[QUOTE=Brian-E;271998]As far as the Western world is concerned, I have pointed out on several occasions that there is no evidence, as far as I can see, for any natural human need to bond for a lifetime with more than one other person, and for that reason I see no reason to implement it in law. Same sex couples, on the other hand, have been forming and thriving everywhere despite their lack of legal recognition. That is the difference.[/QUOTE]

I have the perhaps fallacious impression that some people in this thread think Zeta-flux's continual return to "how is that different from polygamy" is a strawman, and that an adequate response is that there are no serious calls for polygamy in the Occident. Having recently started the TV series Big Love on CD, I am reminded that this is very real issue in Zeta-flux's neighborhood. I have no reason to doubt the factoid flashed at the end of an early show that 40-60,000 people in several states centered about Zeta-flux's home live in polygamous marriages. Although against LDS (aka Mormon) doctrine since 1890, many splinter groups that still support this practice make national (USA) news from time to time. There is apparently even a reality TV show featuring such a family.

Reflecting on these facts recently, I was struck by the realization that in looking for comparisons on the basis of "when was the last time marriage laws underwent controversial revision and how did that work out?", I fall with many in the category of thinking of laws in some regions restricting marriages between races, and that change worked out well. But anyone living in Zeta-flux's neighborhood is more likely to think about the ongoing polygamy controversy, and at least the politically correct attitude is that it was (and is) a bad idea.

So in particular, "Same sex couples, on the other hand, have been forming and thriving everywhere despite their lack of legal recognition. That is the difference." doesn't cut it as an argument, because multiple wife marriages have been forming and thriving despite their lack of legal recognition in Zeta-flux's neighborhood for as long as it has been settled by Occidentals.

wblipp:
Thanks for bringing that out in the open.

One of the major proponents of those many-wife marriages (Warren Jeffs) is now a convicted felon for a variety of activities that are a natural result of such "marriages".

What is strange about it is that somehow, there is no reasonable call to recognize such marriages. The ill effects are well-documented; even the early mormon church leaders were afraid to reveal this idea to their followers until they were in Utah.

Yes, this throws a new light on the obsession with polygamy in this thread. I had not considered the Mormon history before, living as I do on a continent where it a complete non-issue.

It is undoubtedly the case that being part of a religion is a natural human need. It also appears that religion is widely misused by individuals to gain power over others and/or to cause those others to follow practices which are not of themselves natural human behaviour. And I would suggest that the polygamous history of the Mormons, which William tells us survives significantly to the present day in and around Utah, might fall into this category.

I don't really go so far as to say that the concerns that some people have about marriage being extended to include set-ups with more than two people if same sex couples are covered by it, are a straw man. I do, however, think that we are talking about something fundamentally different when we consider polygamy. Basically, for whatever reason polygamy thrives, it is not the natural human need to bond with another person and create a family unit with that person and with or without children. Same sex marriage, on the other hand, is no different from opposite sex marriage in that respect.

[QUOTE=Christenson;271995]With such logic, I can prove anything I might like, including that all people with a "Z" in their "handle" should be banned immediately. It's in the studies that these type of people harm children, after all....[/QUOTE]As do those with the letter "C" in their name. Further, it has been well documented that sexual abuse of children has been a pastime of Christian priests world-wide for some substantial time.

Somehow, I don't think that either your quoted comment or my comments above are either relevant or helpful to the current discussion. Mine were made only to draw attention to this observation. I would hope that you also recognize that your comments are, at best, irrelevant and insensitive.

Paul

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;271874][QUOTE=xilman;271846]Okey-doke, I'm going to give in to your position totally and make another proposal. That ok with you?[/quote]Not really. I'm not one to reject all change. I'm glad, for example, that in some countries a wife can now inherit her husbands estate when previously that was not the case. I would also favor more stringent restrictions/penalties on divorce, and make it easier for a husband who has been faithful to get at least partial custody after a divorce.[/quote]Fair enough. I also have my own set of concerns about the implementation details of marriage in the UK. I'm assuming here that your concerns are with respect to the US situation. You're probably aware that marriage in the UK is restricted to different sex couples as in most of the states of the US. Others reading this thread may not be.

