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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRecent articles on polyamory/polymarriage
Some reading for people who think that everything is weird cults or Sister/Wives:
...Polyamory and open relationships have been gaining prominence with the public. From TV shows like Polyamory: Married and Dating to celebrities like Mo’Nique coming out about being in an open relationship, polyamorous (loosely defined as loving more than one person at a time) relationships are becoming more visible. If you are on a dating site like OkCupid, chances are you’ve encountered someone who is already in a relationship looking to spice things up.
“I think more people are participating in open marriages and polyamory now than ever before,” says Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. “It’s becoming clear that heterosexual monogamous marriage simply doesn’t work for most people. And I think people are tired of being unhappy and dissatisfied.”
With 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce, monogamy may seem like impossible ideal. “We cannot control our own desires and we certainly cannot control the desires of others,” says Block, who has been in an open marriage for the past 10 years. “You cannot tell someone, ‘Don’t be attracted to anyone else. Don’t desire anyone else.’ You can say, ‘If we’re going to be together, I want it to be monogamous.’ But you cannot control the other person’s heart and mind. The heart wants what it wants.”
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/12/polyamory_works_for_us/
...I’m polyamorous, which means I believe you can love multiple partners at the same time. I’m in a relationship with my husband of nearly 17 years, and my boyfriend, with whom I celebrated my second anniversary in May. (In polyamorous lingo, our relationship is known as a “V”; I’m the “hinge” of the V and my two partners are the vertices.) People often say our lives sound complicated, but the truth is, we’re quite harmonious. We often joke that we’d make incredibly boring subjects for reality TV.
That hasn’t kept the world at large from condemning us. The right has spent years warning that we are the travesty waiting down the slippery slope of same-sex marriage. With every stride forward for marriage equality, I can count on turning on the TV to find conservative talking heads lumping families like mine in with pedophilia and bestiality. But liberals, for the most part, don’t treat us much better. They’re quick to insist that same-sex marriage would never, ever lead to such awful things — failing to point out how multi-partner relationships between consenting adults do not exactly belong in the same category as “relationships” with children or goats....
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orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)definitely keep growing as a life style and should have the same responsibilities and rights as every other form of the institution .
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)the law doesn't really care who has sex with whom.
it's a lifestyle, not a commitment
Wella
(1,827 posts)There are long term polyamorous relationships that are not just open marriages but are, in fact, group commitments.
http://www.polyfamilies.com/faq.html
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Wella
(1,827 posts)They will not be able to avoid doing so. The polyamorous are a sexual minority and will eventually be seen as a class deserving protections. The generation coming up is also less religious and much more sexually experimental than their parents. They will have less of an issue with poly situations and may be taking part in them themselves. There will eventually be critical mass and the right time.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)polyamory is a choice, not an immutable characteristic, so nothing like same-sex civil rights
Wella
(1,827 posts)Gays can voluntarily choose not to engage in same sex behavior. For many people, gay and straight, monogamy is about as natural as heterosexual sex is to a gay person.
http://www.anunconditionallove.org/personal_stories.htm
One might also argue that if bisexuals (the B in LGBT) are only allowed one partner, that their natural sexuality is being limited against their inborn, immutable sexual orientation.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)You should be banned.
You do not belong here, and it is painfully obvious you are using polygamy as a weapon to attack GLBT rights.
No one outside the extreme anti-GLBT bigot wing of society belches out horseshit like
Disgusting.
Wella
(1,827 posts)If you quote Ted Cruz for the purpose of showing why he's wrong, should you be banned?
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)polygamy.
You are what you are, and what you are is obvious.
Done with you. Obvious/
Response to geek tragedy (Reply #18)
Post removed
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Homophobes don't belong at DU.
Sid
Wella
(1,827 posts).
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)People who care about the welfare of children....
Until you and others who want polygamy can demonstrate a legal framework that supports justice for women and children in these types of marriage, then you're just coming across as homophobicly piggy backing on same sex marriage advocates historic victory.
