So we all know that same-sex marriage will lead inexorably to polygamy, and then box turtle marriage, and then the world ends. But every so often, we learn the world could be ending in new and exciting ways:
Two well-known conservative Christian commentators who spoke at the rally described a breakdown of society should gay couples be allowed to marry — including a rise in single-parent households and in the number of dependents wanting Social Security and health insurance benefits.
David Gibbs III, a lawyer who in 2005 fought to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo on life support, told rally participants gay marriage would “open the door to unusual marriage in North Carolina.
“Why not polygamy, or three or four spouses?” Gibbs asked. “Maybe people will want to marry their pets or robots.”
Not…not the robots! You let robots and humans get married, and the next thing you know, robot/human hybrids are playing the piano with their dead fathers! It’s a madhouse, I tell you, a madhouse!
Like most people, I am opposed to people marrying their Roombas. This is, of course, because Roombas are not sentient. They lack any sort of human intelligence. Like border collies and box turtles, they aren’t capable of a human level of rational thought, and therefore they should be excluded from the ability to enter into human contracts.
But let’s posit the existence of the robot most people think of when they think of robots, the self-aware, artificially intelligent android. If an android is as self-aware as a human, then why wouldn’t we allow two self-aware, intelligent beings to join their lives together? Why should I care? If that android over there is as capable of abstract thought as I am, then why shouldn’t she be granted the same rights that I am?
Indeed, failing to grant sentient, sapient creatures full and equal rights would be a serious moral failing, one as wrong as slavery. The fact that we created them would be irrelevant; once created, a sapient being is its own self. Treating them any other way creates a system that is ultimately and fundamentally immoral. (And of course, this doesn’t merely apply to androids — any sentient, sapient computer program must be allowed its liberty.)
Once we accept intelligent robots as full and equal beings, there’s simply no logical argument against allowing them to marry — nor any logical argument against allowing a human to marry them.
Ultimately, I have never understood why I should care who someone wants to get married to. As long as everyone involved is mentally competent and an adult, and free to make their own decisions, I don’t understand why it’s any of your or my business who they choose to partner with. Polygamy, as it currently exists, runs afoul of a couple of those points — but it’s posible to imagine a polyandrous marriage between multiple people that was chosen willingly by all parties, and I fail to see why I should interfere in their right to live that way. I certainly don’t understand why I should worry about two adults choosing to marry each other, just because those two adults happen to be of the same gender. This world has little enough love in it; what love there is should be supported and celebrated, no matter who the parties to it are, be they straight or gay, male or female, human or robot.
(Incidentally, some of these themes are explored in Mandolin’s “Eros, Philia, Agape,” which, as Barry noted before, is available for free over on Tor’s website.)
Don’t you know what happens when humans and robots date? All of civilization collapses!
Futurama = best thing ever.
“My god, he never took middle school hygiene! He never saw the propaganda films!”
“Maybe I should have gone with ‘Electro-gonorrhea, the Nosiy Killer.'”
One day, I too plan on being condemned by thhhheeeeee space-pope.
The relevant link:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4510/futurama-anti-robot-propaganda
Left_Wing_Fox on Pandagon got there first, but I’m surprised the first reaction here wasn’t “and now what will Glenn Reynolds do without his robot sex army?”. Just sayin’.
Arguably unlike border collies and box turtles, Roombas don’t have enough sentience to suffer abuse. So I’m not opposed to people marrying them, if it makes them happy.
I’m not sure that link to Mandolin’s story (or to a post about Mandolin’s story) is working. I know it was mentioned here just a few days ago.
[I fixed the link, thanks for pointing it out. –Amp]
I have a twisted admiration for how the anti SSM folks have managed to turn what ought to be a discussion of whether there is anything about marriage that means it should be one of a very few areas in which the law may discriminate on the basis of sex, into an discussion of whether categories on which the law discriminates hugely (number of people; family relationship; species; carbon-based life form) are the next place we’ll go after same-sex marriage.
Until/unless we have a society in which one person has the same legal status of three people; father has the same legal status as fourth cousin; human has the same legal status as a dog; and human has the same legal status as robot;
I would rather we boycott all such arguments and refuse to debate any point except the relevant one for something called “same-sex marriage”: is there something about marriage that means women ought not have the same legal status as men with respect to being able to marry women, and vice versa?
Hershele,
Why would the capacity for non-abuse make it a good idea to marry Roombas? I thought we were rather against people’s abusing their spouses. Indeed, if people could marry animals, that would give the animals further protection against being harmed; I’m pretty sure there are harsher penalties for domestic violence (which is defined in part as assault/battery of spouse) than for animal cruelty.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
…But seriously, you bring up a good point about legal poly relationships. Leaving aside the potential for those to get all Koreshishly kooky, it occurs to me that I’ve never understood why these weren’t legal. Other than custom and the creepiness of most religious cults which practice it, is there some legal or ethical reason why poly marriage isn’t allowed?
nojojojo,
Our legal structure isn’t set up well for poly marriage. For example, think about the Terri Schiavo case and how the social conservatives were demanding that the existing law — which says that a spouse is the decision-maker and is likely to know his wife better than anyone else would — be ignored in favor of keeping Schiavo on life support. Now imagine that instead of it being her parents fighting the husband, it had been her other husband. How does a court decide which husband is the “real” one? People could contract in poly marriage around our existing non-poly defaults, but that will tend to create hierarchies in which one spouse is the one given decision making power.
The main obstacle to group/poly marriage in America is, really, a lack of universal health care. Nobody wants to leave employers on the hook for someone’s 20 spouses and 50 kids, and that’s a reasonable concern.
Other than that, I don’t mind as long as two conditions are true: 1) Everyone involved in the group marriage is 21 or older (since in Meowser’s world, everyone is at least that old when they get married), and 2) Anyone in the group can exit the group unilaterally, without having to be signed off by anyone else in the group. (Your next of kin is the person you’ve been married to longest, unless they demur and then it goes to the second-longest, etc.)
But I gotta say, “marry robots” is a new one on me. Why not marrying a car? Or hey, a whole fleet of ’em?
Your next of kin is the person you’ve been married to longest, unless they demur and then it goes to the second-longest, etc.
Right, but this seems like the kind of hierarchy we have seen in past polygamous societies (e.g. China’s old “First Wife,” “Second Wife”) and while marriage of course used to be very hierarchical (husband #1, wife #2… at best), I think it has been moving toward an ideal of equality. There just doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid hierarchy in polygamy. If I saw strong arguments about values that polygamy would achieve that are more important than my distaste for hierarchy in marriage, I’d be willing to override it, but I haven’t really seen such arguments. It seems reasonable to just have people who want to live in multi-adult and polyamorous households to marry the person who would be “First Wife” and then set up housekeeping with the other folks without dragging the state into it.
The main problem with polygamy as it currently exists is that it isn’t entered into willingly by a significant percentage of the female partners. Until that’s changed, you’re not going to see a groundswell of support for polyandrous relationships, and given that the only other group out there pushing for polyandrous relationships are guys who read way too much Heinlein, non-patriarchal polyandrous marriages are pretty much a theoretical exercise right now.
Given that the inability for women to choose their own destinies is the whole point of polygamy as practiced by the fundamentalist Mormons and other sects who practice it, I don’t think that will change.
Actually polyamorous relationships have been marked without these problems and with far greater freedom from polyamory because dominance positions are harder to maintain with the freedom of flexibility.
This of course does not apply to religious polygamist sects who see it as a way to increase their patriarchal hold of women.
As far as allowing stable triads, quads, etc… to marry, why not. Allow unilateral exit clauses for any member, supplement with universal health care, and have the same basic rules for property that occurs normally with families (it seems like it goes to the family as a whole nowadays (spouse and children) so I imagine it’d be given to the family again, chances are there’d be a group family checking account anyways if they are married). Decision making would likely happen with the same crap as does now. I mean Terri Shiavo proved that even a singular spouse can be overridden by whiny parents with a grudge and how many times have courts needed to arbitrate children of a dying parent who couldn’t decide what to do with that widowed parent. Send it to the same court that arbitrates that fight if the spouses can’t agree.
It’s not as hard as we’re making it out to be when we realize that two-parent nuclear homes aren’t really the norm now. We’ve already got multi-generational dealies, family raising structures, single parents, adult children caring for elderly sick parents, etc… Family is already complicated. Adding a new number to the forms isn’t going to make it more complicated. Didn’t our fair host prove that and furthermore isn’t he still in a poly relationship?
The nutcases can be dealt with by actually caring about consent laws. Also, they already exist and they’ll keep raping children outside the law then too, because that’s what they do whether the law recongizes SSM, poly marriages, man-robot nupitals or traditional marriage. The only way to stop them is to care what happens to girl creatures instead of believing nebulous claims of religion trump humanity.
Sorry for the long post, but stupidity about poly is kind of stupid especially considering the history of this blog.
I don’t think the comparison of a Roomba to a dog and a turtle is sufficient. A dog or turtle could love you, but a Roomba couldn’t. Tossing a Roomba in the dump when you don’t want it anymore is kinda wasteful. Abandoning a dog you no longer want is reprehensible on an entirely different level. I am not saying you should be able to marry dogs as well as robots, but I think the list of dog and turtle needs an actual inanimate object on it, unless you think Roombas have emotions and feel pain just like dogs and turtles. Dogs and turtles may not be as intelligent as humans, but they are certainly more intelligent than the code that powers a Roomba. All it needs to understand is corners, drop-offs, and maybe what surface it is running on, and it only understands them as a few variables in its memory. Comparing a dog to that is really insulting to dogs. (And maybe you should be able to marry talking cyborg and/or brain-enhanced dogs and turtles?)
Clearly, he’s a Cylon.
Cerberus,
I mean Terri Shiavo proved that even a singular spouse can be overridden by whiny parents with a grudge
Except Schiavo is known because it was such an exceptional circumstance; her parents successfully riled up the pro-life movement to support their one case, which they lost repeatedly in actual courts of law even if they had success in the court of public opinion. You’ll notice that there hasn’t been any lasting, meaningful movement in Florida or elsewhere to change the law as a whole. If there are multiple spouses with different views on what the no longer compos mentis spouse’s preference would be, and we have a non-hierarchical marriage in which all their views count equally, we’ll have disputes the courts will have to take seriously.
PG-
Like we already do when a single parent is in that position with multiple children. My point is that this situation already occurs and will be dealt with in the same way.