For the sake of making progress with the main topic of the debate I'm willing either for both of us to put those concerns to one side and proceed from the status quo, or to assume that our concerns have been met in a mutually acceptable resolution. Your choice though, as you doubtless notice, it makes absolutely no difference to the direction of our principal discussion.
[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;271874]
Why do same sex couples get this institution and not best friends? In other words, what is the societal purpose of this institution? Is it simply to legitimize homosexual relations?[/QUOTE]The reason is really very simple indeed. The thread was set up to discuss the proposition "Should Gay Marriage Be Legal?"

Discussion of other relationships between two or more and at least one of which is human are beyond the scope of the title, interesting though they may be.

My reason for making my proposal was to try to better understand your position by posing a question for you to answer.


Paul

Toothache
 

[QUOTE=xilman;271975]I've been visiting family all weekend and arrived back home only 20 minutes ago. I'm too tired to post anything substantive now but will return to the subject tomorrow, all being well.

Paul[/QUOTE]

I have a similar tale to tell, but (just for a change) will
refrain from boring with you with it.

David

Brian-E,

[QUOTE]Yes, this throws a new light on the obsession with polygamy in this thread.[/QUOTE]I've always been puzzled by the following conundrum. If someone accuses me of being obsessed with something should I let the accusation stand or should I attempt to defend myself and thus look more obsessed? What do you think?

[QUOTE]It is undoubtedly the case that being part of a religion is a natural human need. It also appears that religion is widely misused by individuals to gain power over others and/or to cause those others to follow practices which are not of themselves natural human behaviour. And I would suggest that the polygamous history of the Mormons, which William tells us survives significantly to the present day in and around Utah, might fall into this category.[/QUOTE]While I don't disagree with your assessment of those religious leaders such as Warren Jeffs who prey on their followers, I would suggest that the polygamous history of my church and the polygamous history of these sects are not very similar.

[QUOTE]I have consistently avoided comparing polygamy or other multi-person setups with lifetime same sex pair bonding, much less said that one is any better than the other.[/QUOTE]I'm going to call you out on this. In the context of gay marriage, and in particular [b]legalization[/b] of said relationships, the only measure of legitimization or betterness is giving legal protections. Your position clearly relegates polygamists to the back of the bus.

[QUOTE]I have suggested that polygamy, where it is legal, may be based on a desire by one individual to control multiple others, and I stated that in the context of it being completely different from marriage as we know it.[/QUOTE]And people say the same things about homosexuality.

But this doesn't answer my question because the fact that [b]some[/b] people use an institution the wrong way doesn't mean everyone does. Or are you claiming that a large majority of polygamist enters the institution only to control others? If so (and I hope not), I think I'd be right in claiming such a position is bigoted, naive, and a symptom of polygaphobia.

Or are you saying that it would be fair of me to judge gay marriage by the public actions of a part of the homosexual community? Would it be fair of me to look at the annual gay pride parade in San Francisco and judge from that whether gay marriage is a good thing?

[QUOTE]Most recently I have expressly stated that I reserve judgment on whether polygamy is good for the few areas in the world where it is officially sanctioned, being an outsider with no knowledge of those societies.[/QUOTE]But that won't cut it. You are also an outsider to societies which allow slavery and antimiscegenation laws. But you know those are wrong. You are also an outsider to the US, but you have made up your mind about whether it is right for us to limit marriage to a man and a woman.

On the one hand, you think anti-gay marriage laws are like antimiscegenation laws, wholly led by bigotry, and yet you cannot see yourself in the mirror doing the same thing.

[QUOTE]As far as the Western world is concerned, I have pointed out on several occasions that there is no evidence, as far as I can see, for any natural human need to bond for a lifetime with more than one other person, and for that reason I see no reason to implement it in law.[/QUOTE]And the same thing has been said of homosexuality. And, frankly, there is more evidence for a natural human need to bond with more than one person than there is for pairing of only two same-sex people. I find your dismissal of their human need to be about on part with those who similarly dismiss your stated need.

[QUOTE]Same sex couples, on the other hand, have been forming and thriving everywhere despite their lack of legal recognition. That is the difference. [/QUOTE]Your view of history seems myopic. Polygamy has been a part of human culture for millenia. Same sex pairing of only two people is, for the most part, a recent phenomena. A majority of same-sex relations have been, and continue to be, plural.