It's disgusting and should be banned here.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)people in open marriages are legally committed to each other via monogamous marriage, but pursue a non-monogamous lifestyle
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Wella
(1,827 posts).
Wella
(1,827 posts)for the rights and protections of those involved.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)
snooper2
(30,151 posts)myself...
well...
Iggo
(47,535 posts)Any others?
(Yeah, yeah, I know there's also plural marriage, but I can't trash the word "plural."
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)*ahem* check the OP.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)Zenlitened
(9,488 posts)Last edited Wed Jul 8, 2015, 03:27 PM - Edit history (1)
...that's spurring some opposition to this topic, I think.
It's been such an obvious — and dishonest — rightwing meme for so long, people are wise to be suspicious.
And it's built on a falsehhood, as if affirming the right of all couples to wed inevitably leads to plural marriage somehow.
It doesn't.
Gay and lesbian couples have simply gained access to an existing legal and societal institution, marriage.
There is no existing legal and social institution for intimate plural relationships, here in the United States.
Perhaps there will be someday.
But it will require the creation of new structures, many of which are not easily inferred from what exists for couples.
And that effort, in my view, will best be led by people in or wishing to be in plural relationships, separate from the current rightwing inspired discussion.
Because the rightwing doesn't really give a damn about what's best for the poly community.
They're just out to puke on the LGBT community in this time of celebration, with the same old cynical lie about "redefining" marriage.
The supreme court justices have not redefined marriage. They have reaffirmed it.
edit: typos
Wella
(1,827 posts)which I don't see them being able to do.
Part of the reason polymarriage is now being discussed in non-RW circles is because, now that gay marriage is achieved, polyamorists can start to come out of the closet and talk about being a sexual minority.
Why I’m Still in the Polyamory Closet
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2013/09/05/why_i_m_still_in_the_polyamory_closet.html
Zenlitened
(9,488 posts)And they have exactly zero chance of rolling back equality for married couples, short of breaking up the republic (again).
Don't get taken.
Wella
(1,827 posts)The tiny groups that actually practice religious based polygamy are seen as threats, not as allies.
Zenlitened
(9,488 posts)Rightwingers are assholes, plain and simple. You're giving them too much credit.
Wella
(1,827 posts)?
Zenlitened
(9,488 posts)What does that question even mean?
Wella
(1,827 posts)In fact, most of the RW is appalled by the idea of polygamy becoming legal. So my question about Sister/Wives is basically shorthand for "Is the RW promoting polygamy in the media?"
Zenlitened
(9,488 posts)Please read more carefully.
Zenlitened
(9,488 posts)Nevermind.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)The LGBT folks have given the plural marriage folks a blueprint.
Now it's up to them.
I'm waiting for one to start a "Plural Marriage" group here on DU.
If they do that, and hold a few parades in major cities, they'll get my attention.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)
leftstreet
(36,101 posts)There's no rw social media wave outside DU that requires a response
Looks to me like a passive aggressive attempt to minimize a gay rights victory, and DU's the last place I'd expect to find it
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Wella
(1,827 posts)http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/gay-marriage-decision-polygamy-119469.html#.VZxKN0WTlZU
...Polyamory is a fact. People are living in group relationships today. The question is not whether they will continue on in those relationships. The question is whether we will grant to them the same basic recognition we grant to other adults: that love makes marriage, and that the right to marry is exactly that, a right.
Why the opposition, from those who have no interest in preserving “traditional marriage” or forbidding polyamorous relationships? I think the answer has to do with political momentum, with a kind of ad hoc-rejection of polygamy as necessary political concession. And in time, I think it will change.
