions that were universal. Women being property was never a universal tradition, while marriage being restricted to members of the opposite sex has been a universal tradition.
Marriage has been a lifetime commitment with divorce universally recognized as a way to terminate a marriage where either party violated the commitment.
The abuse of marriage by divorce or other abuses does not therefore mean marriage should be redefined.
@Sean The word “vote” or “voting” has no definition defining who can or cannot vote. The word “marriage” has a definition as to its meaning of a union between opposite sex members. A law restricting who can vote does not change the definition of the word. Your logic is terribly flawed.
Before:
After:
Can Sean hold a straight line on anything?
We’ve seen your need Sean, your animus towards “religionists” and their ideas like — marriage equality is the equal recognition of the needs of the man, woman, and child they potentially have together.
I don’t think that need is anything more than vindictiveness, the need to plunder people you hate of the things they find most valuable.
All the other needs can be satisfied without re-defining marriage.
@Sean
And, I should point out that millions of religious people believe that fornicators cannot get into heaven and rely on the state to declare them married and make it legal to have sex. They don’t all belong to a church either, so they don’t just want a “religious ceremony” which are meaningless even in the eyes of a church. Churches rely on civil authority to police marriage and adultery and fornication, they don’t have a police force, and their members live in the state, not in the church. What matters to a church is that the couple makes a civil legal commitment. I know there are insane cults that have ceremonies and celebrations of weddings that don’t actually have legal force, nothing is stopping people from doing silly stuff like that, or feeling that it means something. But serious churches operate in the real world, and truly religious people respect civil authority.
There are also millions of religious people who know that God is merciful and will forgive even murderers who are repentant and ask for His mercy.
@Glenn E. Chatfield
Thanks for the original Webster’s definition, but it’s not as if Noah Webster invented marriage or properly defined it. He was a revolutionary and either overlooked or minimized the state’s role in marriage.
From his wikipedia entry: “As a Federalist spokesman, he was repeatedly denounced by the Jeffersonian Republicans as “a pusillanimous, half-begotten, self-dubbed patriot,” “an incurable lunatic,” and “a deceitful newsmonger … Pedagogue and Quack.”"
@John Howard Oh, and we learn a lot about a person’s integrity by name-calling opponents, don’t we? Seems Americans found his dictionary to be authoritative for generations. He defined words as the society understood them. His definition of marriage was as society understood it for thousands of years.
@Ruth
“Marriage came before any form of government, and a government that attempts to redefine marriage forfeits that government’s right to exist.”
Marriage could not possibly pre-date “any from of government”, Ruth. Sure, perhaps monogamy and social patterns of exclusivity pre-date government, where cavemen knew they weren’t supposed to have sex with Og’s female, and Og fought off other cavemen that tried to have sex with his wife, but it didn’t become marriage until there was some kind of social support system that helped Og even when he was away on a hunt. I think that is the earliest form of government, perhaps one of the first laws, “don’t have sex with Og’s woman while he’s off on the hunt!” Even if we go by Genesis, I think God certainly governed the Garden of Eden, and His authority is the government’s authority. Eventually the laws were formalized and expanded to protect the wife after Og died, and were formalized about who was allowed to marry who, and that might be what you are thinking of – certainly those formal laws came after the more informal expectations. But those informal laws were still government, just an informal government.
And government is necessary for preventing incest and punishing incest and adultery and abandonment, which means it has to make rules about what relationships are allowed to marry and which are prohibited from marrying. No one else can make those rules, obviously we can’t let the incestuous couple or the abandoning husband make the rules.
@Glenn E. Chatfield
Yes, his dictionary was very successful, but calling it “authoritative” is giving it too much legal weight. It is not authoritative unless it is the agreed-on dictionary to use for Scrabble.
I am sure his opponents did more than just call him names, they surely backed up their insults with specific allegations of his lunacy or deceitfulness (as hard as that might be to believe!). The point, though, is not that he was deceitful, it is that he was controversial, and his definition of any word should not be taken as gospel. He had an agenda and a bias, and also was just a man who might not understand or articulate the full or correct meaning even if he was unbiased.