It’s also a lot less likely to occur than the more direct bad things like having members of one’s family unable to see you at last moments, having claim to your family if your two partners die, etc…
Cerberus,
Like we already do when a single parent is in that position with multiple children. My point is that this situation already occurs and will be dealt with in the same way.
My understanding is that adult children are not the default directors of their incompetent parents’ health care. Rather, if an elderly person may be incompetent to determine his own treatment, someone has to go to court to get that finding of incompetence, and then the court appoints a guardian or grants power of attorney. To the extent that the kids are fighting over what treatment should be, it’s a family matter and not terribly relevant for the court, because it’s already handed over responsibility to a single person (and that person may not even be one of the offspring; a court could find it to be in the elder’s best interests to have a court-appointed guardian ad litem instead).
If I’m correct about this (and I may be remembering wrongly; elder law is not my area) I don’t think the elderly parent scenario is analogous to the defaults we have for marriage, where the spouse automatically — no court order required — is decision maker for an incompetent patient.
As I said, I’m not strongly antagonistic to poly marriage, just concerned about the hierarchical tendencies. But it requires a lot more adjustment for how the law and society are structured than simply allowing people who have the same sort of genitalia to get married. Marriage/family law, at least as it is on the books, have had pretty much all the sex-specificity taken out over the last 100 years or so. (Though of course some family judges may still have sexist prejudices in assigning alimony, custody, etc.)
PG, my point was that there’s a difference between the dog’s inability to consent and the vacuum cleaner’s. My partner can grant or withhold consent for me to sit on her, if I wish to, my cat can’t, a chair can’t; my partner has the capacity to feel pain as a result of being sat on, the cat does also, a chair doesn’t. That’s why it’s acceptable for me to sit on my partner with her consent, it’s acceptable for me to sit on a chair, but it’s not ok for me to sit on my cat.
OK. You clearly know jack about how marriage is set up in this country. There are hundreds to thousands of little automatic rights and responsibilities that are included in marriage, many of which may not translate well to polyamorous marriages. Power of attorney has already been addressed, but there are many more. For example: any child born into a marriage is automatically the legal child of both spouses. That’s extremely convenient for a hetero couple that has to use donated sperm or eggs to conceive. That will be extremely convenient for lesbian couples when they finally have the right to marry — adoption can frequently be overridden and has been overridden in past years when lesbian couples break up and the bio mom doesn’t want the adoptive mom to have contact with the child.
Could you imagine that kind of automatic right/responsibility applying to a polyamorous group of, say, ten people? If the marriage breaks up, or even just one person leaves, how do you work out child support, custody, and visitation?
I’m not saying it’s impossible to figure out a way to work out these issues, but asking why it hasn’t been implemented yet (even when not taking cultural opposition into account) is way beyond ignorant.
And, frankly, many poly marriages would likely have to be set up in such a way that negates many of the automatic rights that currently come with marriage, so why bother with it at all? It seems like, legally, there would be no fundamental difference between reworking marriage to fit poly relationships and polyamorous people living together under the auspices of some sort of legal agreement they work out amongst themselves.
While keshmeshi was a bit fiercer about this than I would be, I do agree: “It seems like, legally, there would be no fundamental difference between reworking marriage to fit poly relationships and polyamorous people living together under the auspices of some sort of legal agreement they work out amongst themselves.”
Marriage law creates a set of defaults for committing to another person; if you want a custom-built complex relationship with an individually-determined level of commitment, try a more generalized form of contract law. Not everything that people want to do fits well into existing legal norms, and we should be honest and realistic about how far we’re asking those norms to be revolutionized, instead of pretending that it’s really no different at all.
I will now tiresomely repeat, in my tiresome way, the fact that the Schiavo case had nothing whatever to do with her husband or what he wanted or his alleged status as her “decision-maker,” default or otherwise.
Ms. Schiavo’s case was decided in court on the basis of what she herself wanted (as best the court could determine that, given that she never wrote anything down). Her husband’s opinion was irrelevant.
There might be good reasons for opposing the legalization of what are now called “polyamorous” committed relationships (such committed relationships have been going on since the earth cooled, under a number of different names), but this isn’t one of them.
Susan,
My understanding is that Mr. Schiavo turned over responsibility to the court and its guardian ad litem after he began a serious relationship with another woman in November 1993, as this plus disagreements over the malpractice award were creating some trouble with his in-laws. Once Ms. Schiavo had a court-appointed guardian ad litem, her husband no longer had decision making power.
However, I think prior to that relationship, Mr. Schiavo was indeed making Ms. Schiavo’s medical decisions, including putting a DNR on her chart and trying to block the hospital from treating a urinary tract infection with antibiotics (the hospital insisted on doing so anyway, which probably was sensible given Schiavo’s med-mal litigation history). So his status as her spouse does seem relevant.
Um no, keshimeshi, here let me help you past your very narrow frame. Let me pull out the flowcharts.
Children would be raised by the family. Number doesn’t matter. In the case of a divorce, there would need to be allowances for any member to leave. Why? So if in say a triad, person C feels they no longer work in the family, they can leave and come to an agreement with the remaining family unit of person A and B over custody in literally the same fashion as today. In the case of Total Component Fatigue of the relationship and all pieces need to scatter, then that divided by two is to be divided by X. The base expectations have been evolving as regards the man-woman pair and should deliberately shift already with same sex and the same would be expected with triads, so forth.
Now, I know you’re head is wrapped up in stupid at this point. So, let me clear it out. The world is not binary and our court system has before in the wide world of commerce and sport been able to wrap their head around having more than one party in conflict (and in divorce, the whole thing is conflict resolution) and as such can certainly handle multiple former partners negotiating what level of custody, financial support is necessary to do what’s right for the kids. If this means, staying with one partner and trading alternate weekends with the others or what not and again this assumes that TCF, full breakup, which isn’t the most likely scenario. Far more will be agreements between leaving members and a core family unit (a quad splitting into two duos, a triad into a single and a duo, a quad into a single and a triad) and the forms can be updated just like a regular divorce except allowing the remaining members to stay married (shouldn’t really take all that much to accommodate).
Now, let’s discuss your 10 person scenario. A) It’s a scare tactic. Oh noes, it’d be so complicated, so many spouses. B) It isn’t. Again, see above. Already figured out, bam. It’s unlikely to shatter into 10 individual components and if it did, we actually have a system for handling disputes on that level. It’s called the handling of an estate. Kids will only be disputed among the members that wish to remain central to the kid’s lives (not all parents want to be involved with their kids post-divorce) and I’m sure lazy judges would love to default to the largest remaining stable group (so in your “nightmare” scenario, there’d have to be no duos or more left). Failure to come to any agreement that’s in the best interest would likely have similar ramnifications of such a complete failure in divorces (if no suitable candidates for full custody decision by judge, then taken care of by state). Again, lots and lots of ifs for a scenario not as different as you want to make it. Want proof? Again, look at the business world where conflict resolution of multiple parties occurs, it can be handled pretty easily and adapted to without undue strain.
It would of course involve work for lawyers and judges. It would be hard to be lazy and follow a strict gendered script.
But you know what? That script is already fucked up by same sex marriages. How does a lazy judge officiate two femmes?
By not being a lazy judge and doing their damn job which is mediating conflict and doing what’s best for the stability of the children involved.
Speaking of which, doesn’t divorce court ask the bloody children if they’re old enough to speak on their behalf where THEY want to go and who THEY have the strongest connection with in tough custody decisions? Again, not new, not hard. It’s X versus 2, it changes the parties in the dispute, not the process by which they’re handled. It just means more people before the court and lawyers involved.
So this was so hard, so radically changed, that I was able to do it without changing a single aspect of our society.
And one person leaves? Again, how stupid did you need to be to think that wouldn’t work pretty easily seeing as most of their family would be at X place and one member would be someplace else, that’s like textbook primary caregiver situation. Hell, you wouldn’t even need alimony to settle that one. It’s a divorce between one person and a family, bam.
So you are disingenuous and obviously bereft of the most basic of imagination, so here’s the magical rub on your stupid cake.
Ready?
Polyamorous families are already dealing with this shit. What, you don’t think there aren’t stable triads, quads, all manner of open relationships, etc… that have kids, that form essential families and provide equal function? Oh noes, how will we handle it? We already do, but right now, it’s a lot fucking harder on the poly family in general as they’re often relying on imperfect and risky powers of attorney and a marriage or two for basic protection and are even more at risk when issues of custody or right to raise in case of accidents or divorce because they may lack a way to demonstrate their meaning in the life of the children left behind or the estates left behind. They are not always just as much at risk as gay couples now, but certainly at a level of risk far above straight married couples whereas they may provide a far more stable and supportive household.
This is life NOW for poly people and yes, they’d like some protections for relationships they feel meet the basic standards of marriage.
Again, I’ll bring up our fair host. I’m not sure if he is still in his committed V or triad, but they had been for at least a number of years all raising their child together. Many of these certainly had all the sanctity and intention for permanence as say Brittney’s 48 hour marriage to have a public excuse to have sex.
A committed intending permanence relationship between committed adults should be allowed the social safety nets of marriage. It’s not really as complicated as you want to make it. If you add a third person, it doesn’t add horns and if a “ten-person” familial explosion is bad for the kids’ environment, then they’ll meet the same end as when the oh-so-sacred two-straight people explosion doesn’t meet the needs of the kids’ environment. And if there is a no-consent cult taking advantage of the law, then they should meet the end of all rapists and child molesters and we should prioritize bringing such people to justice as much as drug abusers.
Sorry for being snippy, but it’s kind of obscene. The arguments are literally the same “but it’d be hard and change so many bad laws” crap I heard from lazy lawyers over the same sex marriage debate. It’s no more difficult now, it just hurts because of our dualism frames.
Following up again because I suspect many will tl;dr.
A “ten-person smash-up” will not as it’s most likely end frame be 10 single groups all with grievances against each of the other members. The most likely divorce of most polyamorous marriages will be one person splitting with the remaining family or a quad finding they’re more a triad or two bonded pairs. The precious dualism will be preserved for most disputes and it’ll be easy for lazy moderators as there’ll be more stable remainders than when two single people split.
The potential for conflict is no more than the crap there already is and the injustice is the same. How many people get screwed over in divorces because their former partner found a new partner before they did and thus “is more stable”?
Addendum, taxes and family rates would work the same. Insurance deals would be a problem but frankly, our country really should figure out our insurance crap soon anyways. Immigration fraud will meet the same challenges married groups face now with scrutiny (I know as I once considered committing immigration fraud to help an illegal friend of mine). Shall we go down the list?