The marriage equality movement has been both the best and worst thing that could happen for legally sanctioned polygamy. The best, because that movement has required a sustained and effective assault on “traditional marriage” arguments that reflected no particular point of view other than that marriage should stay the same because it’s always been the same. In particular, the notion that procreation and child-rearing are the natural justification for marriage has been dealt a terminal injury. We don’t, after all, ban marriage for those who can’t conceive, or annul marriages that don’t result in children, or make couples pinkie swear that they’ll have kids not too long after they get married. We have insisted instead that the institution exists to enshrine in law a special kind of long-term commitment, and to extend certain essential logistical and legal benefits to those who make that commitment. And rightly so.
But the marriage equality movement has been curiously hostile to polygamy, and for a particularly unsatisfying reason: short-term political need. Many conservative opponents of marriage equality have made the slippery slope argument, insisting that same-sex marriages would lead inevitably to further redefinition of what marriage is and means. See, for example, Rick Santorum’s infamous “man on dog” comments, in which he equated the desire of two adult men or women to be married with bestiality. Polygamy has frequently been a part of these slippery slope arguments. Typical of such arguments, the reasons why marriage between more than two partners would be destructive were taken as a given. Many proponents of marriage equality, I’m sorry to say, went along with this evidence-free indictment of polygamous matrimony. They choose to side-step the issue by insisting that gay marriage wouldn’t lead to polygamy. That legally sanctioned polygamy was a fate worth fearing went without saying.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/gay-marriage-decision-polygamy-119469.html#ixzz3fFGptabD
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)like an attempt to minimize a gay rights victory.
Sid
Wella
(1,827 posts)http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/gay-marriage-decision-polygamy-119469.html#ixzz3fFHmY0fA
...Conventional arguments against polygamy fall apart with even a little examination. Appeals to traditional marriage, and the notion that child rearing is the only legitimate justification of legal marriage, have now, I hope, been exposed and discarded by all progressive people. What’s left is a series of jerry-rigged arguments that reflect no coherent moral vision of what marriage is for, and which frequently function as criticisms of traditional marriage as well.
William769
(55,144 posts)Pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Thanks, EarlG.
Sid
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)who will have a tough time demonstrating they are not a theocratic homophobe. Darn.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)
pnwmom
(108,959 posts) riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)who have "suddenly" come alive here on DU in favor of polygamy, hard on the heels of the Obergefell decision.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)Wella and the Socks over and over again while some of us tried to warn them and each and every last one of them should march forward and make an apology OP, but not one of them will. Intellectually and ethically bankrupt the lot of them.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Although DU is actually *exactly* where I'd expect to find it, sadly. This place seems to attract the most demented passive-agressive trolls.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)Those are the two big issue when it comes to polygamy. Before DNA came into widespread use, Blood tests were used to show who was the father of a child, but we had cases with 99.31% chance that someone was the father and a jury said otherwise based on the facts presented to the Jury. In simple terms before DNA tests it was HARD to prove someone was the father, and thus various legal rules were adopted to make the job easier.
These rules included the rule any child born to a married woman was PRESUMED to be the product of her husband (and Adultery was made a crime for it undermined that rule, please note till Europe turn Christian, Adultery could only be done by a married woman and married man only did fornication for is easy to determine who the mother of a child is).
The State has a concern over who supports whom. The State does NOT want a child NOT to have financial support from BOTH PARENTS. That the child is a product of sex is a minor issue, the real issue as far as the law is concerned is SUPPORT for that child. Determining the mother of a child is generally easy, she carried the child for nine months. Who is the father if she had sex with more then one man? If she can not support the Child how can the State force the men she had sex with PAY support, given that only one of them is the real father? (Even with DNA this can be hard, what if the woman had sex with identical twins?. Yes, DNA makes it easier to determine who is the father is such cases, but it is NOT 100% accurate, through it exceeds the 99.99% accuracy of blood tests).
Now, you may say the men involved would all agree to support the child, but what if one does not? Thus the other men in the woman's life will pay support for a child that may be the product of another man. DNA helps in this regard, but prior to DNA men could defeat a support order even if he was the father of the child.