Emma, polygamy is a series of man-woman marriages. A man’s second wife does not marry his first wife. And neither of his first two wives marry a third or fourth wife.
It is not a redefinition.
The societal response to the core meaning of marriage has varied — some societies have permitted multiple marriages (sometimes concurrently and sometimes in sequence) and some have not. Our society draws the line at one marriage at-a-time. That has not changed the core meaning of the social institution of marriage.
@On Lawn
“Can Sean hold a straight line on anything?”
I think Sean is simply pointing out that its a moot point if you want to call it redefining marriage. Everyone understands what is at issue here: allowing people to marry someone of the other sex. Whether that is “redefining marriage” or not is secondary and mere semantics. It carries no argumentative force. Do you seriously imagine that there is anyone out there who supports same-sex marriage, but oh, when they read that “same-sex marriage redefines marriage” they will suddenly change their mind? Do you think it will persuade any fence sitters? I think they are looking for concrete reasons, they want to know HOW it will redefine marriage, they want to know WHY it shouldn’t be redefined, they want to know WHAT the effects will be.
“The word “vote” or “voting” has no definition defining who can or cannot vote. The word “marriage” has a definition as to its meaning of a union between opposite sex members. A law restricting who can vote does not change the definition of the word. Your logic is terribly flawed.”
I beg to differ. The word marriage connoted different-sex couples only because that was the permissible arrangement at the time. If different-sex and same-sex couples were both commonplace, marriage would have meant, “the legal joining of two people.” Besides, as straight people have redefined and neutered marriage, that has made it just as useful to same-sex couples as it is for different-sex couples.
There is nothing inherently feminine about nursing but up until about 20 years ago or so, if you said you had a friend who is a nurse, 99.9% of the population would have assumed this friend was a female. Why? Because that was the common practice. Must someone be a female to be a nurse? A lot of men who are nurses would say no, I suspect.
“Our society draws the line at one marriage at-a-time. That has not changed the core meaning of the social institution of marriage.”
Since I’m not afraid to state the obvious: if marriage is a lifetime commitment, it very much DOES change the core meaning, if serial marriage is allowed. It’s kind of hard to have a lifelong marriage if you get divorced. Yet divorce is perfectly legal, in all 50 states. Yet for reasons that shall evidently remain unarticulated, there is great resistance from some quarters against legal same-sex marriage.
Divorce is against God’s plan and destroys a family, and it’s legal and no one opposes that. Same-sex marriage is unmentioned by God, creates a family, benefits children, and the religionists oppose it. Go figure!
When you and Sean start coming to an agreement on anything, I might start taking your advice on what he’s saying
For now his quotes speak for themselves.
@John Howard Marriage did indeed precede government. God made marriage with Adam and Eve – that is the foundation that even Jesus and Paul pointed back to when they discussed marriage. Cave men came along after them.
@John Howard Nothing like revising history to marginalize a brilliant man. The point is still that his definition of Marriage was based on what society called marriage for thousands of years. He didn’t just make up the idea.
@John Howard
I did mean government by human beings.
Adam’s relationship with Eve (Ish and Isha) was not only a means of loving companionship, but it unified what had been separated in the creation of the woman.
The unity of the two parts of “man” is the mystery of human marriage.
“This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!”
I agree that government must certainly take the role of defining marriage.
Government has no right to REdefine marriage.
There you go Sean, you can sum that up and put it on a bumpersticker…
Neuter marriage, it is just as good for families as divorce!
Onlawn, marriage has already been neutered: states eliminated coverture, and made marriage partners genderless. There are no gender roles in marriage anymore.
Want to help families? Spend your time working to outlaw divorce, at least while there are minor aged children in the home. Stopping same-sex marriage only hurts kids. Maybe that’s acceptable collateral damage for you but it’s not for me and a lot of other people.
@Glenn E. Chatfield
Then God made Government with Adam and Eve, too. God certainly governs the world, and God creates governments and gives them rightful authority that people are supposed to respect. You can’t be anti-government and pro-marriage, marriage is a form of government, it is a law, it governs human behavior with social sanctions and punishments.
@Sean
Divorce is against God’s plan and destroys a family, and it’s legal and no one opposes that.