There is no meaningful rewrite of any particular aspect of marriage to accommodate polyamorous marriages. All can be easily dealt with with the laws we have and the ones that don’t are frankly already due to be changed because of feminism and upcoming queer marriages.
Except forms true. And it will be possible to divorce without dismantling the entire group (a change that isn’t really a change if you think about it).
THANK you. I’m not poly, but I have been bowled over by the anti-poly sentiment coming out. Is it that hard to understand that more than one kind of family needs legal recognition and protection? Even if it were hard to accord them that dignity, so what? Shouldn’t we try to serve the needs of our people even if it is sometimes difficult?
The arguments are literally the same “but it’d be hard and change so many bad laws” crap I heard from lazy lawyers over the same sex marriage debate.
Really? What laws did lawyers tell you would change if we had same-sex marriage? What aspect of family law currently is gendered, such that it makes any difference whatsoever what gender the spouses are? You say that “It would be hard to be lazy and follow a strict gendered script. But you know what? That script is already fucked up by same sex marriages. How does a lazy judge officiate two femmes?” Except under the requirements of heightened scrutiny for legal distinctions made on sex, judges already aren’t supposed to make custody, alimony and other decisions based on the sex of the parties. Yes, it still happens sometimes, but it’s against the law when it does. Claiming that same-sex marriage would somehow mess with the existing law is just wrong, and rather dishonest.
Same-sex marriage fits into our existing marriage framework without any changes to the law being necessary, so far as I’m aware. Indeed, this is why so many states had to pass laws just in the last 15 years specifying that marriage was only between a man and a woman — because the existing marriage law didn’t say that, and there was nothing inherent to the marriage law that would exclude same-sex couples. I don’t know of any state that had to respond to polygamy groups by specifying that a marriage maxed out at two people.
I think there are good arguments for creating a legal structure for poly relationships, but trying to jam it into the existing marriage structure by claiming that nothing will change is disingenuous, as are airy reference to how “Insurance deals would be a problem but frankly, our country really should figure out our insurance crap soon anyways.” Well, great, but does that mean “figuring that out” is the prerequisite to legal recognition of poly relationships?
In my uninformed opinion — probably.
Or, at least, one of the prerequisites.
Mandolin,
Thank you, you’ve done what I’m asking for: recognize that while same-sex couples can move into our existing marriage legal structure without requiring any changes, poly groups cannot. Same-sex marriage functions just fine in CT and MA and briefly did in CA without changing the law beyond making it gender-neutral. None of those states have single-payer health care. (MA’s regime is to mandate health insurance and to provide it for those residents whose employers don’t, but the majority of people still are insured through their employment. In fact, the legalization of same-sex marriage in Mass. killed unmarried same-sex couples’ being allowed by the state to get benefits for their partners, as the state figured that now people could get married, they should do so.)
That’s why I get frustrated by the attempts to equate same-sex marriage and poly marriage, whether the attempts are made by SSM opponents or poly supporters. While the gendered nature of marriage law has disappeared, the significance of marriage as a status for assigning rights and benefits has only increased, and the usefulness of that status in the system depends in part on the assumption that there’s only one other person involved.
You want to bring over your spouse through immigration? Well, that’s not so burdensome so long as it’s just one person. You want your spouse to be able to stay home with the kids and still have health insurance through your employer? Well, that’s not so burdensome so long as it’s just one person. The government sets your tax rate based on the total marital income (true even if you file separately instead of jointly)? That’s sane so long as there are no more than two incomes potentially involved. (A quad marriage in which each person makes $63k would have a marginal federal tax rate at the highest rate, which will be 39% once the Bush tax cuts expire as they were budgeted to do.)
I’m open to either creating a new legal status to accommodate poly relationships, or making significant changes in existing law in a hundred areas in order to make poly marriage workable. I’m closed to pretending that we can have poly marriage without doing at least one of the above.
PG-
Yes.
I was told to my face that same sex marriage couldn’t occur not just because it would radically “redefine” marriage but that it would be too hard to rectify civil law and too many aspects of marriage “wouldn’t apply to gay couples”. This was said to my face.
To my face, disingenuous arguments about child custody laws were made, the child credit laws (because “gay couples can’t reproduce”), potentials to abuse (best buddies will try and sneak on plans), and generic arguments with no meaningful reason were presented in exactly the same manner, format and level of disningenuous stupidity to my fucking face less than 5 years ago today.
And yes, they argued the primacy of the genders as you do the primacy of the dualism. They talked about who’d get custody of the kids and child support and how many oh so important laws talked about reproduction or opposite sex couples and it’d be so utterly radical to have them accommodate same sex couples.
The same exact arguments, the same exact method you are using is exactly 5 years old today, what was said to my face when I defended same-sex marriage.
Is it wrong, is it dishonest?
Yes, you stupid myopic fuck.
Seriously learn to introspect. To quote Obama, “that’s the point”. Your arguments are dishonest and wrong.
Oh and also, as far as insurance goes. Probably, poly marriage will be un-sellable to the public without insurance reform.
More importantly, insurance should be figured out soon because the rotted corpse of the USA is the only “first world nation” without universal healthcare, the only one that doesn’t consider life or death a right.
We should be figuring it out so we survive as a first-world nation, so that we can have better lives for all of us. Is it inherent to the rightness of allowing poly marriages? No. Is it crucial to be able to sell the idea at all to the American people and more importantly the American businesses who dictate so much of our policy? Very much so. It needs to be sorted out cause it’s broken and makes slaves of employees. As a bonus, it’ll make it easier to argue poly marriages without the old standby of “how many spouses should an insurance policy cover” and all the assorted dollar sign panics.
Insurance is broken, it needs to be fixed. It’s really beside the point, but might as well mention it and ease your tiny tiny mind.
Cerberus, the difference is that if someone makes the claim that our current laws cannot accommodate same-sex marriage, they are lying. (Or perhaps they’re sincerely repeating someone else’s lie.)
In contrast, if someone — even someone who, like me, favors legal poly marraige — claims that it would, in fact, be problematic in exactly the ways PG describe, so we have to discuss how we’d fix those problems — that’s not a lie.
If I’m mistaken about that, fine, explain to me how I’m mistaken.
If someone says to me “you can’t do that without making some preparations first” when I suggest I’m going to flap my arms and fly, they’re correct. Even if someone else, five years ago, said “you can’t do that without making some preparations first” to me when I said I’d like to breathe through my mouth, that doesn’t discredit the exact same sentence said in a different context five years later.
Just telling PG (and, I presume, me) that we’re myopic fucks with no introspection might give you some satisfaction, but it isn’t very persuasive.
First warning. Stop making remarks like this one, or you’ll be asked to leave this forum.
Cerberus,
Perhaps instead of citing unnamed, anonymous people as authoritative because they said things TO YOUR FACE (instead of behind your back, which I guess would make them less reliable?), you could try citing the actual laws that would change with the advent of same-sex marriage.
You’ve acknowledged that poly marriage doesn’t fit with our existing employer-based health insurance system, and Mandolin noted that as one thing we’d need to reform to make poly marriage workable. I’ve explained that gender is legally irrelevant to custody determinations because the U.S. Constitution allows judges and other government actors to take gender into account only in a fairly limited set of circumstances.
Could you point out a single thing in the law that needs to be changed or reformed to make SSM viable? I realize that citing actual facts instead of personal anecdote is difficult, but it’s really far more persuasive.
EDITED TO ADD RANDOMLY: By the way, it seems that the lack of single-payer health care is screwing up mono-marriage — but for heteros! I was trying to figure out why Bristol Palin hadn’t married her fiance before she had the baby, and someone explained that if she got married, she no longer could be on her parents’ excellent, state-sponsored health insurance, nor could the baby. So expect that wedding around the time either that one of them gets employment with good benefits, or that Obama the evil socialist shores up our health care system such that they can get affordable quality care on their own.
And addendum to last post.
Oh how cheerful you are that the debate is sealed and what is right is luckily and thankfully prevented by an excuse no matter how pathetic and cowardly.
Seriously, joy that you’ve found something, anything to justify your resistance? How noble. I am in awe.
Multiple partners immigrating? So? Can they demonstrate love and family? Great. Is it a scheme, prosecute, just as I would have been if I had tried to help my lesbian illegal friend back in college. No laws changed, great.
Insurance a problem? Yes, it bloody well is. The companies choke about covering one spouse and whine about even covering their own employees. The situation is untenable and unsustainable and should be eliminated for a system that makes sense for everybody (not even talking about couples and married groups at this point).
If however, you think this raft provides some comfort to your distaste for the subject, allow me to point you to one highly unfortunate truth. The insurance fiasco is already obligated to cover children. And frankly, you can have a lot of children. Is it burden to cover 11 children over multiple marriages? How would one extra spouse be comparably bad?
Now, before you grasp at another gleeful straw, I will state that I do not at all think poly marriages SHOULD be first. Our insurance crisis needs immediate reformation and coverage NEEDS to be a right and we shouldn’t be shackled to corporate jobs just to be able to have broken coverage in life or death situations.
This fact doesn’t change the righteousness of either poly marriages or same sex marriages, only the tactics of the enemy.
And on that note, may I ask why so gleeful to adopt the position of the anti-SSM side, including argument style and points of joy?
Why so relieved, so joyful to find crumbs to support your unfounded statements, an excuse to end the debate?
How does this demonstrate the rightness of your “doubts”?
Take the time to answer, you have a lot of foot to extract and I’m patient.
Ampersand-
Far enough. I am letting anger get the better of me at this moment.
I also think that we are missing an important distinction between three things. A)What is right and will be acknowledged as such (multi-person marriages will at some future point be accepted and normal) B) What laws need or needn’t change (my argument is not as many as we think. A lot of setups and pre-existing frameworks allow the mediation of multi-person conflicts even ones involving the well-being and care of children and I’ve already answered most of the meaningful changes to structure (ones you already pointed out) above) C) What is politically feasible
You seem to be arguing more C and small traces of B. It is politically infeasible to have poly marriages now, not unsubstantially because of the insurance debate. It can’t be sold. Can it be done? Yes, of course, insurance covers unlimited numbers of kids, there is no legal reason why it should be limited for spouses. But such a ruling would leave a bad taste in the mouth of a lot of people and open up cries of “robbing your employer” and employers would argue strongly against marriage equality.
