The slippery slope of gay marriage

A Mormon resident of St. George, Utah told a NY Times reporter:

If it's legal in some states for people of the same sex to get married, why is it not legal to marry more than one wife? [link]

Comments

[JewishAtheist]

What's the problem? Either there are good, legal reasons to limit polygamy or there aren't, regardless of the status of gay marriage.

Isn't that like arguing that giving women or blacks the right to vote was a slippery slope because who then can say that children can't vote?

[Buckaroo]

Either there are good, legal reasons to limit polygamy or there aren't, regardless of the status of gay marriage.

I assume you have heard of "precedent". In compelling various states to recognize gay marriage, courts have basically said that the state has no compelling reason for regulating marriage on the basis of the sex of the participants. That sure seems like a pretty big and fundamental step. Especially since it invents an institution that has essentially never existed in human history. To argue against polygamy (practiced by tens or hundreds of millions of people over millennia) then requires one to show that the state has a compelling interest in the number 2. I suppose you could say that this would leave all those mate-less and angry single males roaming around, causing trouble. I would pay good money to hear a state's lawyer make that argument in public.

As for giving children the vote, here's a taste of what that slope might look like:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0312/p01s03-uspo.html

[JewishAtheist]

To argue against polygamy (practiced by tens or hundreds of millions of people over millennia) then requires one to show that the state has a compelling interest in the number 2.

If you can't show that the state has a compelling interest in the number 2, then why shouldn't polygamy be legal?

[GOP Lurker]

Women and Blacks are different from children in that they can think responsibly for themselves, or, at least as well as white men can.

The argument for allowing same sex marriage is that adults should be able to make whatever family arrangements they deem suitable. That same statement could be applied to polygamy.

It's discussions like this that make one thing again about the extreme libertarian position that the state should not involve itself in marriage, only inheritance contracts.

[Buckaroo]

If you can't show that the state has a compelling interest in the number 2, then why shouldn't polygamy be legal?

Ummm... That was kind of my point (which you seem to be agreeing with)- it's hard to argue for magic qualities of the number 2 and thus there is no reason polygamy should be outlawed. Furthermore, getting to having the issue framed this way is enormously facilitated by the precedent of gay marriage. It seems that the only way to keep polygamy out is by invoking what Lawrence Auster has helpfully identified as a liberal's "unprincipled exception".

[JewishAtheist]

it's hard to argue for magic qualities of the number 2 and thus there is no reason polygamy should be outlawed

If there is no reason polygamy should be outlawed, why are you worried that it will become legal? (Or are you? If not, we're not arguing at all, I guess.)

[Buckaroo]

JA:
I may think that polygamy is a bad idea and I can come up with a number of reasons why making it a state-sponsored institution should not be done. However, my views are not relevant to the question of whether it will be ruled by the courts that polygamy should be made legal as a matter of civil rights or whatever. What I was trying to argue (less than clearly, it appears) is that because of the precedent of gay marriage it will be harder for opponents of polygamy to make a legal argument that will stand up within the current state of our jurispridence.

BTW, surely you aren't suggesting that as long as something can be shown to be consistent with the laws and their current interpretation then it is ipso facto unobjectionable.

[JewishAtheist]

BTW, surely you aren't suggesting that as long as something can be shown to be consistent with the laws and their current interpretation then it is ipso facto unobjectionable.

Not at all. I'm arguing that not all things that are "objectionable" should also be illegal.

[Jason Malloy]

A note on polygamy. I have heard that gay marriage opens the door to polygamy; I don't feel this is true, except in the looser sense that it may add a momentum of change to the institution, but not in the harder sense that "anything goes" (e.g. gay marriage = marriage between man and a footstool = marriage between four men, three women, and a chicken, etc)

I don't think the argument for gay marriage is a libertarian one (consenting adults, yadda, yadda), since the libertarian position would be that "marriage" itself is not the government's business. Which is also why I disagree that disallowing gay marriage is 'discriminatory'; in fact, the logic of marriage is inherently discriminatory - it says that coupled is better than single and adds special benefits to that arrangement. The argument for the institution of straight marriage is that straights being coupled is better for the individuals and society than straights being single. The argument for gay marriage and for polygamy are two different questions: are single gay males better than coupled gay males, and are polygamous unions of three or more better than just couples.