Support of minor children is a concern of the State, for if the Mother, but herself, can not do so, the State has to step in and provide the support. The State does NOT want to use its Taxes for that purpose if a man can be found to have fathered the child and earns enough money to support that child on his own.
This has always been the main attack on polygamy when the issue was a woman having more then one male sexual partner and why it is much rarer then men having multiple wives (The mother AND father of each child is easy to determine is such cases).
The other big issue against Polygamy is who inherits what. Many states now say all children are legitimate and thus inherit from each parent as a legitimate child. Should your child lose his or her share of your deceased spouses property because he had other children? In cases where it is one marriage after another, this is NOT a problem, but what if a child is NOT the real child of the deceased man? You set up someone to inherit something from a non blood relative independent of any will.
Another way to look at this if a Child inherits millions from his mother. Then the child dies while being taken care of by the man that woman married and lived with. Should a man, using DNA, to show he is the Actual Father, get that child's money? The law presently presumes that the child is the product of her husband, but if you are dealing with a woman with more then one husband, who gets the child's money at the death of the child?
Now, inheritance is today not the big thing it was just 100 years ago, most people with money set up wills and people without money do not need them, but who gets what is a factor at the death of someone. The laws reflect the first choice of most people that the money will go to their children, then their other blood relatives. If you want to avoid that you can write a will. On the other hand, do you want your property NOT to go to your children by someone's else's child just because you were in a polygamy relationship?
In the gay marriages cases, these issued did not come up. People in Homosexual relationships can only obtain children through adoption or some form of insemination (both artificial and "natural" insemination). Thus "natural" children are NOT a product of these relationships and thus the children produced do not run the risk of rejection by their father. The State is most worried about children who are rejected or other abandoned by their Fathers (and to a limited degree their mothers). Such children end up wards of the state and the state will adopt rules to minimize its costs (the old "poor laws" on the books but rarely enforced today, requires distant relatives to take care of such children at their own costs).
On last comment. A third issue comes up in cases of polygamy. What happens to people who can not find a mate, because someone else had married all of the possible mates? This has shown up in the regenerate Mormon groups out west. In those cases we see dominate set of males, who exchange their female daughters with each other and kick their own sons out. These ejected males tend to lives on the edges of society and come to hate their fathers (typical of most polygamy situations). In societies other then these Renegade Mormons, that hatred and sexual frustration and other problems of these unmarried males had to be address. The problems caused by to many unmarried males generally leads to making sure they get mates. For a married male is much more stable and less likely to do violent and other stupid acts then a unmarried male. Thus in most societies that permit polygamy it always give way to making sure all of the males are married for that is found to be more important then the leader of the society having multiple wives.
Mohammad saw this possibility and restricted Islamic multiple marriages to no more then four (and he only had one when his first wife was alive, his other wives were more him taking care of the widows of fallen followers then anything sexual). Most Moslems follow Mohammad's example, they restrict themselves to one wife unless there are good reasons to have more then one (i.e. to take care of widows of friends, rare today for most Islamic woman have access to finance so they can take care of themselves without having to marry as a second, third or fourth wife).
Now, various rulers outside of Christian Europe had many wives, but most either followed the Islamic rule of no more then four, or a similar rule. Kings and other tyrants would have several wives (The Caliph of Turkey, would have hundreds while saying he was a follower of Islam). The purpose was more to show how powerful he was for he could maintain such a large harem, while his enemies could not (Yes sex was a secondary issue is such harems).
My point is sex is a minor issue in the ban on polygamy (if a man whats to have a mistress, no big deal, if a woman wants to have sex with a man not her husband, she better NOT get pregnant for the pregnancy is the problem NOT the sex).
Child support, inheritance, and avoiding power politics tend to be the reason for most cases of bans on polygamy. Sex is rarely a factor independent of those three issues and in the Gay Marriages cases those three issues did not exist, thus not a problem for the court. On the other hand in polygamy situations those issues will come up and the court will avoid them by deferring any dispute as to polygamy to the states.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Talk about beating a dead horse...
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