That fact however doesn’t alleviate A or B and is something we should be reforming anyways.
I am sorry I let my anger get the best of me.
P.S. Why don’t you ban the trolls that caused your first exodus of commenters? Why are all the comments talking about how rape isn’t a big deal and feminists deserve to die treated kinder than comments ranting at perceived stupidity? I’m not accusatory, just curious.
Further to Amp-
I’m not denying the importance of C.
I could not sell even with charisma poly marriages now. It’ll likely take at least 20 years from recognition for SSM to even make a good play at it.
I disagree that that should mean we should entertain disingenuous critiques of A and B and that we should indeed reform aspects of B that are unfair or myopic in their understanding of family to the reality of families in existence.
Cerberus,
Multiple partners immigrating? So? Can they demonstrate love and family? Great.
Nope. U.S. law already isn’t immigrant friendly. If someone tries to bring in multiple adults as spouses, it’s not going to be allowed for the same reason that Muslim immigrants with multiple wives have not been allowed to bring them in, no matter how much love and family there is. We’d have to change our law toward open borders before that’s going to be OK.
You seem to believe that if everything in American law and politics were suitable progressive — a generous immigration policy, single-payer health care, etc. — poly marriage would fit in just fine, and you’re probably right. But we don’t live in that alternative universe.
The insurance fiasco is already obligated to cover children. And frankly, you can have a lot of children. Is it burden to cover 11 children over multiple marriages? How would one extra spouse be comparably bad?
Children are covered only to the age of 25, max. Spouses are covered until death/divorce. Old people are far more expensive to cover than children. Try comparing the per-person expenditures of CHIP and Medicare and you’ll see what I mean. And CHIP is only for low income kids, who are more likely to have poor health, whereas Medicare is for all seniors including well-off ones. How many kids do you know who take a prescription drug every day? How many adults do you know who take one (oral contraceptive is a prescription drug)?
This fact doesn’t change the righteousness of either poly marriages or same sex marriages, only the tactics of the enemy. And on that note, may I ask why so gleeful to adopt the position of the anti-SSM side, including argument style and points of joy?
I’m not adopting the position of the anti-SSM side. I’ve repeatedly, ad nauseum, pointed out that while poly marriage would require some changes in the law, SSM wouldn’t. You have yet to point out what aspect of law is changed by SSM.
PG-
I’ve taken a deep breath.
I believe you are disingenuous and are reusing anti-SSM arguments in pursuit of your dismissal of poly marriages or rather even the intellectual consideration of them. I apologize at the request of Amp for calling you stupid.
You are however not arguing in good faith. This is demonstrable first by your reversal of my position on same sex marriage. I support SSM, I have supported SSM since I first encountered the concept. My parents married fully secularly so I have always known it as a civil institution and that the arguments against it were poorly formed and based in prejudice and further ignored the separation of church and state. I have always supported SSM, because it is a fundamental right and I’ve supported poly marriages for at least 3-5 years since I first encountered the idea on this very blog (yay Amp).
Now, leaving aside the gratuitous fluffing I just gave myself, my point in all of that is this. It is not my job to provide you with ways that SSM fundamentally challenges marriage, because that isn’t and has never been my argument.
My argument has been and will so remain until you or another convinces me otherwise, that arguments against SSM and Polyamorous marriages are the same. That your argument to the letter was the exact one told to me 5 years ago from someone arguing against SSM, including the same citing of divorce as too complicated and nebulous pleas at how much would change and calls that insurance would be defrauded or complicated by the unions. The exact same arguments were made and my point is this:
Both arguments are wrong. Both arguments are based in lies or prejudices. Both arguments tried to use political difficulty as proof of failure of the concept. Both arguments cited bow rock solid the legal system was and how inept it was to accommodate the massive changes that would naturally be required.
Both arguments are the same.
Both arguments are wrong.
So no, PG, it is not my duty to argue against SSM. And by the way, your edit shot down your insurance argument and proved my point on the necessity of reforming insurance for all.
EDIT addition: Seriously, being very calm here, but my point is that as the one arguing against the consideration of a whole class of existing family structure, it is your job to provide why poly marriages ARE an unacceptable and unaccommodatable revision to marry. My argument is both aren’t. Not both are. Also, I’ve refuted all your aren’ts yet you seem overly pleased with political difficulty, which isn’t the same as legal impossibility.
Cerberus,
I believe you are disingenuous and are reusing anti-SSM arguments
Which anti-SSM argument have I reused? Was there an SSM opponent who said that allowing same-sex marriage could overburden our immigration or employer-based health systems? Was there an SSM opponent who said it would further complicate our federal tax system? (I don’t see how one could say that, since SSM opponents generally are very optimistic about gay people’s becoming straight and getting married, so it’s not like they’re depending on a certain number of unmarried gay people to keep these systems running.)
The existing law does not permit for people to bring over multiple people as spouses through immigration. It does not permit insurance coverage for multiple people. It is not set up for more than two incomes to be counted together. Making these changes would create a serious and meaningful shift in the viability of those systems (for example, people who otherwise would be pro-poly marriage would not want to increase the number of immigrants who enter the U.S. by marriage; employers who have factored into the viability of their business model the ability to cover one spouse through death/divorce do not have multiple spouses factored in).
And by the way, your edit shot down your insurance argument and proved my point on the necessity of reforming insurance for all.
Evidently I didn’t make the point in my edit clear at all. My point about insurance, now through about half a dozen comments, has been that the employment-based insurance system isn’t set up to accommodate multiple spouses. My edit rather snarkily pointed out that this insurance system has in fact deterred a hetero marriage. How does the edit prove that somehow the employment-based insurance system will do just fine with poly marriage?
Also, I’ve refuted all your aren’ts yet you seem overly pleased with political difficulty, which isn’t the same as legal impossibility.
Except that politics is how we get our laws, for the most part. People have to democratically be willing to change things, OR a right has to be found in the Constitution (itself a democratically passed document). You’re positing a false binary between law and politics. The existing law on immigration says that one can bring over only a single fiance/spouse. The law does not specify what the gender of the spouse must be. If we strike DOMA (vintage 1996), there’s no other bar in the law to keep a woman from bringing her wife to the U.S. In contrast, in order for the law to change on allowing immigration for poly marriage, we’d have to change not only the marriage law, but also the immigration law. Same for ERISA; same for the Internal Revenue Code; same for so many other laws that have nothing in them about gender, but do have a lot in them about the number of people.
Again, our Constitution disapproves distinguishing based on sex. It doesn’t disapprove distinguishing based on number. Perhaps this is something that should be changed in the Constitution, or just in statutes and regulations. But I object to hijacking the movement for same-sex marriage as a way to declare me a bigot for questioning whether poly marriage can fit into existing legal structures.
Ok, PG, I thought and correct me if I’m wrong and you actually are arguing in good faith, that we were arguing whether poly marriages are legally supported by equal rights, that the family structures as they exist can be legally accommodated and that people can be protected, not whether or not there exists political difficulties to such marriages or that there are gross inequalities of our American system that need to be handled.
Legally, there is no good argument why a spouse should currently be singular and opposite sex. There is no good reason that my lesbian illegal friend is stuck between a rock and a hard place. There is no good reason that our immigration system should be so hostile to immigrants in general. The system is badly in need of reform and major attitude revisions. This is true again, to use your pet odd turnabout, in the case of SSM. Even if UAF is passed, same sex couples are at risk for immigration shenanigans and biases and “greater scrutiny” not paid to sex slaves sold as mail order brides. This should change for justice, of course. It does not change whether legally there is any good cause to block two spouses versus one.
Politically difficult, NOT legally impossible. Justice in that holy legal sense relies chiefly on what should be, what is law and what the law should be. Getting there will be a challenge. I’ll not deny that. It’ll take about 20 years at least to be able to fight for this on a national stage. Doesn’t mean we don’t start pointing out the legal right now else in 20 years we’ll still be at Stage 1.
Which again is a problem in the insurance side. It does not change what is right. Family plans should cover families and corporations really have no right to complain about that considering how much work they put into stopping universal health care in this country. Even without insurance reform, it’d be right.
Is it politically sellable? Right now. No. Of course not. That’s why there’s no national marches demanding it. However, assuming you were honest in your arguments, I thought your case as it has been that there is something fundamentally unaccommodatable about poly marriages as opposed to SSM not whether or not poly marriages are politically difficult to sell.
I know they are. So were SSM. I had the exact same debate 5 years ago with anti-SSM “legal” minds and they to seemed to wonder off in how difficult it would be to sell the idea of SSM after we pointed out the other flaws in their argument. 5 years later, they are offering civil unions (the old pie in the sky) as the compromise position. Minds change, this style of debate is important for that, not the shutting of it down, because it is somehow self-evident that too much would change.
It isn’t and your cases have far failed to demonstrate how legally everything would change. By the laws as they exist, why polyamorous families should never ask for or aim for marriage rights. I assume it really does exist and wasn’t a convenient lie because you know that the political summit of the task and of all tasks of justice is large and seemingly unsurmountable.
Further more, I’ve even gone backwards and shown how even in injustice, there are no good legal arguments, only unfortunate political battles. Yes, there’d be a huge brawl if it was presented today what with the insurance situation. However, the insurance situation doesn’t preclude justice and they should be obligated to eat those costs if they resist universal healthcare. It’s not a marriage ending thing. I’m sure companies would love not to cover same sex spouses and many like to eel out of covering seniors taken care of by their children because of the costs, it doesn’t mean same sex couples shouldn’t marry or that elderly people should have medical recourse. Nor does it change that we need universal healthcare because the injustices of the current model are obscene to both employees and employers.
You could be arguing in good faith and I am willing to treat you with the respect you would deserve if that was in fact the case.
Thank you and eagerly waiting your response.
Addendum to PG-
Oh one more odd bit about your argument about immigration. I missed this the first time, but you seemed to gloss over what I was arguing about the result if poly marriages existed in our framework and yet you seemed to use an argument that since poly groups aren’t recognized as marriages that therefore they shouldn’t be. You basically argued this: We can’t allow Same Sex Marriage in this country because right now a muslim man can’t bring his male husband into this country. We don’t have open borders.
Yes, that’s what would be changed by allowing marriage. Shiek Muslimguy would be able to bring his multiple muslim wives to our country with the same care given (or rather should be given) to consent, actual demonstration of love and length of commitment, that it isn’t an attempt to scam INS, that all other aspects of immigration are fulfilled and as such may be eligible for a green card if Homeland Security doesn’t think that you’re too not-white. My point is that changing the number would not impact this aspect and thus is not a major revision of what marriage means, certainly not enough to argue it shouldn’t or couldn’t be provided.
