Stepping Up

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

And so it begins:

Kody Brown is a proud polygamist, and a relatively famous one. Now Mr. Brown, his four wives and 16 children and stepchildren are going to court to keep from being punished for it.

The family is the focus of a reality TV show, “Sister Wives,” that first appeared in 2010. Law enforcement officials in the Browns’ home state, Utah, announced soon after the show began that the family was under investigation for violating the state law prohibiting polygamy.

On Wednesday, the Browns are expected to file a lawsuit to challenge the polygamy law.

The lawsuit is not demanding that states recognize polygamous marriage. Instead, the lawsuit builds on a 2003 United States Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state sodomy laws as unconstitutional intrusions on the “intimate conduct” of consenting adults.

I'm in favor of gay marriage for the same reason I'm in favor of legal polygamy, legalized adult incest, and all the rest - the state really shouldn't be telling anyone else who they can and cannot be in a recognized relationship with, full stop. Unfortunately, I've found that many who agree with gay marriage do not feel the same way about these other types of adult relationships.

Why is it that "equal marriage" only exists for many when it deals with their idea of reality? Should hardcore advocates of gay marriage be lining up behind the Brown family in solidarity and support of their situation? If you believe the US Constitution allows for, if not outright mandates, gay marriage, do you feel the same way here?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) No, the entire trust of my stance (tee hee you said thrust of my stance/Beavis and Butthead) is that the legal basis for polygamy would follow the Muslim idea, and the guess that the religion which brought us Orrin Hatch isn't going to accept polyandry.

2) Simple: gay men and lesbians marrying two by two is no more illegal than black men and white women or white men and black women marrying. Any argument against gay marriage has already been used against interracial marriage since before the Civil War.

3) It was criminalized by the Republicans.....

4) Citations for this other than Pals with Saddam and Nun Rapers Ronny Ray Gunn?

5) No more so than the Republican Party which defines equality under the law for gays very twistedly, to judge by their attempts to end-run the Supreme Court and revive sodomy laws.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"1) No, the entire trust of my stance (tee hee you said thrust of my stance/Beavis and Butthead) is that the legal basis for polygamy would follow the Muslim idea, and the guess that the religion which brought us Orrin Hatch isn't going to accept polyandry. "

No, you specifically said that as a requirement for accepting legal plural marriage husbands would be required to support their wives. This strongly implies that women NEED their husbands to support them

Further Mormons and Muslims are not the only ones who wish to have legalized plural marriage. There is a Christian Polyamory movement which is just about the same size as the Momorn Fundamentalist movement, there are the new agers/neopagans who support some form of group marriage (search on Church of All Worlds for one example), then there are those who don't have any religious motivation at all such as myself so the Mormon view of it is not entirely relevant save that this particular family happens to be Mormon and not from one of those other groups.


"2) Simple: gay men and lesbians marrying two by two is no more illegal than black men and white women or white men and black women marrying. Any argument against gay marriage has already been used against interracial marriage since before the Civil War. "

Perhaps you should go back and review the history of why the LDS church dropped the practice of polygamy, there were more than a few instances of systematic denials of civil rights on the part of practicing polygamists. Further all arguments against legal polygamy are directly analogous to the arguments against legal gay and interracial marriage.

"3) It was criminalized by the Republicans....."

And this is relevant because?

"3) 4) Citations for this other than Pals with Saddam and Nun Rapers Ronny Ray Gunn? "

Um, your own post?

"The only means I'd support it is if like the Muslims we approve this only if the man can provide equally for all of his wives in all matters."

No such restriction exists for monogamous marriage and you did no propose one, ergo you don't see a problem with the quiverful folks and Catholics having 12 kids they can't afford to pay for, but those icky polygamists had better not do it.


"5) No more so than the Republican Party which defines equality under the law for gays very twistedly, to judge by their attempts to end-run the Supreme Court and revive sodomy laws. "

Why do you keep bringing up the Republican Party with me? I'm not one of them and I agree that their civil rights stances are screwed up, that does not excuse YOUR screwed up views on civil rights which is the subject of this discussion.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) Someone has 400 wives some of those wives will be getting shafted. Human nature, dear boy.

2) Yes, I recall the irony of using the Bible to claim polygamy was un-Christian. It's economically unfeasible and marriage is primarily an economic transaction.

3) Because these same Republicans use religious arguments, overlooking the very dubious basis for this argument.

4) My statement referred to economics, I'm not sure what you assumed it referred to.

5) Because the GOP's the one party that takes on itself, in between the orgies with whores and divorcing cancer-stricken wives for 20-year-younger mistresses to deciding what US people can and cannot do morally.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

You know muslims can only have 4 wives yeah?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There are ways some of the really rich ones end-run around that. End-running religious prohibition is human nature as well. And I was going more for the Bible than the Quran here.