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1 Flavia  Fri, Jun 28, 2013 9:48:08pm

Ok, fine! (Oh, were we supposed to scream about this? The only thing wrong with polygamy is when it is forced on young girls (& young men are done out of possible wives because of it). Which is not “polygamy”, per se, but child abuse & pedophilia).

2 Tigger2005  Fri, Jun 28, 2013 11:53:27pm

Actually he’s right…I can’t really think of any rational argument against polygamy. But it doesn’t make any sense to rail against polygamy and bigamy together, because if polygamy were legal there wouldn’t be such a thing as bigamy. However, a very strong and logical argument can be made against marrying another person without the knowledge or consent of your current spouse.

3 Jayleia  Sat, Jun 29, 2013 3:50:03am

Gohmert…is…right…and I can’t believe I said those words. He’s still wrong.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with polygamy or polyandry…as long as all parties involved are capable of giving fully-informed, valid consent to the marriage.

(which means no kids, no inanimate objects, no animals, no surprises)

4 Sol Berdinowitz  Sat, Jun 29, 2013 4:20:06am

The arguments against bigamy or polygamy are simply this: women were (and still often are) not equal partners in a marriage, they are the party that is “bartered”.

5 Skip Intro  Sat, Jun 29, 2013 7:35:32am

re: #4 Sol Berdinowitz

The arguments against bigamy or polygamy are simply this: women were (and still often are) not equal partners in a marriage, they are the party that is “bartered”.

Exactly. It’s solely a one way street, with only the man allowed to have his harem.

Still, the real reason I posted this is that I’ve always wanted to use that picture of Louie.

6 aagcobb  Sat, Jun 29, 2013 7:47:00am

You know someone doesn’t have a good argument concerning an issue like ssm when they resort to the slippery slope to argue against something else instead. The reality is that the legal argument for requiring the federal government to recognize state sanctioned ssm has NOTHING to do with the constitutionality of polygamy bans. There is no equal protection argument because people aren’t prohibited from marrying someone they are compatible with; they just can’t be married to more than one at a time. Polygamy bans only have to pass the rational basis test to survive constitutional scrutiny, which is easy. The state has an interest in protecting an original spouses’ and his/her children’s right to the financial and emotional support of the other original spouse, and the state has an interest in preventing the societal instability which could be caused by wealthy, older men building large harems leaving an imbalance in the ratio of single women to single men. So, whether or not polygamy should be banned is a policy issue which can fairly be debated and regulated accordingly, but it is not a constitutional issue.

7 Blue Point  Sat, Jun 29, 2013 10:33:43am

Gohmert is the Poster Child for Crib Neglect. And Birth Control.

8 Ace-o-aces  Sat, Jun 29, 2013 1:24:02pm

Whenever I hear this argument about gay marriage leading to polygamy, I always think back to this passage from Around the World in 80 Days for some reason:

When the Mormon had recovered his breath, Passepartout ventured to ask
him politely how many wives he had; for, from the manner in which he
had decamped, it might be thought that he had twenty at least.

“One, sir,” replied the Mormon, raising his arms heavenward—“one, and
that was enough!”

9 ThomasLite  Tue, Jul 2, 2013 2:28:28pm

re: #2 Tigger2005

Actually he’s right…I can’t really think of any rational argument against polygamy. But it doesn’t make any sense to rail against polygamy and bigamy together, because if polygamy were legal there wouldn’t be such a thing as bigamy. However, a very strong and logical argument can be made against marrying another person without the knowledge or consent of your current spouse.

Well, Sol Berdinowitz has a point in that there’s still too much to be desired in the way of real equality and freedom of choice for that not to lead to potential abuse - of course the question would be whether the potential for abuse justifies the prohibition on non-abusive behaviour.
I agree there’s no reason in the world for the state to stick its nose in the morality of it all; consenting adults etc. That it makes most of us queasy doesn’t mean others should not be allowed the practice either.

Besides the abuse argument though, there’s a good argument to be made that marriage, which is a fiscally complex construct, currently (and quite desirably, for the vast majority!) balanced on the idea of a relationship between exactly two persons. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around just what it would take to make the tax code abuse-proof once again for starters. These are all issues which are entirely trivial with gay marriage, rendering the government without compelling interest in regulating said practice to any extent beyond administrative details. Not so much with polygamy - That actually does take a sledgehammer to a lot of pieces of the social fabric which have been painstakingly worked out over several centuries. For another example of that, think of the complications to insurance, survivors’ benefits etc etc etc.
Of course whether that justifies the continued regulation of what is, to be honest, mostly an issue of morality to most is dubious, but it’s not just a simple analogy to gay marriage by any means - there’s compelling, legitimate government interest in regulating this.

Oh, and if you really want to make some paulian-libertarian heads burst once they figure out they really can’t make a logically consistent counter-argument to your point, that last paragraph of yours: “However, a very strong and logical argument can be made against marrying another person without the knowledge or consent of your current spouse” would basically lead to a 1:1 implementation of polygamy in for example Libya and Morocco.[1]
…Which is, of course, explicitly derived from, and implemented as compliant with, sharia (in, for what I’ve seen of it, actually a rather decent implementation of certain perhaps not entirely western, but certainly quite acceptable concepts of family law). Just occurred to me this would be a lovely way to make certain libertarian heads burst :)
[1]J.M. Otto, Sharia incorporated, Leiden university press would be a good source for that (dare.uva.nl has it available for free, legally) under academic open access - it’s really quite a good, objective reference document IMO)


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