The answers to these questions are unrelated since whether a straight man has 10 wives is a question with different consequences than two gay men pairing up. It is possible for one to be bad for society but not the other, or for both to be bad for society or neither.

[Comment reposted from here]

[roissy]

the door to strains on the monogamous paradigm was opened with female economic empowerment. gay marriage is pushing it ajar a little more. where financial self-sufficiency for women has severed the connection between marriage and the male provider role, gay marriage is presently severing the connection between marriage and procreation by reducing (elevating?) it to merely an abstract expression of poetic love and sexual hedonism.

and the fact that some hetero married couples cannot have kids does not invalidate the historical tie between procreation and marriage, or the essence of marriage as a vehicle for creating new generations. childless married couples are a benign exception as it is understood that at least the *potential* for childbirth exists within every hetero pairing unless outside forces are applied - like cancer or contraceptives. no gay couples have any such potential outside of technological assistance, which in its use is proof of the point. with gay couples seeking to fulfill the urge to procreate, the technological or surrogate assistance isn't remedial, it's essential.

[Jason Malloy]

Marriage is socially beneficial for more reasons than makin' babies. Paired men are less criminal, less promiscuous, happier, and more productive. Monogamy encourages personal stability, expanded time preference and cooperative lifestyle. Men can't be forced into monogamy, but the sanction and encouragement of monogamy are, to at least some degree, effective incentives.

So to answer our silly fundy St. George friend:

The reason is because the logical and empirical case for gay marriage is stronger than not, while the logical and empirical case against polygamy are stronger than not.

Married gay men certainly aren't dumping their damaged, inbred and uneducated "surplus" children onto the tax payers. Though they might be spreading a little less disease than their mandatorily single counterparts.

[Gamma Man]

The logical next step is polygamous gay marriage! Talk about camp!
Once you open Pandora´s box, there´s no turning back.
The NAMBLA crowd must be frothing at the mouth.

[fullsigma]

Much of this discussion seems to focus on how same-sex marriage will affect society if it takes off.

But same-sex civil unions, while seemingly new and radical, appear to have existed 600 years ago in late medieval France, a professor writes in the September issue of the Journal of Modern History.
The term affrerement, or "brotherment," referred to a certain type of legal contract that provided a marriage-like foundation for non-nuclear households of many types, according to Allan Tulchin, an assistant professor of history at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

The model for the arrangement was that of biological brothers who inherited the family home on an equal basis from their parents and continued to live together, Tulchin wrote.

But in cases where the affreres were single, unrelated men, the contracts provide "considerable evidence that the affreres were using affrerements to formalize same-sex loving relationships," he wrote.

"I suspect that some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been. It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking," Tulchin wrote. "They loved each other, and the community accepted that."

Before a notary and witnesses, the "brothers" pledged to live together sharing "un pain, un vin, et une bourse" -- one bread, one wine and one purse.

The "brothers'" goods usually became the joint property of both parties, and each commonly became the other's legal heir.

Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize, and Western legal systems have in the past made provisions for a variety of household structures.

[Gannon]

Marriage has a dual nature, it is a contract but also an institution. If it were a mere contract, gays could use it. But they can't. It's an institution designed to crate the next generation, to protect the smallest and most essential sphere of society. A man and a man is not a marriage, the same way a man and a cow or a man and a PS2 is not a marriage or a family.
While I'm not a fan of polygamy, a man with several wifes can at least be classified as a marriage, because it's the institution designed for the family, although not the western classsical one.

[Gannon]

The term affrerement, or "brotherment,"
See, it's a BROTHERHOOD, not a marriage, more like a convent. Nobody in the middle ages tried to calll it a marriage. Today this kind person would be called a CORPORATION.

[JewishAtheist]

Gannon:

Are you unaware that married and partnered gay people have children through adoption or other means? Why don't they count as families?

[Turambar]

Advantage: Buckaroo

[DML]

Why does this bother you so much? The government needs to stay out of people's lives. Let people marry whomever they want and don't show favoritism (i.e., tax benefits) to married people OR unmarried people.

Problem solved. This is definitely one area where the government needs to step aside.