Would fear of Shiek Muslimguy make it a very difficult political sell to the type of voter freaking out over Ellen and Portia gay marrying their kids? Oh god, yeah. I’ve never argued otherwise, though again, I find it interesting and telling that your arguments almost entirely have shifted to the political difficulty and that is somehow my fault that I am still arguing that which you asked me to. I am demonstrating why these examples are not meaningful revisions of marriage law and can be easily provided to multiple partners without whole scale rewriting of marriage law. A three person marriage would be able to accommodate Shiek Muslimguy’s wives immigrating to this country just as it accommodates Shiek Muslimguy bringing his singular wife and as it should accommodate him bringing his husband. Again with actual diligence paid to consent, something that already SHOULD have been a priority what with the mail order bride crap.
Cerberus,
You make a series of “there are no good reasons” that I’m not going to argue. However, “there’s no good reason” for lots of laws. There’s no good reason for it to be unlawful for any person not a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist to fit lenses to a face or to duplicate or replace into frames lenses or other optical appliances except upon written prescriptive authority of a state-licensed ophthalmologist or optometrist — but it’s the law and its Constitutional. Unless you can explain why number of people shouldn’t be legally relevant — as gender and race are not considered legally relevant — we’re not going to agree about your continued efforts to equate same-sex and poly marriage. The government can’t legislate that only people of a certain race or sex can live in a house, for example; it can legislate that only so many unrelated people can live in one.
I have explained that for same sex marriage to fit in our existing structure, one need change only the DOMAs — themselves quite recent creations. I have explained that for poly marriage to fit, we would have to make many more changes. You haven’t rebutted my point on either of those statements, only said over and over that the concerns I’ve stated about the changes necessary to accommodate poly marriage are ones you’ve “heard” from various unnamed SSM opponents. I have read lots of legal scholars who oppose SSM, from Lynn Wardle to Doug Kmiec, and none of them ever claimed that same-sex marriage would require changes in immigration, ERISA or any other law except that dealing with marriage itself. If someone told you that, they either don’t know the law or were deliberately lying to you.
In contrast, you haven’t explained how existing immigration, ERISA, tax and other law is actually already set to accommodate poly marriage. If you can point to the provisions in those laws and regulations and say “See, number of people is irrelevant!” that would be one thing, but so far you haven’t even tried.
Even if UAF is passed, same sex couples are at risk for immigration shenanigans and biases and “greater scrutiny” not paid to sex slaves sold as mail order brides.
If you think there isn’t scrutiny of mail order brides, you’re not familiar with current immigration law. You might want to read up on IMBRA.
My point about the Muslim with multiple wives was meant to demonstrate that even if the person is married — and a Muslim in certain countries can be legally married to multiple wives — our immigration law simply doesn’t permit bringing over multiple people as spouses. It’s just not in there as an option. You can bring over one person only. In contrast, the immigration law says absolutely nothing about the gender of the person you’re allowed to bring over.
Amp-
Missed this before, but I seem to be on a roll, so might as well address this.
You mentioned your breathing argument. My argument is that the argument is disingenuous in the parameters mentioned. In the breathing analogy, the fight is thus. I am given argument that says, one can’t breathe out their mouth without preparation. I call bupkis on this, they then sit on my chest or strangle me and then say, see, you can’t breathe. It doesn’t change the fact that without resistance I would have been able to breathe fine.
Legally, there’s no good argument against poly. The changes to marriage are a)not sever and b)even if they were, wouldn’t be good arguments out of denying stable poly families marriage protection. Right now, like same sex couples, lawyers are hired to navigate the major problems. People like Valerie White become crucial and they shouldn’t have to jump through those hoops. Legally.
Will there be political resistance? Will we need to answer questions, even ones of the “I’m on your chest” variety? Of course. I’m not denying either reality. But I don’t believe using the political summit needed to allow what is right to deny discussion of what is right or facing what is legally right. There is what should be, there is what legally and in the interest of justice shouldn’t be a fight, and there is the fight.
We don’t win the latter by conceding the former. Especially when they’re wrong. There’s a reason gay marriage went from sitting on your chest impossible to within sight.
Do I expect to see legal polyamorous marriage in at least 20 years. Gods, no. It doesn’t mean we side with injustice on the debate and pretend it has merit and tolerate them sitting on our chest and calling it a fundamental block that ensures our secondary status.
That’s just not cool.
Please link to a single comment here saying “rape isn’t a big deal and feminists deserve to die,” by someone who wasn’t then banned. The only reason I’d let a comment like that go without a strong mod response would be if I missed reading it altogether.
You, by the way, have been very rude to people here time and again, and until comment #32 I’ve constantly given you breaks. If you think I’m picking on you, you’ve got it exactly backwards; I’ve given you lots of slack.
If you want to make more attacks on my moderation (“not accusatory” — how passive-aggressive can you get?), please take it to an open thread.
I see you’ve now written some intelligent, reasonable responses. I’m not going to respond to them, though, because I’m not a fucking emotionless robot and I can’t deal with you any more today. When you shit on me, the result is that I’m less likely to listen to you. Hope that’s what you wanted.
PG-
You are dishonest. And here is why.
It is currently illegal in 30 states to marry a gay person. It was not long ago, illegal in several states to have any form of gay sex. It is currently illegal to allow the immigration or recognize the marriage of a same-sex partner. It is currently illegal to file taxes jointly as a same sex couple. It is federally illegal to file those taxes even if you are recognized in your state. For this to change, a law must change. You have admitted that. A law must change for that to change. Laws must be repealed for that to change.
Forms in some states still stress gender of the married couple on their forms, require filling out husband and wife in the forms. This of course would have to change. This is because it is a dumb discriminatory thing. But laws must change nonetheless, bad laws.
Will some aspects of laws need to change in terms of forms and precedent, yes, just like SSM will even today, in multiple rights and battles. That’s why the case is submitted to the courts.
Number of people is similarly arbitrary. The only argument is precedence. There is nothing supporting the rightness of the law and the structures protected by these particular forms and rules issues would not be fundamentally altered with the accommodation of number. And as the SSM debate demonstrates, the fights will be concurrent with the main fight of recognition and will hinge on that basic right. There’s no reason why gay people should have to marry to file jointly receive basic protections, have their forms fixed, but such battles will lag behind this main one. That’s why it’s important. For what it provides in stability and protection of existing family units.
As such poly families need such protections now, have similar needs, stories, and hardships, especially queer poly. And if we changed main law to recognize a marriage between multiple partners, then that unit would be treated as the same singular family unit it is in most of marital law. Spouse replaced with spouses just as man and woman had to change and man and woman of opposite sex and same race had to change. Your right that words will need a find and replace edit. That new clauses in marital law will need to allow the right to divorce oneself from the multi-couple while not disbanding the multi-marriage in totality though allowing the same remarry same day done for people who want to hurry a divorce to marry their next spouse can accommodate the minor problem in the interim to do so.
Will laws change with marriage? That’s the anti-SSM case. Or at least, it’s public case less than a couple years ago. I will continue with your further dishonesty in my next post.
Ampersand, I’m a lurker, so I hardly see where I’ve been rude, constantly and consistently and given loads of chances. Robert and RonF have posted exceedingly hateful diatribes on most of the threads. I could go through them one at a time, but it’s besides the point, this is your forum and I’d like to be respectful of your rules.
I’m also not feeling put upon or singled-out, again I was merely curious and if you’ll notice I’ve made a good faith effort to restrain my initial anger and apologize for my prior behavior. I am hardly one to complain about mean mods considering I’m using your space and to do such would be hypocritical. I’m very honest that I’m not accusing. I honestly thought I wasn’t crossing the line of the terms and service of this blog and I was honestly curious. I’m really sorry it came out passive-aggressive. I hope you will accept my contention that it was not.
I’m sorry I’ve worn out your patience and I hope if I choose to comment on other threads that I will not re-win your ire and I will strive to maintain a more distant style to avoid being a giant asshole.
That is being a giant asshole, not appearing as one. I fully admit I crossed the line in anger and am walking myself back to the civility required. I swear that I am using no sarcasm and intend no passive-aggression. I am striving to be one hundred percent honest and forthright and I again apologize for ruining your day.
It is currently illegal in 30 states to marry a gay person. It was not long ago, illegal in several states to have any form of gay sex. It is currently illegal to allow the immigration or recognize the marriage of a same-sex partner. It is currently illegal to file taxes jointly as a same sex couple. It is federally illegal to file those taxes even if you are recognized in your state.
Please cite the statute that says it is illegal to allow the immigration of a same-sex partner. If you cannot cite the statute, please stop making the claim. (Also, please note the difference between it being illegal to do something, which strongly implies potential sanctions, and the government’s refusing to recognize that you’re doing something. Sodomy was illegal and you could go to prison for it. SSM is simply ignored.) DOMA was a poorly thought out statute stuck into federal law. It allows for same-sex couples who are married at a state level to manipulate taxes outrageously, for example. (Some thoughtful conservatives are opposed to DOMA for that reason.)
Number of people is similarly arbitrary.
Seriously, you think it is just as arbitrary for the government to dictate the number of people who can live in a single house, as it is for the government to dictate the race or gender of the people who can live there? You honestly see no rational basis for why there would be legal limits on the number of people?
ADDED: Also, not to get into your conversation with Amp, but I think you are mistaking the purpose of his mod policy, which is not to ban people based on his disagreeing with them, but on the way in which they comment. I am one of the people who disagrees with RonF almost every time he comments, but he is courteous despite being wrong on the issues. He does not swear at people or insult them. The only times he’s criticized by a mod is when he seems to be making a claim that already has been disproven factually and with citations. Other people on the other end of the political spectrum have been criticized by mods when they are doing what you advocate — “ranting at perceived stupidity” by insulting and swearing at people they deem to be wrong politically — because the mods here judge commenters based on their civility, not on their following a particular ideology. I know that I have been in disagreement with what the mods here think on plenty of threads, especially recently, but because they know I am trying to learn and be open to arguments, they don’t threaten to ban me.
Okay, well, hmm.
PG isn’t dishonest. Promise. She’s really smart, and is extremely patient and thorough in her responses to people. I promise, promise, promise, that she’s arguing in good faith.