---------------------

William,

My history with polygamy does not really center around any of the fundamentalist groups in my area. I don't have contact with any of them (they are insular anyway), and I don't approve of disobeying the law of the land. And I also do believe that many of their leaders are depraved.

However, I do belong to a church which at one time embraced polygamy, and so I'm familiar with a large segment of historical people who struggled with it (given their earlier protestant backgrounds) but lived it and without any desire of control over their wives. And I don't judge those other parts of the world which embrace polygamy as supporting it out of an attempt to repress or control women. Or at least, I don't think that polygamy has to be practiced out of such desires.

Anyway, my issue has been the following. As you say, some people are comfortable with gay marriage because they are familiar with how slavery was a bad thing and introduced negative changes to the marriage culture in America. Those laws were created out of pure bigotry, defended out of pure bigotry, and it was good for them to be removed. Similarly, many people see the gay marriage issue as a civil rights issue. Laws against gay marriage are wrong as a matter of principle, [b]just as[/b] laws against interracial marriages are wrong as a matter of principle.

So when I see arguments against polygamy which mirror the arguments people gave against interracial marriage and are currently giving against gay marriage, it astounds me. Would it have mattered if there were only say 10 people who wanted to have interracial marriages? Would that have made it okay to discriminate in that manner? No, the law was simply wrong on the face of it. Would it have mattered if some of those seeking interracial marriages wanted them only for the purpose of dominating a woman of another race, or for the purpose of elevating one's class? Those issues are irrelevant to the legal question of whether it is a civil right to marry someone of one's own choosing.

So, for me, if I were to agree with the argument that gay marriage is also about one's civil right to marry someone of one's own choosing I would naturally be led to think that the polygamist, or frankly any group of people, should have a similar right. And so I want to understand how other people do not see this connection. Somehow, to them, they think gay marriage is not an entirely new beast but polygamy is. For them, when I say that gay marriage is a different institution and doesn't meet the stated social purpose of marriage, they claim that I don't give homosexual desires their proper respect. But then these same people claim polygamy is a different institution because it does meet one of the stated social purposes to marriage (of pairing off).

It just doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe the following thought experiment will help you understand my position, and then you can help me see where the disconnect is happening. Suppose Henry and Sam are best friends, and met each other in college. Suppose that they decided to pool their resources, buy a house together, and support one another in sickness. Should it make any difference in the law whether or not Henry and Sam are of the opposite gender in whether they can inherit the house from the other? If Henry falls sick, does it matter if they are married when the nurse turns Sam away from visiting at the hospital? If Sam adopts a child, and then dies, should the judge only decide that Henry gets custody of the child if Henry and Sam were having sexual relations? What kind of relationship should an employer (or the government) require of Henry and Sam before it grants insurance benefits to the other? And in all of this, if their friend George joined them in these endeavors, should the answer change?

I see inheritance rights, visitation rights, and so forth not to be fundamentally tied to any sort of sexual expressions or desires. Rather, I see them as coming from the relative agencies agreeing to honor the commitment of the two people. Two (or more) people who care for one another should be able to visit in the hospital, regardless of whether they consider themselves married to each other or just best friends committed to the health of one another.

So now let's get to children. Should it make any difference in the eyes of the law whether or not Henry and Sam are having sexual relations relative to the question of their suitability in raising children? In other words, can a couple choose to be just as faithful to each other and their children, be just as good parents, without having any sexual desires for one another? It seems like Brian-E sees some fundamental difference here, and that somehow sexual acts do seal the couple together more than friendship does. But from my own experience in marriage (and I admit, I only have one data point) my desire to be faithful comes as a force of will and love that is somewhat independent of those desires. I have chosen to be faithful to her and my family. My feelings often complement those promises, but not always. So, are those feelings necessary? I don't think so.

So I guess maybe I see three categories of issues related to marriage laws.
(1) Issues surrounding the care of one another. (2) Issues surrounding the nurture and raising of children. (3) Issues surrounding the creation of children. It appears that every objection to giving marital protections to polygamists (or best friends) has focused not around (2) or (3), but (1). In particular, there seems to be the claim that polygamists don't care for one another, or friends cannot care for one another like those having sexual relations. I just don't buy that. (My issues with polygamy are more with (2) and (3).)