Sean, you’re 75% correct. Divorce is against God’s plan; it does destroy a family; it is legal. However, one of the purposes of the Ruth Institute is to help couples realize that marriage is a lifelong commitment and to help them succeed in keeping that lifelong commitment.
@John Howard God did indeed establish governments, but my point was that government did NOT exist before marriage. And one can indeed be against particular governments and governmental actions and be within God’s will. After all, we are told that “we must obey God rather than man.”
The Ruth Institute should “help” married couples the same way it “helps” gay couples: advocate that divorce (like same-sex marriage) be illegal.
@Sean Divorce is permitted by God, SSM isn’t.
@Glenn E. Chatfield Marriage is government. Explain to me how it could exist without government. Would the spouses have to stay married? Would there be any punishment for adultery? Could any couple marry whenever they wanted? Was incest allowed? Marriage is rules and punishments and requires government authority (or, in Paradise, God did that job himself).
Sean should advocate for same-sex relationships like he advocates for polygamist relationships….
And admit that gays having a ceremony and living their lives together, even getting recognition through CU’s is not “illegal”, just as he tried to say a polygamist who has only one of his three marriages recognized by the state is perfectly legal.
But that doesn’t garner the false sympathy he wants for gays (at the expense of everyone else) so he continues to practice his own brand of equality that I call “Sean-Quality”.
@John Howard That’s the point. God was the government in Eden. Marriage existed before man’s government.
@Glenn E. Chatfield But not before government. Marriage requires government, is the point. Marriage IS government. And God is not the government anymore, so marriage is not governed by God anymore. In America, the people are the government, and so it’s up to us to make the rules. Not just complain about them, but to actually make the rules.
I’m trying to change our laws and same-sex marriage in Massachusetts and every state, indeed every country on God’s Green Earth, starting with America. You want to do that, right? I want to preserve marriage as a man and a woman and preserve natural sexual reproduction and teach kids that they should be heterosexual and love someone of the other sex. You want to do all that too right? If we can do all that, is it really so bad if we give legal protections and obligations and benefits to a few same-sex couples that already exist, in the form of Civil Unions defined as ‘marriage minus conception rights?’ Please don’t be stubborn, please take action to end same-sex marriage and preserve natural reproduction.
“Divorce is permitted by God, SSM isn’t.”
Divorce is permitted by God and Mr. Christ ONLY under very specific circumstances, not the way American Christians practice it. If you think God would prefer that you not forgive your spouse for whatever his or her transgression is that has you considering divorce, you have no understanding of the Bible.
The Bible is silent on the topic of same-sex marriage.
Oh, yeah,
Oh yeah, we don’t make laws in this country based on religious bigotry.
@Sean The Bible is not silent about SSM. It says marriage is between opposite sex people, and that homosexuality is wrong. That answers the question.
As for divorce, I am only pointing out that since God permits divorce in certain circumstances, there would be no reason for CHristians to want divorce outlawed. But people divorcing do not alter the meaning of marriage – they abuse it. SSM alters the meaning. So to keep bringing up divorce is a red herring.
It is not religious bigotry to say SSM is wrong. Most secular people are also against it!
I don’t think that’s actually true. Given that 48% of California voters voted against Proposition 8, and given that support for same-sex marriage has grown since then, and given that since the majority of “Christian” voters voted for Prop 8 it is a fair assumption that since it was so close a majority of “secular” voters voted against it, it seems very unlikely that “most secular people are also against it!”
Irreligious voters provided a good portion of the margin of victory for the CA marriage amendment, according to the largest voter survey on election day.
Meanwhile, the SSM idea, and its argumentation, has already provided the basis for a big societal shrug when it comes to polygamy. Indeed, nothing in the SSM idea provides justification for drawing a linge against group SSM or against polygamous-like SSM. So when the SSM idea replaced the marriage idea in Canadian law, it abolished the legitimate basis for limitations on eliglbity to marry/SSM.
The SSM idea is promoted with a religious-like zeal that requires leaps of faith in the primacy of gay identity politics. The secularism that is pushed now by Government in Canada is fueld by anti-religious bigotry rather than the pluralism of a civil society comprised of of a wide range of religious and irreligious belief systems. Instead the irreligious belief system has become entrenched as a newly favored state endorsed belief system or religion — with orthodoxies and dogmas and suppression of open dissent.