Some of the other prerequisites I was thinking about for poly marriage were stuff that wouldn’t be categorized under legal feasibility so much as things that need to be done to make poly marriage politically feasible. An example would be proving to people that poly people aren’t immoral degenerates who can’t even be trusted to raise their own children. Polyamory probably needs a lot more positive visibility.
Frankly, to some extent, I think a lot of poly communities are still figuring out their own shit. This has just been my experience from watching people. Polyamory makes a lot of sense philosophically; it really does, probably a lot moreso than monogamy — or at least a monogamy that’s based on promises of fidelity, rather than love and convenience. (To some extent, my partner and I are monogamous because we’re lazy and uninspired. We’re generally uninspired to go find other partners, and even if we were inspired, we’re too lazy to do it.) However, our social structures are set up for monogamy, not polyamory, and so I think a lot of poly communities are left to sort of struggle to define things for themselves.
All of which is fine. It involves a lot of positive and excitign things, but also sometimes a lot of the fabled drama, and sometimes people get hurt.
In progressive circles, I sometimes see people look at the drama of other people’s poly relationships — especially young people’s poly relationships — and judge polyamory by those problems. I admit to having done this, particularly with regard to heavily patriarchal poly relationships that some of the people I knew in college had. At the same time, they’re conveniently forgetting the kinds of drama that monogamous people — particularly young monogamous people — go through in their relationships because it’s more normalized and draws less attention. Similarly, I concentrated on the distasteful patriarchy of the poorly functioning poly relationships that I saw, while not simultaneously thinking about the distasteful patriarchy inherent in most of the monogamous relationships around me.
I think public conceptions of polyamory are also hurt by the veil of secrecy drawn over many poly lives. Those veils exist for damn good reasons — to protect people’s children, and their privacy, and their friendships, and their livelihoods.
It would be easier to eliminate those veils if the public were friendly to polyamory, and at the same time, I don’t think the public can *become* friendly to polyamory until more of those veils are drawn back.
PG- (continued)
Ok, ignoring the fact that as supposedly the legal scholar, you’ve provided no real argument about why number of persons would be untenable or unammendable to existing marital law yet claim it is my duty as a non-legal scholar to provide the exact paragraph and statement rather than legal intention, let’s see if I can ineptly deal with your request.
Multi-number, multi-partner legal deals have been formed throughout contract, civil, and criminal law. Prosecution of combined murders or thefts, class-action lawsuits, most of contract law. Furthermore by the unfortunate Supreme Court decision based on the 14th Amendment, corporations that have merged are a particularly grisly version of a polyamorous commune (grisly because the two legal persons not only form one recognized family unit but become one legal person again (unless the deal is for multiple existing partners post merger)). Looking at specific marriage law, most could be adapted by changing the phrases of spouse to be spouse(s) and additional ammendments stating that the processes should be repeated where they must be individual to accommodate multiple spouses. So that’s what I mean by a find and replace change to current marital law.
It’s also what I mean by the notion of granting poly marital rights. Marital law would have to cover poly groupings just as it needs to be changed to allow same sex partnerships. It’s not no DOMA and then marriage. It’s prohibited, there are legal restrictions and those need to be addressed if not state by state, then federally and forced to override state.
This is a legal change to what is, because discrimination against gender prevents a fundamental right (and marriage is considered a basic civil right (Loving v Virginia)). To prevent the recognition of family and to block that civil right if there is no other civil right infringed upon is an unlawful blocking of the civil rights of consenting adults and thus indefensible by the constitution.
Now, you will probably argue that Loving v Virginia argues two-person couplings, but I’m not using that to argue. I’m arguing from its classification of marriage as a basic civil right and the infringement there upon a legal issue. It also runs into religious freedom issues and while Mormon bias has allowed courts to rule against poly marriages, there is a similar divide as there is to same sex marriage in that some religious marriages between consenting adults have been denied recognition by a secular state.
On top of that, this is not at all an argument against your initial should. That is your assertion that poly cannot use marriage and must aim for a different legal structure because of the inherent rewriting of marital structure (not law, structure). In our discussions so far, you’ve shifted instead to an argument that current law argues against polyamory.
If victory is all that matters to you, then I concede your point fully. Current law does indeed prohibit poly marriages and gay marriages. The arc of history is long but bends towards justice and you provide no arguments that are meaningful outside the short sighted fight. I concede that the right of poly marriages will require great time and energy. I do not concede that it is not right to fight for them because the humanity and basic civil rights are somehow incompatible with a basic revision much as happened often in our history to marital law in order to support the realities of human families and marriages.
If we’re really struggling for how to accommodate, we can ask the muslims, they by your admission seem to have figured out how to make them compatible and they have even more issues about consent laws. So there is that.
But I’m sure you’ll tell me the next topic we were really debating as you seek to shut down the debate, but it is late over here in Denmark and I am tired and I’ve already really angered Barry so I should give it a rest as I learned five years ago, arguing with disingenuous people merely results in intense frustration as like all defenders of the status quo, they don’t need to win, they just need to stall the debate and arguments.
In order to avoid further derailing Jeff’s thread, I’ve responded to Cerberus in an open thread.
Mandolin,
Thanks for the credentialing :-)
I think it’s worthwhile to distinguish between people in sexually open relationships and those who are genuinely poly (i.e. would want to get married to all the partners and be legally committed to and responsible for them, carry burdens like a shared credit rating, etc.).
Sexually open relationships probably are creepier to the public in some ways because they are “promiscuous,” with all the old fashioned concerns about children born out of wedlock and the newer concerns about STDs.
I think there’s also a sense that perhaps hetero women are more disadvantaged in such relationships because hetero women are socialized toward sexual monogamy. While it’s more acceptable now for women to be sexual outside marriage, they’re still called slutty if it’s not in serial monogamy. Because of that socialization (and of course some women’s real preference for sexual monogamy due to their perception of the connection between sex and love), people often assume that a woman in a sexually open relationship is reluctantly letting her husband sleep around but isn’t truly OK with it.
In contrast, what I think of as genuine polys don’t have that issue if they are saying they want a marriage just like a traditional marriage, except with a couple more people (e.g. polygamy as it was practiced by Mormons and still is practiced by Muslims, wherein sex outside marriage is not OK). Multiple commitments are less scary to the public than freewheeling sex.
However, even my friends who seem to have really healthy, loving, stable poly relationships still seem to have the kind of hierarchy tendency to them. For example, one friend who lives with two guys definitely treats one as the “husband” and the other as the “boyfriend” (although not married to either). The “husband” is the one with whom she’s been the longest, the one who accompanies her to weddings, etc.
It reminds me of something a friend said to me … eep, I guess 15 years ago now? She was a classmate who had grown up in the Philippines and was Muslim, and we were talking about the differences in our religions one day. I shyly asked her about how she felt about polygamy in Islam (not wanting to offend her but being very curious), and she said that Muhammad said that men could take up to four wives, but only if they knew they could treat and love all those wives equally. She said of course most people cannot do that, and so polygamy should be a highly limited practice, but unfortunately men didn’t listen to the “equally” part of Mohammad’s statement, and so there were polygamous marriages where the wives were not loved and treated equally, and those were wrong in Islam.
(I have no idea if this actually is what Mohammad said, not having studied the Quran, but I think this kind of shapes my uncertainty about polygamy — it just seems really hard to have equality there.)
PG-
First off thank you. I didn’t know that aspect of the moderation policy. I honestly haven’t encountered a civility moderation policy so I wasn’t expecting it. I will modify my behavior to fit, as though I disagree about the philosophy behind such a policy, I recognize its merits and wish to meet the standards. On that note, I also apologize as regards Mandolin’s statement about assuming disingenuousness.
We are having problems with cross-talk apparently and I don’t feel you are making a good faith attempt to understand my point and to argue honestly with me. This could be me being a really dumb bio genderqueer and residual anger. I will work on that so that doesn’t leak as it has been into my responses.
Speaking of responses:
On immigration. Where does it block the immigration directly of multiple spouses. If multiple spouses or a same sex spouse can meet the requirements alone of immigration, they’ve immigrated and can be recognized as married by the churches that recognize as such. It however has no secular legal standing and can not be used as a factor on behalf of the immigration petition. You are legally considered single and face those hardships. To do otherwise contravenes DOMA and other laws.
On number of people. I always thought where number of people applied was in respect to fire codes which was important mostly for respect of contracts as regarding building zones. That is the owner would lose his protections and insurances for breach of contract if the house was packed but the house could be packed within physical limits at a given moment.
But that aside, the point I was striving to make was that there is no good argument on number of people in marriage and there are a load of contract law that show multiple-partner contracts incorporating into a single family unit for purposes of law. The National Coalition of Sexual Freedom does nice work for polyamorous triads and quads on that subject. My point that there is not a good legal reason for the prevention of marriages on numerical basis because one cannot prove that the removal of a civil right (that of marriage) is necessary because of conflict with another basic civil right (the right to life, consent, bodily autonomy). As such, it will be recognized in a future sense and the law will have to accommodate that because of the law, not because number by itself is somehow a suspect class (it isn’t a suspect class because numbers aren’t targeted for active discrimination like race, gender, orientation, etc…).
If I may, is our conflict in that you argue that for recognition of polyamorous marriage at this exact moment would be politically infeasible and require rewriting of a portion of current marital law to accommodate what should be a right in some future time or that you disagree that the right of polyamorous families to be recognized married families untenable at any time and that steps to modify marital law shouldn’t be undertaken? It might help my headache to know exactly what I’m arguing, though I am happy that I am making an impact on the issue of education of neutrals even if I did bone up earlier on.
I wonder how much of that is caused by being required to cloak the true nature of one’s relationship in certain situations – like weddings.
Cerberus,
I don’t think I’ve claimed to be a legal scholar (I’m no longer a student and haven’t published recently, so that would be a pretty shoddy claim), but you’re just getting a lot of things wrong.
Furthermore by the unfortunate Supreme Court decision based on the 14th Amendment, corporations that have merged are a particularly grisly version of a polyamorous commune (grisly because the two legal persons not only form one recognized family unit but become one legal person again (unless the deal is for multiple existing partners post merger)).
No, not at all. A corporation is a “legal person,” as distinguished from a “natural person.” (A natural person is a human being; a “legal person” is any entity that is treated like a person in the law.) A corporation or merger of corporations isn’t at all like a family unit. A family unit is recognized to consist of multiple persons, each with both individual rights under the law, and with rights and responsibilities to others in the unit and that flow from being in the family. A corporation is a single legal person; two corporations that become one through a merger or acquisition are still a single legal person. Corporations don’t have to include any natural people in them (hence the “shell corporation”).