What do you think?

Paul,

I've now spent about 2 hours posting the above. I need to get a lot of work done, so it might be a while before I respond again.

[QUOTE]For the sake of making progress with the main topic of the debate I'm willing either for both of us to put those concerns to one side and proceed from the status quo, or to assume that our concerns have been met in a mutually acceptable resolution. Your choice though, as you doubtless notice, it makes absolutely no difference to the direction of our principal discussion.[/QUOTE]That's fine. I agree.

[QUOTE]The reason is really very simple indeed. The thread was set up to discuss the proposition "Should Gay Marriage Be Legal?"

Discussion of other relationships between two or more and at least one of which is human are beyond the scope of the title, interesting though they may be.

My reason for making my proposal was to try to better understand your position by posing a question for you to answer.
[/QUOTE]I hope the above has satisfied part of this desire to understand.

I don't see the point of a separate institution while also seeing many dangers to it. I wouldn't be opposed to the creation of an easier system for getting visitation and inheritance rights for ANY collection of people. With regards to children, I believe a child is most often best served by being raised by its biological parents. However as that is often not possible, I wouldn't be opposed to requiring insurance benefits from an employer for the primary caregiver of a jointly raised child. etc...

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;272079]I hope the above has satisfied part of this desire to understand.[/quote]Correct.
[[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;272079]
I don't see the point of a separate institution while also seeing many dangers to it. I wouldn't be opposed to the creation of an easier system for getting visitation and inheritance rights for ANY collection of people. With regards to children, I believe a child is most often best served by being raised by its biological parents. However as that is often not possible, I wouldn't be opposed to requiring insurance benefits from an employer for the primary caregiver of a jointly raised child. etc...[/QUOTE]The point of the separate institution is so that those, such as you, who require that marriage be restricted to opposite-sex couples have their desires met completely.

The separate institution of marklar allows those same-sex couples who wish to have specific and non-discriminatory treatment under the law, etc, also to have their desires met. It is specifically to distinguish the two institutions that I gave the requirement that marklar be [i]only[/i] available to same-sex couples. Opposite-sex couples would be forbidden by law to marklar, in precisely the same way as same-sex couples would be forbidden to marry.

It seems to me that my proposition meets all your previously raised conditions for legally recognized marriage.


Paul

Paul

[QUOTE=Zeta-Flux;272078]
William,

My history with polygamy does not really center around any of the fundamentalist groups in my area. I don't have contact with any of them (they are insular anyway), and I don't approve of disobeying the law of the land. And I also do believe that many of their leaders are depraved.[/QUOTE]

I never imagined otherwise, and I apologize if my post left that impression. I think your question about whether arguments for homosexual marriage are equally valid for polygamous marriage is the strongest and most principled argument against homosexual marriage I have yet encountered, and deserves serious consideration. I posted because I felt it was not getting serious consideration in this thread. I mentioned the geographic connection because I thought that it would help people see the seriousness of the question by understanding there are places where it is a very real and current issue, and help them realize you ask these questions earnestly to see you physically located in those same regions, not to impugn you with allegations of such behaviors or leanings.

I don't have well stated answer for why homosexual marriage makes sense and polygamous marriage does not. I think it has to do with the kind of society I want to live in, and the collateral damage to other institutions caused by alternatives. I'll mostly lurk until I have something worthwhile to say.

William (and Paul),

I didn't see you connecting me with those groups, but I think other people did. Just wanted to clarify.

[QUOTE]I don't have well stated answer for why homosexual marriage makes sense and polygamous marriage does not. I think it has to do with the kind of society I want to live in, and the collateral damage to other institutions caused by alternatives. I'll mostly lurk until I have something worthwhile to say. [/QUOTE]And that is mostly what I have against gay marriage. In my opinion, from how I've seen the courts in states impose gay marriage, I think they will likely start imposing other forms of marriage. That's why I would be opposed to maklar (or, as I like to call it "pairriage"). Because it opens up the floodgates to other forms of marriage--or in some cases directly changes the meaning of marriage from being directly entangled with childbirth and child-raising, to being primarily about the couple.

Okay, off to racquetball.

Cheers,
Zeta-Flux