Why would anyone care? Everyone should hump whoever he/she wants and marry whoever he/she wants. (Except procreation with close blood relatives because of the danger to potential children.)
Everything else would be pretty hyprocritical.

@Partysane

Actually there's an issue there: marriage usually implies tax advantages, at least in Holland it does. It can also (depending on where you live) imply other rights, such as adoption (talking about danger to potential children!) or travelling with your partner if he or she is, for example, in the army.

Now let's say you have a polygamous family. Do all members of your family obtain the right to travel along with you when you're stationed on a military base? Or let's say I've been living with my flatmates for an extended period, should we all get married for a tax break? What if you believe that a child needs a mother and a father, for whatever reasons, should you not care about gay marriage or polygamy?

The argument "why should anyone care" is nonsense. We should care about these issues. Regardless of whether or not you support different types of marriage, the "live and let live" argument is simply to thin.

I am no big fan of rewarding marriage with tax benefits and would much rather see those dropped but if a certain relationship status grants rights those rights should be extended to everyone in that realtionship. Noone ever cared about it when a man and a woman got married because of the tax benefits so why should anyone care if several people enter a polygamous marriage for the same reason. Again, hypocritical.
Yes, gay couples should be allowed to adopt (or have kids by the way of sperm donors or any other way they choose). If someone argues that a gay couple should not be allowed to adopt because a child needs both mother and father they would have to condemn single mothers or fathers aswell. Also Mother/Father are social roles, there is no reason why those could not be fulfilled by a gay couple. Again, hypocritical.

The argument "live an let live" is in no way to thin. If you want to have an equal society it is exactly the way to go. If you, personally, value one kind of relationship over another it is your right to say so. It is in no way your right to interfere with the live of others as long as they again do not infringe the liberty of anyone. So, in my view, there is no reasonable excuse to sanction any kind of relationship as long as it is consentual and not hurting anyone.

Woww.. Now you're just going wild, Partysane.

"It is in no way your right to interfere with the live of others as long as they again do not infringe the liberty of anyone."

I agree, but hold the phone there. Being against polygamous marriage doesn't "interfere in a polygamous relationship" per se. I'm perfectly fine with five people living together and all of them being intimate.

What I'm hesitant about is, for example, rewarding that with a tax break that I, as an individual not living intimately with five people, don't have. I'm hesitant about having these five-way couples adopt a child, that I will have a certain responsibility for as a citizen (my taxes will pay a good portion of the child's education).

I agree that as a general rule, whatever doesn't hurt others should be allowed, but in this particular debate, I believe there's more to it than that..

Regarding the tax breaks themselves, there's good reasons to give them to heterosexual couples who decide to stick together. Long-term relationships are known to be productive environments for children to become good citizens. And children are needed to have a steady-state society, which in itself is something that is beneficial to the citizens themselves (societies with politics that strongly limit the number of children born, such as China, and that allow lots of children to be born in a short period, such as the Gaza strip, experience serious demographic problems).

In other words, marriage as a financial stimulus to heterosexual couples is justified. The question whether that insitution of marriage should be extended and if so, to what point, is not at all as self evident as you claim it to be.

I agree with Partysane totally, except that close blood relatives should be able to too legally, and I find this exception hypocritical, although understandable.

I just don't get how proponents of gay marriage can deny polygamy, in fact the comparison between the basis of the two is the one good point the people against gay marriage make (albeit for the wrong reason).

Although I am against tax breaks for married couples, I think even if they should exist, we don't know that threeway marriages aren't more beneficial to children and therefore more desirable than monogamous marriages!

@SD: The exception to relationships of close blood relatives is not because i object morally to the relationship, but because children being born off such a relationship have a high chance of having a wide range of genetic defects. So people choosing such a relationship would potentially endanger anothers life, thus i object.
I agree it gets a little strange when they get a vasectomy and never have children. Then it is basically just another taboo which could be ignored. I have to be truthful tough, something inside me strains against relationships of close blood relatives.

I am not going to say anything yet here, but I will get some popcorn and a Green tea, and watch the entertainment.