This is a legal change to what is, because discrimination against gender prevents a fundamental right (and marriage is considered a basic civil right (Loving v Virginia)). To prevent the recognition of family and to block that civil right if there is no other civil right infringed upon is an unlawful blocking of the civil rights of consenting adults and thus indefensible by the constitution.
Loving was not about marriage as a fundamental right unconstrained by government limitations. It was about racial equality. “To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations.”
It said that it was unConstitutional for the government to discriminate on the basis of race this way. In my opinion, prohibiting same-sex marriage is a discrimination on the basis of sex, which is also unConstitutional. However, there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits discrimination based on number of people. In fact, with regard to voting rights where we have the 15th Amendment banning discrimination based on race, and the 19th Amendment banning discrimination based on sex, with number of people we have Baker v. Carr which requires one man, one vote.
This is why equating same sex marriage with polygamy, or with adult incest, really frustrates me. There may be very good public policy reasons to legalize poly or adult incestuous marriages, but they aren’t reasons based in Constitutionally recognized mandates of equality. The Constitution doesn’t say that the government can’t discriminate based on number of people or pre-existing family relationship. Under the law, black cannot be treated differently than white, man differently than woman, but your brother is different than a stranger (e.g. related parties in tax transactions), and two people are different from one person (e.g. number of unrelated adults living in a home).
I’m not interested in “winning” an argument. I’d like to persuade you that same-sex marriage is Constitutionally required because of the prohibition on discrimination based on sex. I’d also like you to see that there’s no similar prohibition on discrimination based on number of people. But you seem really unwilling to read my comments in good faith, so we may be at a dead end here.
PG-
I hope you won’t mind me commenting on your statements at 53, but you have helped me understand better where you are coming from.
Polyamory as it exists comes in multiple forms, from open relationships, casual variable groups, and open marriages as well as hierarchal and non-hierarchal structures and mixes. There are those who use husband, boyfriend or primary, secondary, or partner, lover, or even partner, partner, husband, hubby, or co-primaries.
What is crucial to note is that in honesty poly-marriages would and should only apply to those who wish to make a commitment on the level of marriage to their partners. That is, the assumption of love, shared responsibility, a desire to commit for the rest of one’s life or to make an earnest effort at it.
I also know all about how perceptions of sex really muck up a lot of marriage debates. The same sex marriage fight has only dragged on this long because of cultural discomfort at the idea of gay sex. Thus the cultural sell of allowing poly “promiscuous” groups will be hard even though there are already open marriages and swingers in the straight community (a lot of them) and that issues like mixed-orientation love relationships could develop into multi-partner partnerships if someone fluid bonds with another partner (a real issue for people like me who are asexual and thus unable to meet their primary partner’s sexual needs).
I can say on behalf of poly that hierarchy is not essential and I have met many couples without hierarchy and even those with hierarchal terms don’t really stick to them (use of primary and secondary may be shorthand to designate romantic making a go of it partners from those seen as temporary boyfriends/girlfriends/lovers or a means of distinguishing two separate primary partners with different aspects to them).
The latter case can be seen in relationships where one main partner is married and thus while emotional connection can be the same, only one is considered in the pot as being feasible to marry even though life-decisions may involve both partners.
It’s messy in life practice (at least appearance-wise) and I suspect that might be influencing your impression that it’d be equally messy in legal practice (though honestly the mess appearance is really just a veneer to help explain a more solid and honest relationship (as opposed to the straight drama that often occurs in relationships and marriages)).
Again, I’m sorry that I’ve been a belligerent asshole. I seriously have anti-charisma and let passion hurt my own case.
PG-
“Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.”
The decision is on race, but the right enumerated in defending that right was that marriage is a basic civil right. Infringement of a basic civil right must be defended by noting where failure to infringe would allow that basic civil right to infringe on another basic civil right.
And one man one wife or one person one spouse is a whole different issue than one person one vote. For the same reason that miscegenation laws are against the constitution but affirmative action or civil rights legislation aren’t. One person one vote conflicts with a fundamental right (that one person’s vote is worth as much as any others and no one has undue representation) whereas there is no civil right being able to marry more than one consensual adult partner conflicts.
More importantly, there is no strong legal reason that such a conflict and prevention of rights must be upheld. As it stands, it’s an arbitrary law based on both discomfort with promiscuity and fear of abuse from religious groups seeking to counter laws of informed consent and personal autonomy and freedom (which could and should be upheld by caring about consent and autonomy, Mormon single relationships still have many unfortunate aspects of creepy mormon polygamous relationships).
And I read your statement. Where we disagree seems to be on two issues.
One, a failure to recognize multiple people in a committed relationship are fundamentally different from multiple people in any other context. Just like two same sex friends who room together are fundamentally different legally than two same-sex partners seeking a committed relationship. Furthermore, how this again fails to ignore how many marriage rights are centered around secular recognition of family structure, it is a shortcut method of designating that the participants wish to be legally recognized as a family unit for a large deal of legal rights, responsibilities, and protections. It’s a way of saying, this person isn’t my friend or unaffiliated, but my family member.
Two, a fundamental disagreement on law dictates limit or should dictates limit. In short, you seem to be arguing that because number isn’t protected, marital law shouldn’t accommodate it, where I am more arguing that marital law has no good reason to prohibit it and thus should accommodate it in order to provide protection for those who need it and who want all the protections and status that comes from being a legally identified family unit.
Cerberus,
You’re welcome. You might wish to read AAB’s moderation policy, which is linked above the comment box after the words “Leave a reply.”
My basic point here has been that poly relationships do not fit as well into existing marriage structures as same-sex marriage does, to the point that I’m skeptical that simply saying people can marry multiple people at once will be workable, and would consider an alternative legal status for poly relationships to be more feasible. If gender were still an important distinction in U.S. law (as it was in, say, 1890), I would be making the same statement about same-sex marriage because a marriage of equals was not what marriage legally was 100 years ago. It is what marriage legally is today. Number of people still is an important distinction in U.S. law, and therefore doesn’t fit neatly into existing marriage structure. Either the structure has to be changed, or the surrounding law does. That’s all I’m saying here.
I amended that basic point slightly to say that either the alternate status or a far reaching set of changes to the law would be necessary to accommodate poly relationships. I would be fine with either of those. You seem to be assuming hostility toward poly relationships and have been accusing me of bigotry, which I think is unjust. EDITED TO ADD: Sorry, I hadn’t seen your latest comments before I wrote this one. I appreciate your willingness to explain where my perspective is inaccurate about the varieties of poly relationships.
On immigration. Where does it block the immigration directly of multiple spouses.
See 8 USC 1182. “(A) Practicing polygamists. Any immigrant who is coming to the United States to practice polygamy is inadmissible.”
there are a load of contract law that show multiple-partner contracts incorporating into a single family unit for purposes of law.
I don’t know what you mean by “multiple-partner contracts incorporating into a single family unit,” but if you have a link I would appreciate seeing what this is.
Mandolin,
I’m sure there is some cloaking going on, but those who know them are accepting of the poly relationship, and those who don’t wouldn’t know who her partner “ought” to be, which means that on average she ought to be bringing each person equally often — but that’s not what happens. There may be other factors involved and perhaps I am judging unfairly, but honestly whenever she talks about her relationships, the longer-time guy comes across in what I think of as the “husbandy” way (mentions of his family, of long term concerns like his health) and the newer guy comes across in the “boyfriendy” way (he’s so hot, we’re going to do this fun new activity).
In short, you seem to be arguing that because number isn’t protected, marital law shouldn’t accommodate it,
No, I am saying that because number isn’t protected, the Constitution does not require marital law to accommodate it, and the surrounding law is would need to be changed for marital law to do so. Big difference from “shouldn’t.”
For the same reason that miscegenation laws are against the constitution but affirmative action or civil rights legislation aren’t.
Civil rights legislation puts racial equality into statutory practice. It’s not conflicting with “color-blindness” at all. Affirmative action conflicts with color-blindness, and is constitutional only to the extent that it attempts to remedy past wrongs. (For example, a city that had no historical record of discriminating against Eskimos was not allowed to include Eskimos in the affirmative action policy.)
PG-
Oi.
Then yes, we’ve agreed this whole time on pretty much most of it. It doesn’t now, it should later and the marital law shall have to be changed to accommodate that but not so much that an entire new institution (not marriage) will have to be eventually created.
And there’s transitional battles like the very fact that you’re polygamist blocks you from entering the country. That’s kind of stupid and should be replaced with much better consent laws and enforcement so such a lazy shortcut is unneeded in our immigration law.
On your friends, it sounds like a primary, secondary or partner lover relationship. Such a polyamorous set-up would thus be unlikely to be getting a triad marriage and would instead by marrying along the husband lines. Such a relationship is an open relationship or an open marriage. It could develop into a triad (polyfidelous or not), but at the moment, that’d be the structure. That’s “hierarchal” but not the way you’re thinking of it. Not all polyamorous patterns are alike and not all would seek marital protection which is also true in the queer community.
On bigotry, I don’t believe you are a bigot at all. However, you probably are unaware of much of poly reality and have some difficulty looking at issues from a non-monogamous frame that may be coloring some of your ideas on what could be possible and how but those are minor quibbles.
Should versus I’m making a case right now for the Supreme Court.
I appreciate that you’re a law student who places respect for institutions above the inherent struggle both legally and more importantly culturally for equal rights. We disagree on that and agree on the main point of contention. Later not now, yes, but should be and must lay planks now towards.
I’m an activist and the arc of history is long but bends towards justice.
It no longer surprises me when the subject of gay rights comes up and poly people immediately start jumping the train. But it makes me TIRED.
I’m just saying: it has happened a LOT in my various spheres. And you’d think it would be played out, that poly people would have gotten the idea that constantly trying to put themselves at the center of the conversation is kind of annoying and really privileged (especially when it is white, mostly-het poly people) but it just. keeps. happening.
TIRED.
Elusis,
I get what you’re saying and expressed a somewhat similar sentiment @41 re: hijacking, but in fairness, the original post quoted an SSM opponent making a standard slippery slope argument — “Why not polygamy, or three or four spouses?” — and Jeff said, “Polygamy, as it currently exists, runs afoul of a couple of those points — but it’s posible to imagine a polyandrous marriage between multiple people that was chosen willingly by all parties, and I fail to see why I should interfere in their right to live that way.”