@Emma California is not a fair comparison with the people of the rest of the country. California is high majority liberals who approve of just about anything. Again, the only support for SSM comes from liberals, and not all conservatives are Christian.
@Glenn E. Chatfield
Glenn, you skipped over my response. Please try to stop same-sex marriage.
“Irreligious voters provided a good portion of the margin of victory for the CA marriage amendment, according to the largest voter survey on election day.”
If votes based on religious motivations and homophobic motivations were removed, Prop 8 would have failed miserably. If NOM’s TV ads had been honest, Prop 8 would have failed miserably. But the spectacle of watching religionists make their views known publicly, and the shocked reaction of normal people, is worth watching. Just so Prop 8 gets overturned, and equal rights for gay people are returned to California.
“Meanwhile, the SSM idea, and its argumentation, has already provided the basis for a big societal shrug when it comes to polygamy.”
Whatever this means, I’m for it. I like big societal shrugs.
“So when the SSM idea replaced the marriage idea in Canadian law, it abolished the legitimate basis for limitations on eliglbity to marry/SSM.”
Same-sex marriage didn’t replace OSM in Canada. Straight couples can still get married there. Just an FYI.
“The SSM idea is promoted with a religious-like zeal that requires leaps of faith in the primacy of gay identity politics.”
Actually, support for same-sex marriage is anything but religious in nature: it is based in rational respect for reality, such as demands for equal treatment of all citizens by the US Constitution. Or the welfare of children being raised outside of wedlock by same-sex parents. These are rational ideas, not faith-based ideas.
@Sean
“Same-sex marriage didn’t replace OSM in Canada. Straight couples can still get married there. Just an FYI.”
Can they, though? I mean, do they still have the same public approval of their right to offspring of their own (parents) genes to have offspring together, that marriage once it has been equated to, and satisfied by, the use of lab-created tampered-with “improved” brand-name or screened and substituted gametes instead of our own natural gametes from our own natural evolutionary and god given human bodies, equal and different but all our own and only and as much a right to procreate as anyone else, if we find someone to consent to committing to us for life, anyway.
We won’t know if straight couples are still married in Canada until a little further down the road, when the first court cases about the right to have natural children using your own genes start happening. Maybe it’ll be some husband knows that his wife has a risk of some disease in her family, does he have a right to demand that his wife’s eggs be sorted or modified, or use an egg donor or surrogate, to improve his children’s health or or do we as the public have a right to pressure people to use modified gametes for extra good memory or attention span? Do they have a right to go ahead and have natural sex? Do they have a right to their natural fertility and bodies, and to medical care for their health and fertility, or can we just give them some screened, pre-approved gametes, and basically just manufacture them their baby baby and say it’s even better than yours would have been, since that is what same-sex couples do, except even better. Another issue that would come up: a straight couple has to resort to IVF to get pregnant – do they have a right to use the cheaper non-sorted and screened IVF or should society have an obligation to screen and standardize acceptable genomes to leave no child bad genes?
@Sean The ideas are irrational, neutering marriage and family, and destructive to society as a whole.
A majority of New Yorkers now support extending marriage rights to same-sex couples as well, and a majority of the entire population supports extending civil union rights (pretty much marriage without the term “marriage”) to same-sex couples. So while you may be correct that Californians’ views on SSM are not quite in line with the rest of the country, YOUR views that same-sex couples are abomination are even more out of line with the rest of the country.
@Emma Well, polls of this nature aren’t what I’d be trusting to start with. I have come across rare people who think homosexuality is okay, let alone SSM. But let’s hypothesize for a moment and say that the majority of people think redefining marriage to include SSM and every other neutering of real marriage – would that thereby make it right and proper? The majority of Germans in WWII had no problem with the Jews being exterminated – but that didn’t make it right. Majority rule is no proof of justice or or moral right. The moral standard has been set that homosexuality is immoral and wrong, which means SSM would be wrong even before you redefine marriage to include it.