@redhouse:
You suggest with what you say that polygamous or gay marriages are inherently unstable. I disagree and pose that those relationships are not more or less unstable then hetreosexual relationships. In fact, the two gay couples i am friends with live in a long term relationships that both last longer then the german average hetrosexual marrige which ends after 13.2 (or 13.7 i am not totally sure) years.

Seeing how deviant relationship form are as stable as "normal" relationships your argument of financially supporting only the form of relationship that morally suits you better is invalid.

I actually think we should not even argue too much about the financial boni granted by a certain relationship status. Lets assume a number of people life in a polygamous situation. They could enter into fake marriages to obtain those boni and still continue their lifestyle and noone would be the wiser.
This is much more a question of moral values and personal rights then it is of tax breaks or other boons granted.

"No, there won't be a slippery slope once we accept gay marriage. The next thing won't be polyamorous groups. Why would you ever think that?"

"I have to be truthful tough, something inside me strains against relationships of close blood relatives."

That would be what is left of your decency.

@Partysane: I get that and agree, but I think there is potentially a slippery slope of should people that have higher chances of genetic disorders in their children (not related) be barred from marrying? Or if we could hypothetically remove that concern? Or something like your vasectomy case.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with that, something inside me strains against that, and many other things, but that is not to say that it should be illegal, and I think you would agree with that.

@dipplayer2004 who is the quote from? and your intolerance is noted.

I agree that the whole issue of birth defects is a very hard topic and i am not really sure my english language skills are up to debating it in the way it deserves.
Getting pregnant and giving birth to a child when you know it has a very high chance of genetic defects is, in my opinion, irresponsible towards that child. Noone should do it but there is no way to prevent anyone from doing it. That again invalidates my argument against relationships of blood relatives.
Noone can be forced to have a vasectomy, that again would be an infringement of personal rights.
If we could remove the possibility of genetic defects through technology that would resolve a whole host of problems, sadly we can't do that yet.

Another argument against relationships of blood relatives could be (especially when it concerns a parent and a respective child) that children are dependants and it would have to be assured that the child is not taken advantage of. Hard thing to do.

@dipplayer2004: I am missing any kind of argument in your statements. Offenses don't count.

Obviously I agree with you on the birth defect problem and the solutions so I wont respopnd to that further, as for the other argument, I agree that's a big probem, but you have relationships where siblings met as adults, get together, and are arrested, which is really what I was getting at, although really, if you could hypothetically get round the advantage problem there would be no argument left in my eyes. Anyways, the blood-relatives debate is something for another thread perhaps, I'm still trying to see convincing arguments by people that support gay marriage but are against polygamy.

Yes that's me--intolerant of incest. What a backwards person I am.

SD, you reading Krakauer?

What about spousal privilege in court? Certainly we can't let people marry arbitrarily many arbitrary people and then prevent them all from testifying against each other!

Polygamy is bad for women, children, and for the surplus males who don't have the wives. There is abundant literature on this. It is a step backwards in societal organization. There are many more factors involved in how we organize families, beyond who is screwing who.

you are dipp, and of people that tolerate it seemingly by your attack on Partysane, but I didn't start this thread for petty arguments.

@2ndW - I'm afraid I've never read him, worth a read?

@semck, I don't think there should be spousal privilege anyway, nor should anyone be compelled to be a witness if they don't want to, and even if this was a real problem that didn't effect other forms of marriage, or here was to a much greater extent, I wouldn't call it justification to stop people getting married, especially if you were someone that is arguing that gays should be able to get married because you should be able to marry someone if you're both consenting, think you're in love, or whatever.

@ dipp, the abuse isn't inherent, and to say that statistically there is more abuse there is no reason to outlaw it, if there was more abuse in interracial couples than other marriages would you outlaw them getting married? Of course not because it is not gorunds to invalidate the right of people to marry who they choose. Also there are more homosexual men then homosexual women so we may now have surplus females, maybe gays shouldn't be allowed to marry? Ultimately the question is whether the state has the right to tell you that even though you're consenting and wishing to get married you can't or not, and I don't see why the state can coherently have this right, at least not with the arguments for gay marriage. Problems of abuse are important, but are not grounds to outlaw polygamy, unless you are saying it is inherent in the system and it is not. It is perfectly feasible for a woman to want to have two husbands and for them to marry too perhaps and everyone to be happpy.