And please, for future reference - don't use the words "slippery", "slope", and "gay" in the same sentence.

Thank you.

[Gannon]

"Are you unaware that married and partnered gay people have children through adoption or other means? Why don't they count as families"
OK, that may count as a family but it's still not a mrriage, at least if you consider the classical definition.

"Let people marry whomever they want"
It's not that simple, marriage is not a mere contract but a socially important institution to raise the next generation. Marriage entitles to a lot of state and social benefits, which childless gay couples do not desereve. Society has no interest in subsidizing gay couples, but is merely mandated to tolerate them.

[JewishAtheist]

OK, that may count as a family but it's still not a mrriage, at least if you consider the classical definition.

But wouldn't the kids be better off if their parents were (gay) married rather than (gay) not?

[David Alexander]

Silly Question: If we call a legal union between two gay men or two lesbians a "unification" instead of a "gay" marriage, is it better or politically tenable for those who are pro and anti homosexual marriage? Given the sampling I did with my parents, calling gay marriage by another name seems to reduce the mental blows of having two people of the same sex "marrying".

[A rude dude]

Hang on, there is no slippery slope here! Gay marriage is still a marriage between two people and only two people. Even if people were campaigning to be allowed to marry their pet dog, horse or indeed cockatoo, that would still be marriage between two warm-bodied organisms.

Polyamory, or whatever they are calling it, means more than two. There is a difference.

[Marc]

I've heard polyamorous people (people in three-way or more relationships) argue that, just as homosexuals cannot help being gay, they cannot help being polyamorous, and that for this reason, marriage to more than one person should be legal.

Personally, I think it's a load of horsesh*t. You don't choose to what sex, or even to what individual, you are attracted to. But practically everyone is attracted to more than one person. That doesn't mean you are incapable of being in a monogamous relationship. You just want to mess around.

I bring this up because while I am in favor of gay marriage (or something to that effect), I fully expect that there will be a push for recognition of polygamous relationships as a result, and that those making such a push will adopt the rhetoric of today's gay marriage proponents, just as today's gay rights advocates adopt the rhetoric of yesterday's (black) civil rights advocates.

I also believe that polygamy is harmful to society for the reasons others have mentioned (too few men monopolizing women would lead to a surplus of angry males which might destabilize society).

[tommy]

One obvious problem with allowing polygamy is that it would encourage a much greater imbalance in the ratio of available males to females than currently exists.

[Buckaroo]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (for the last time, I promise): "a rude dude" above illustrates as well as can be done how opposition to polygamy easily reduces to arguing (or rather simply asserting, in his case) that the number 2 is of self-evident and mystical importance when it comes to marriage. If I read the comment correctly, it seems to even override the significance of the participants being human.

Marc:
You seem to be arguing that polygamists should not be allowed to formalize their relationship because they are just looking to indulge their natural but societally undesirable urges. I would suggest that if you substitute "gays" for "polygamists" you will get an equally compelling argument. In fact, I think it is roughly the position of the Catholic Church for which I'm guessing you would have very little sympathy.

Your point about polygamy advocates adopting the rhetoric of gay marriage activists, etc., is spot on, though. And this simply reinforces the point I've been trying to make: judicial discoveries that marriage obviously covers relationships that no one even considered as being eligible 20 years ago, will make it pretty tricky to exclude an arrangement that has a long history, many current participants, and growing demand (in places like Dearborn, MI, for example).

[Peter]

Of course the best anti-polygamy argument is that it will cause major social turmoil, through the resulting pool of angry, involuntarily single men. A second argument is that it will cause welfare dependency rates to rise, as some men accumulate more wives and more children than they can support. I believe that's already happened among the polygamists on the Utah-Arizona border.

More to the point, neither of these arguments has any application to gay marriage.

[bristlecone]

If gay marriage is legal because government should not try to regulate private conduct between two consenting adults, why then should government try to regulate private conduct among multiple adults?

Will the existence of polyamorous marriages make you less likely to be faithful to your spouse? Neither my wife nor I would agree to "share" the other in a polyamorous marriage but that is not a good argument against preventing others from doing so.

The argument that plural marriages will lead to more children on the dole is a better argument in favor of welfare reform and mandatory sterlization of those on welfare than for a proscription on plural marriages.