Oh, Glenn. You say majority rule is no proof of justice or moral right. I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why Proposition 8 is unjust on its face: the majority does not have the right to vote away a minority’s right to marriage, as found to be in the California Constitution by the California Supreme Court.
At least we can agree on that, at least if you mean what you wrote.
PS: I am very proud that my state is inexorably moving in the direction of extending civil marriage rights to same-sex couples:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/03/22/2011-03-22_mike_to_engage_in_gay_nups_fight.html
@Emma
Are you, on the same moral grounds, for marriage between siblings, or a parent-child marriage?
It is not the fact of majority, or minority, support for something that makes it either moral or immoral.
“We won’t know if straight couples are still married in Canada until a little further down the road, when the first court cases about the right to have natural children using your own genes start happening.”
Uh, ok.
@Emma The judge in Prop 8 should have recused himself for bias. At any rate, Ruth is 100% correct. The immorality of SSM is apparent without a majority.
Why should he have recused himself? Since all, or most, humans have some form of sexual orientation, exactly who is available to be a judge in this case?
It’s common sense that a gay man would be more biased than a straight man in this case. You yourself have demonstrated that straight people can be pro-SSM. Therefore, a straight person would be less biased.
@Sean And he stood to benefit from his decision.
That’s hardly common sense, Betsy. One’s views on same-sex marriage are more important than one’s sexual orientation. A straight judge could be highly religionist, and be just as biased against same-sex marriage. A straight judge could have gay friends (we’re talking San Francisco here!) and want them to be able to marry, etc. No one seemed to object to Judge Walker’s potential bias before the trial either.
Ruth, only people who do not see gay men and lesbians as fully human, fully equal, and capable of falling in love would ask this question.
@Emma
Perhaps you are suggesting that those who practice incest are not fully human or fully equal, an opinion which I do not share.
Our actions, however sinful they may be, do not keep us from our essential humanity or equality before God.
“Falling in love” can mean so many different things, can it not?
However, I do believe that all people are potentially able to love.
“And he stood to benefit from his decision.”
That’s hearsay. We don’t know if he wants to get married or not. He may be strongly opposed to marriage, or may personally be avoiding it.
By dehumanizing gay people as you have, you appear to be reducing them to a set of cliches of predictability. I find it amusing that a common internet argument against legal same-sex marriage is that so few gay couples actually want to get married. Yet in this instance, we’re certain a gay judge wants to get married. Interesting.
Actually, California is a state with confidential marriage licenses. It may be possible that he is already married and we wouldn’t know it.
But beyond that, Walker clearly had potential gain. And lets not forget all the other judicial problems he created, completely ignoring precedent in his decision, ignoring the evidence brought before him, and eliciting as well as ignoring intervention by higher courts while his case was being heard.
All we’ve learned since the case only supports the bias displayed in how badly he behaved during the case.
@Sean It is not “hearsay” to state that the judge stood to benefit from his decision. It is widely available information of fact. On Lawn has give some excellent examples.
You now play the victim card by claiming I dehumanize homophiles. That is far from the truth. Stating that one’s sexual behavior is immoral and should not be given state sanction because it is destructive to society is not dehumanizing anyone. You are pulling more of the victim cards out in an attempt to marginalize the valid arguments which you are unable to deal with.
“It is not “hearsay” to state that the judge stood to benefit from his decision. It is widely available information of fact. On Lawn has give some excellent examples.”
Yes, it is hearsay. We have no idea what his opinion is of marriage generally, or same-sex marriage in particular. He may, in fact, be adverse to marriage, and not want to marry his partner. OnLawn has given her opinion, that’s all. No facts, no evidence, no logic, just opinion.
“You now play the victim card by claiming I dehumanize homophiles.”
It doesn’t make me a victim, it makes you a bigot. Very publicly, which is appreciated, to help move the cause forward.
“Stating that one’s sexual behavior is immoral”
Only in your world. You think it’s immoral to say whether you’re straight or gay?
“You are pulling more of the victim cards out in an attempt to marginalize the valid arguments which you are unable to deal with.”
Present me with a “valid” argument supporting why same-sex marriage should be outlawed. I’ve given you quite a few rational and logical, as well as legal, reasons for why it should be legalized. You ignore those reasons, even the ones about child welfare.