Canada Man Charged With Polygamy to Use Gay Marriage Defense

[biccat]

What groups? This is one guy, actually.... who probably has a pretty slim-to-none chance here anyhow. I'm really thinking this board should be renamed to "Imagination Land".

Maybe some will say that since gay marriage is allowed, they should be allowed too... it doesn't make it a good reason (it isn't), one that anyone has to listen too. Incest and polygamy themselves are unique from one another and also from gay marriage. They have unique consequences and unique arguments for/against.

Please provide a unique argument against polygamy that cannot be used as an argument against same-sex marriage.

[hmac]

Let's not throw "fag" around. That's hateful. The issue people seem to be hard on is the sactity of marriage, not just marriage as a "business deal". People are passionate about the sactity of marriage as it was written to be between 1 man and 1 woman in the natural order (natural as in a man has a penis and woman a vagina...sorry had to put that in). Marriage was created in the natural order and for the purpose of a complete family for children, financial stability and god given companiionship. Civil Unions may need to be rewritten for homosexuals and whatever other noncomforming unions may be out there. Just leave "marriage" alone. The idea is that once you start changing the rules, then everyone wants to change all the rules. Hence the Poligamy issue and incest issue. If it's ok for non-traditional gays to marry, then why not multiple women and why not a with a minor. That's the freakin point. And look, people are already trying to see what they can get away with. It can lead to the fall of a civil society.

So did the ones for gay marriage until enough fags cried to a court and made it legal. One day a court will make polygamy legal. .

[Lars1701a]

Let's not throw "fag" around. That's hateful. The issue people seem to be hard on is the sactity of marriage, not just marriage as a "business deal". People are passionate about the sactity of marriage as it was written to be between 1 man and 1 woman in the natural order (natural as in a man has a penis and woman a vagina...sorry had to put that in). Marriage was created in the natural order and for the purpose of a complete family for children, financial stability and god given companiionship. Civil Unions may need to be rewritten for homosexuals and whatever other noncomforming unions may be out there. Just leave "marriage" alone. The idea is that once you start changing the rules, then everyone wants to change all the rules. Hence the Poligamy issue and incest issue. If it's ok for non-traditional gays to marry, then why not multiple women and why not a with a minor. That's the freakin point. And look, people are already trying to see what they can get away with. It can lead to the fall of a civil society.

Sorry if the term fag offends your but I call a spade a spade.

[wilbur]

Let's not throw "fag" around. That's hateful. The issue people seem to be hard on is the sactity of marriage, not just marriage as a "business deal". People are passionate about the sactity of marriage as it was written to be between 1 man and 1 woman in the natural order (natural as in a man has a penis and woman a vagina...sorry had to put that in). Marriage was created in the natural order and for the purpose of a complete family for children, financial stability and god given companiionship. Civil Unions may need to be rewritten for homosexuals and whatever other noncomforming unions may be out there. Just leave "marriage" alone. The idea is that once you start changing the rules, then everyone wants to change all the rules. Hence the Poligamy issue and incest issue. If it's ok for non-traditional gays to marry, then why not multiple women and why not a with a minor. That's the freakin point. And look, people are already trying to see what they can get away with. It can lead to the fall of a civil society.

Why would opening the door to gay marriage cause us to suddenly be unable to justify all our long thought out rules on ages of consent?

[Lars1701a]

Why would opening the door to gay marriage cause us to suddenly be unable to justify all our long thought out rules on ages of consent?

Why the fuck does everything have to be a argument with you?

[wilbur]

Please provide a unique argument against polygamy that cannot be used as an argument against same-sex marriage.

Here's a very well thought out one:

The question has achieved a certain topicality because of the movement to legalize homosexual marriage. One of the standard objections to such marriage is that if homosexual marriage is permitted, why not polygamous marriage? The basic argument for homosexual marriage is that it promotes the welfare of homosexual couples without hurting anybody else. That seems to be equally the case for polygamous marriage.

But is it? My view is that polygamy would impose substantial social costs in a modern Western-type society that probably would not be offset by the benefits to the parties to polygamous marriages. (For elaboration, see my book Sex and Reason (1992), particularly Chapter 9.) Especially given the large disparities in wealth in the United States, legalizing polygamy would enable wealthy men to have multiple wives, even harems, which would reduce the supply of women to men of lower incomes and thus aggravate inequality. The resulting shortage of women would lead to queuing, and thus to a high age of marriage for men, which in turn would increase the demand for prostitution. Moreover, intense competition for women would lower the age of marriage for women, which would be likely to result in less investment by them in education (because household production is a substitute for market production) and therefore reduce women's market output.

Of course, forbidding the wealthy to buy a particular commodity is usually inferior to taxation as a method of reducing inequality. Yet we do forbid the buying of votes, which could be thought a parallel device to forbidding the "buying" of wives: one vote, one wife. We think that vote buying would have undesirable political consequences. So might polygamy. In societies in which polygamy is permitted without any limitation on the number of wives, wealthy households become clans, since all the children of a polygamous household are related through having the same father, no matter how many different mothers they have. These clans can become so powerful as to threaten the state's monopoly of political power; this is one of the historical reasons for the abolition of polygamy, though it would be unlikely to pose a serious danger to the stability of American government.

...

Edit: Oops, here's a link: http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ar..._polygamy.html

[wilbur]

Why the fuck does everything have to be a argument with you?

Its somewhat cathartic for one.. and we are on a message board, typically where one engages in debates. I understand some of you simply use it as a way to reinforce your existing beliefs with each other.. but to me, that's pretty useless.

And honestly, some of the things that simply get thrown around and accepted as unalterable truths are simply appalling. How intellectually dishonest can we be to say that gay marriage automatically justifies polygamy, incest, and least of all paedophilia marriages? The other favourite is to suggest it will open the door to legalized marrying of animals or inanimate objects. These arent unanswered arguments... and never have been. If you want to make your cases for such things its time to move beyond the lowest common denominator rhetorical fluff, and actually make a case... this other fluff is simply false on its face. Its tragic to see so many accept them barely a moments thought.

[biccat]

If the problem with polygamous marriage is that it would reduce the supply of women, how is this not an argument against homosexual marriage?

Male-male marriage reduces the number of college educated fashionable men available for women to marry.

Likewise, female-female marriage reduces the number of mullet-wearing biker chicks available for men to marry.

Furthermore, none of these problems exist in the current system. A wealthy man can have 15 "girlfriends" at a time if he so desires, and have children from each of them. And those children, being related by their father, could then form the basis for a clan to "threaten the state's monopoly of political power". But we don't see that happening.

In short, the argument is bunk.

[jediab]

No, it absolutely does not. Are you saying the only good, solid reason holding back polygamy or incestuous marriage is simply the fact that we haven't changed marriage for a long time?

When laws were devised against polygamy, do you think lawmakers were trying to justify them by saying "Well.... we don't let homosexuals marry, therefore polygamists can't have their way either."

Yes it does. Or you have become the very hateful, bigoted people that you and others claim exsist with the anti-gay marriage crowd.

The law makers made the laws based upon what they viewed it best for families and society. It was 1 man and 1 woman not directly related. Now it has been opened up to individual interpretation. You can not allow one but deny another. To do that would be hypocritical, and make you a polygaphobe.

[PoliCon]

Why the fuck does everything have to be a argument with you?

because he is VASTLY superior to the rest of us. in his own mind at least . . . .