Ruth Institute Blog

by Ruth Institute board member William C. Duncan

While the United States is occupied with the federal challenge to California’s Proposition 8, Canada has its own pending marriage case, which is likely headed for the Canadian Supreme Court. Canada, which redefined marriage nationwide to include same-sex couples in 2005, against the backdrop of successful provincial lawsuits against the country’s marriage law, could be moving on to bigger things — literally. Specifically, polygamy and polyamory, as this case invokes the question of whether the government can continue to criminalize multiple-partner marriages. The case itself, initiated by the British Columbia Attorney General under a special provision of that Province’s law, arises in the wake of failed prosecutions of polygamous sect members in British Columbia. Read more…

Gross. Like these relationships are really going to last. Clearly they’re in it for love of each other rather than for themselves–not!

Carolyn Moynihan

Africans have some excuse for polygamy — after all, it is traditional. But how do certain Bostonians justify what they are calling “polyamory” and what is just a polished-up version of free love?

The Boston Globe kicked off the New Year with a feature on a group of 500 or so people who identify themselves as polyamorous. Meaning? A spokesman says:

“There’s monogamy where two people are exclusive. There’s cheating in which people are lying about being exclusive. And poly is everything else.”

Or again, says the Globe:

Though common descriptors used for monogamy don’t easily apply to polyamory, there is a recognizable spectrum of how open these partnerships may be. On the closed end, you might have a couple in a primary relationship who will then have one or more secondary relationships that are structured to accommodate the primary one. There’s also polyfidelity, in which three or more people are exclusive with one another. On the open end, there might be chains of people where, for example, Sue is dating Bill and Bill is dating Karen and Karen is dating Jack, who is also dating Sue.

The Globe dignifies this particular form of self-seeking with some nice words:

“Polyamory has a decidedly feminist, free-spirited flavor, and these are real relationships with the full array of benefits and complexities — plus a few more — as the members of Poly Boston’s hypercommunicative, often erudite, and well-entwined community will explain”

Oh, and they have a work ethic — it is hard work maintaining two or more relationships, they say.

Keep reading.

This puff piece promoting a non-judgemental approach to polyamory finally mentions children in the last 3 paragraphs.  Ah, yes, the kids will be fine. Except they’ll be upset when their parents’ partners leave.  They look just like mundane blended families, (who have lots of problems we aren’t going to mention in our puff piece.)  Excuse me while I barf.

Poly Boston members Alan and Michelle Wexelblat of Burlington take turns attending the cafe gatherings. As the parents of two boys, 6 and 9, the poly couple find that the get-togethers — though child-friendly — conflict with homework and dinnertime. Read more…

Here is a puff piece in the Boston Globe on the next phase of the Sexual Revolution: Polyamory, meaning “many loves.”  Just another day in the deconstruction of marriage and family. Marriage is whatever we say it is.  Kids will be fine, as long as we are all grown up mature people and don’t get all excited or jealous or anything.

responsible non-monogamy or polyamory, and the nontraditional practice is creeping out of the closet, making gay marriage feel somewhat last decade here in Massachusetts. What literally translates to “loving many,” polyamory (or poly, for short), a term coined around 1990, refers to consensual, romantic love with more than one person. Framing it in broad terms, Sekora, one of the three founders and acting administrator of the 500-person-strong group Poly Boston, says: “There’s monogamy where two people are exclusive. There’s cheating in which people are lying about being exclusive. And poly is everything else.”… Read more…

How can People with Different Approaches to Family Life Live Together in Free Societies?

by Pat Fagan, Ph.D., Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion at the Family Research Council and Ruth Institute Advisory Board Member

SUMMARY The “monogamous” and the “polyamorous” cultures have totally different approaches to life, with religious worship and monogamous marriage being the defining differences in their different approaches to the sexual act. Coexistence necessitates that the differences be observed by giving parents of both cultures control over the programs that cause conflict: education, adolescent health and sex education. Monogamous men need to act to obtain this for the sake of their own children. Read more…