The question is biased and structures any possible debate. It presupposes in a significant way that considering polygamous marriages and gay marriages are considering things that can in effect be compared. For that to be the case, however, you need a common background, a common norm that applies to both reality.

The fact is that the whole movement about gay marriage is spurred by the desire to make it clear that the law is constrained by our human rights. In the case of marriage, a legal institution which is described as the union of a man and a woman, the individuals are gendered. This is in effect causing a restriction on "who" gets to marry. That is, there are legal individuals who will not have equal access to this legal institution in virtue of their sexual preference, which the bill of rights recognizes as a freedom of the individual that should not impact its access to the protection of the law.

To put the point in a slightly different way: gays are not asking that we redefine the legal institution of marriage. Marriage is between two individuals. Not many. Our legally recognized human rights simply impose this constraint, that the laws remain short of gendering individuals since it should make no difference in the eye of the law whether I'm a man or a woman.

Polygamy, however, demands that we change our definition of marriage. That's a completely different debate.

Hence, putting the two in one question like you did here presupposes what is wrong, that the demands on our legal system would be in the same "world". They wouldn't. One demands that the law be coherent with itself. The other demands that we redefine a legal institution. Not the same fight at all.

He has an excellent book that touches on this history of Mormonism and polygamy in the context of a series of brutal murders committed by followers of a fundamentalist offshoot of Mormonism. It's an excellent look at polygamy as it fits into modern culture. The book also touches on the relationship between polygamy and gay marriage from an advocacy standpoint, as both sides tend to be uneasy allies in the fight for equality.

"Under the Banner of Heaven."

So Partysane - regarding birth defect - Are you saying a child with birth defects is less valuable / less important / less lovable than a child without birth defects? Perhaps *all* potential married couples should have genetic screening prior to being allowed to get married?

Some of the bet human beings I have ever had the privilege to meet have birth defects, and some of the greatest minds in history have been "less than perfect" humans (Stephen Hawkings...)

If "burden on society" is the manner in which we judge if a child should be allowed to be created/born...then welfare moms should be sterilized...

I have not made a comment on the worth of an individual life and i do not judge any living person to be inherently inferior to any other.
The point i was trying to make is, that people born with genetic defects have often a shorter live expectancy, serious health problems and any number of problems that make their life pretty hard overall compared to persons born with a sound body and mind.
Now if you know that in all likelyhood the child you make will have those problems, is it fair to conceive it in the first place? As i also said, noone can and should keep you from doing it but i still think it is irresponsible.

You have implicitly judged the value of one life over another when you suggested which lives should be allowed to be created. If you think brother and sister should not be married because of the child they may bear, you are judging the value of that life as less than other life.

"Although I am against tax breaks for married couples, I think even if they should exist, we don't know that threeway marriages aren't more beneficial to children and therefore more desirable than monogamous marriages! "

"@semck, I don't think there should be spousal privilege anyway, nor should anyone be compelled to be a witness if they don't want to, and even if this was a real problem that didn't effect other forms of marriage, or here was to a much greater extent, I wouldn't call it justification to stop people getting married, especially if you were someone that is arguing that gays should be able to get married because you should be able to marry someone if you're both consenting, think you're in love, or whatever. "

I'm getting the impression that some people in this thread are not so much in favor of polygamous marriage, but rather against the traditional marriage and the benefits and obligations that go with it.

Personally, I have way less objections to the general assault against the institution of marriage (although I have them, as I mentioned earlier) than to extending the institution and changing it so it can be extended..!

The State has a compelling interest in granting legal recognition to (presumably) stable relationships. There are only two options for a reasonable cap to the size of those relationships: 2 people (the smallest possible), or unlimited people (largest possible). There are a number of serious legal problems which occur if the definition is changed to include large group marriages (the spousal privalege argument is a good example) and so it is in the best interests of the State to constrain marriages to the smallest number of participants possible: two. There is, however, no overriding interest in proscribing the biological sex or societal gender of either participant. Hence, it is in the best interests of the State to have two-person couples which have legal recognition, regardless of the gender of the individual. Note that the State has no say, nor should it, in the matter of who may participate in a particular religious ceremony. If your place of worship allows polygamist marriage, then go nuts! Just don't expect that to be recognized by the State.