However, I think this attitude of non-interference about marriage elides some of the legal and cultural meaning of marriage. Sex is private. Marriage is public, a significant legal status demanding recognition from others of a particular relationship. Efforts to claim marriage and the family as a purely private sphere, in which there should be no interference from others in the community, historically have been anti-feminist, coming from those who wish to make rape, assault, emotional abuse, economic blackmail and other ugly possibilities in marriage a “private” matter. This invisiblizing of women into the “private” marital unit even has afflicted great liberal theorists like John Rawls, as Susan Moller Okin pointed out.
Marriage, unlike sex, isn’t a matter of “what I do behind closed doors is none of your business.” Polite people don’t ask about a stranger’s sex life, but it is considered appropriate on just about any form you ever get to ask about someone’s marital status, because that shapes how one is to be treated not only socially but also legally. The principle of autonomy through others’ non-interference doesn’t quite cut it here.
Argh, I can’t edit the comment while it’s moderation. Could someone correct “the original post quoted an SSM making a standard slippery slope argument” by adding “opponent” after SSM?
[Done! –Amp]
Elusis, what train jumping are you talking about?
The way polyamory even came up in this discussion was that (as usual) it was being used (In this case, by David Gibbs) as the end of a slippery-slope argument about the possible consequences of SSM.
It’s not superawesome to have your life held up as a worst-case scenario representing the breakdown of society, and when poly folks are used in that way, I think it’s pretty reasonable for them to object.
There’s a little extra added sting in this particular slippery slope, since the usual reaction to the argument is not, “so what if multiple people get married? There’s nothing wrong with that,’ but rather, “gosh, don’t worry, same-sex marriage would never lead to something as silly and outlandish as poly-marriage.” It sucks to discover that folks whose political cause you publicly support do not publicly support yours, especially when to your mind, the causes are very similar.
I’m not in favor of hijacking anyone’s struggle. As someone who identified poly for much of my life, I had to come to terms with the idea that many of my relationships would likely never be legally accepted. That’s part of why I believe so strongly in the fight for SSM, because I know how much it angered and frustrated me to be told that my love was supposed to count less.
I believed then, though as I believe now, that SSM is more important in an immediate sense, in part because it’s a battle that’s actually winnable within a reasonable timeframe. I also agree with PG that the legal waters around poly-marriage are much murkier and difficult to navigate than the legal waters around SSM, and that makes SSM a better, easier fight from a legislative standpoint.
Hell, I’m even (grudgingly) okay with the way the rhetoric about ‘how silly and unlikely and outlandish poly-marriage is’ get used. I understand that it’s probably necessary from a political standpoint. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t get frustrated and TIRED when I see it happen again.
—Myca
I think SSM also is a particularly feminist issue because the opposition always comes back to gender stereotypes. It’s only to the extent that we have a sexist society that SSM opponents can find it completely mind-blowing that two people of the same sex can have a functional marriage and raise children together. The concerns always come back to gendering spousal and parental roles: who will be the “nurturer” in a family headed by two men? who will be the “discipliner” in a family headed by two women? I’ve read a lot of the arguments opposed to SSM and it always comes back to a belief that all women are X, and all men are Y, and you have to have an X and a Y for marriage and family to work. People who sincerely believe that they are not opposed to homosexuality and would be embarrassed to say that gay sex is “gross” still cling to the gender cliches.
I’ve discussed this with SSM opponents who will say stuff like, “But how will two lesbians cope with a teenage boy when he gets to that age where you have to be able to put him in his place physically?” and I respond, “Well, how does a hetero couple where the father is in a wheelchair cope with that? do you think fatherhood is defined by the ability to kick your son’s ass when necessary?” This kind of thinking has to be defeated for us to have a feminist society, and I think same-sex couples provide a living, everyday example of why people and their abilities and roles in life can’t be defined by their gender.
I think there’s an inherent necessity in being a feminist to supporting same-sex marriage, but it’s not so clear-cut that supporting poly marriage is part of the struggle for sex equality, which is why I’d be leery of giving too hard a time to feminists who see poly marriage primarily as it has been practiced historically (generally in a very patriarchal fashion) and haven’t seen a lot of contemporary, non-patriarchal and non-hierarchical poly relationships. Which comes back to Mandolin’s point about the painful necessity of coming out of the closet, even if it draws the ire of inevitable enemies, because it also will reassure potential allies who otherwise don’t know what a healthy poly relationship looks like.
(Though I don’t think the adult incest marriage folks are even close on that — they’re not just unrecognized, they’re actually criminally illegal — and I can’t say that I’m anywhere close to being certain that that’s something I ought to fight. Someone’s always going to be the odd man out.)
Myca and PG – sorry for the delay; it’s a busy time of year for faculty at my university.
I have felt, for many years now, quite sensitive to the fact that some polyamorous folk seem to be co-opting the language of the gay civil rights movement for themselves (particularly around “coming out), and further have seemed inclined to try to hitch their wagon to gay civil rights, particularly when the topic of marriage comes up.
I find this problematic at best, offensive at worst. I imagine, though I wouldn’t assume, that my issues with it have some analogues in African-American objections to GLBT causes equating themselves with the Civil Rights movement of the 60s.
What troubles me is this:
First, the assumption that it is OK with GLBT people if discussions of their marginalization and need for equality get infused with discussions of poly concerns. I have never seen a poly person ask “would it be OK to include this topic in the conversation?” – there is always this assumption that it is OK. I see this as very similar to how white privilege operates when white voices start interjecting themselves into discussions about POC and re-centering the conversation on their experiences.
Second, the way conflating gay marriage rights with poly marriage rights blurs the difference between the two. As laid out very clearly in the sequence of comments above, the two are not the same, and the former is far more in keeping with existing civil law around marriage than the latter is. Also, just as not all poly people are GLBT, not all GLBT people are poly; however, the accusation of sexual insatiability and an inability to be monogamous is often levelled at queer people, and then gets expanded to paint them as vectors for disease, threats to children, and disruptors of society’s “morals” (whatever those are). At the same time, monogamous, stable same-sex and trans-including relationships get silenced and erased, leading to generation after generation of young people who have to contend with the socially-inculcated belief that accepting their same-sex attractions means they can never have a stable, committed future relationship and family.
Third, while some poly people are also queer, many are not. I have yet to see poly people who try to link their needs to GLBT people’s needs acknowledge their heterosexual privilege and consider, thoughtfully, how that might be at work in the dynamic they create when they enter conversations about queer civil rights and same-sex marriage. While no poly people can currently marry all their partners, many (most?) poly people can legally marry one of their partners, AND can do so in a marriage that immediately recieves recognition in all 50 states with full federal benefits as well. Equating their situation with a same-sex couple’s situation, even if that couple lives in a state with gay marriage or civil unions, is disrespectful and disingenuous. I have never seen a straight poly person consider, thoughtfully, how their desire for and feeling of entitlement to multiple partners (and entitlement to having that preference validated) springs from heterosexual privilege, namely the privilege of growing up in a culture that has validated the object of their desires as “normal” and “natural” from day 1, and in fact if they are male, has validated the quantity of their desires too. Nor have I seen a bisexual poly person consider, thoughtfully, how participating in one or more opposite-sex relationships can socially “redeem” them from whatever stigma accrues around their same-sex relationship(s), whereas a monogamous bisexual person in a same-sex relationship is percieved as hopelessly gay and in an opposite-sex relationship is erased and re-written as “heterosexual.”
Fourth, in many places on the Internet (note that I recognize this is not necessarily the case in the “real world ™”), it is fairly safe and supported and accepted to be polyamorous. There are large communities specifically for poly people, and many sub-groups in which being poly is understood as one of many acceptable variants on relationships. Whie there are queer-specific communities and sub-groups in which being queer is also understood as acceptable, I have never seen poly communities attacked in drive-by trollings in the quantity or degree of vileness that I have seen for gay communities. I do not regularly see poly people targeted for slurs in the comments forums of major newspapers, or comments on YouTube videos, or in major blogs.
And in the “real world (tm”), poly people are also not held up to ridicule or subjected to violence in the way GLBT people are. There may be hate crimes against poly people that I do not know about, but I would bet all the money in my bank accounts that the statistics about hate crimes toward GLBT people dwarf them, possibly even by orders of magnitude. Poly people were not blamed for AIDS, or Hurricane Katrina, or September 11th. Poly people’s funerals are not picketed by people carrying signs saying “God Hates Bigamists.” (There isn’t even an anti-poly word equivalent to “fag” or “dyke.”) Mobs of people did not stand on downtown corners in my city for hours every night screaming epithets about poly people while working to get the majority of Californians to vote away rights that had already been found in the existing state Constitution. Poly people are not, for the most part, a prominent negative touchstone in the repertoire of mainstream comics in the way “don’t worry, we’re totally not gay” humor constantly re-constructs gay men as something bad, that no one would want to be.
(I am aware that at moments when Mormon fundamentalist polygamists have been in the news, they have been referenced by comics. I would argue that there is at least as much focus on the religious minority aspect and the “cultural backwardness” as there has been on the poly aspect, and that Mormon fundamentalist polygamists are not particularly representative of modern progressive polyamory. Nor do comics usually express disgust at the idea that they might be assumed to be Mormon fundamentalist polygamists – the idea is absurd to begin with, and in fact I’ve seen mainstream comics talk about the number of wives and children some of the men have in tones that are clearly conveying awe and positive regard.)
In short, poly people, in my experience, insert themselves into conversations about queer civil rights and gay marriage, take up space, confound the issues at hand, and ignore ways in which they carry a great deal of privilege while failing to even register on the radar of the powerful and hateful. While the issue of poly relationships deserves its own consideration, I would be the first to agree, I feel very much as if there is a constant flow of “me too! Look at me! What about me and my issue!” that goes on (largely in progressive spaces) when gay marriage comes up that is profoundly disrespectful.
I have personally ended at least one friendship because the other party apparently could not stop centering the discussion on themself and their experiences as (heterosexual) poly whenever GLBT rights and marriage came up.
I would like to see poly folk talk amongst themselves about how white privilege, heterosexual privilege, and male privilege (and probably class/educational privilege in many cases) operates in their favor, and carefully consider how they are acting as detractors, rather than as allies, when they inject themselves into these conversations. But I would not like to see them do it in this comment thread necessarily.