"Why not polygamous marriage?"

crimresearch said:
Your trolling is pathetic. A child of 8 has to be proven a child by some definition?

And 'we' ended up here when the tired old meme raised its head and you jumped in with your 'of course a child is able to consent' verbage.
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To be fair, he meant that when people say "children", they often don't mean only 8 year old kids. For example, I've seen people being called pedophiles for dating 16 year olds. He never said 8 year old children are able to consent, only that 16 or 17 year old "children" (in some democracies, as young as 13) might.
 
Rairun said:
Do you think most poly groups are led by a dominant person, or is it you who tend to gravitate towards the ones who are? Basically, I'm just curious to know if there's a big overlap between the poly and BSDM communities. That hadn't been my impression so far.
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I live a 24/7 TPE lifestyle,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM#24.2F7_lifestyle
and I am employed in it as well
before we gained a third that was still true, so pretty much all the people I know in real life (apart from a few very long term friends, family and onliners) are part of the local "BDSM" community, so all the groups I know are Dominant led.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask,
because I don't know of any vanilla poly groups, so I haven't seen any overlap either
;)
 
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Marduk said:
I live a 24/7 TPE lifestyle,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM#24.2F7_lifestyle
and I am employed in it as well
before we gained a third that was still true, so pretty much all the people I know in real life (apart from a few very long term friends, family and onliners) are part of the local "BDSM" community, so all the groups I know are Dominant led.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask,
because I don't know of any vanilla poly groups, so I haven't seen any overlap either
;)
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I was reading about 24/7 TPE just a few hours ago! To be honest, it's one of the few subjects I have no opinions whatsoever about. I mean, personally, I'm really not into any sort of power play, but I think I can understand most BDSM practices reasonably well. They are not for me, but I could write diatribes defending them from a feminist point of view, for example. But when it comes to 24/7 TPE, I'm not sure what to make of it. Obviously, I don't condemn it--I just feel like I lack the proper information to know what it's all about. Right now, I couldn't even begin to explain how consent works in that kind of relationship.
 
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Rairun said:
I was reading about 24/7 TPE just a few hours ago! To be honest, it's one of the few subjects I have no opinions whatsoever about. I mean, personally, I'm really not into any sort of power play, but I think I can understand most BDSM practices reasonably well. They are not for me, but I could write diatribes defending them from a feminist point of view, for example. But when it comes to 24/7 TPE, I'm not sure what to make of it. Obviously, I don't condemn it--I just feel like I lack the proper information to know what it's all about. Right now, I couldn't even begin to explain how consent works in that kind of relationship.
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Don't know how it is elsewhere, but in the US, 24/7 is claimed by a significant number, and practiced successfully by very few.

For most (IMHO) it is a cool sounding thing to say, and a hot fantasy ala 'O', but damned hard to pull off.

And whatever you do, don't bring up consent in that kind of relationship, or we'll be down the CNC/internal enslavement rabbit hole. ;-}
 
Weird Science said:
The problem isn't with younger people being more open to gay marriage, but with political activists exploiting that to push for polygamy -- as in this very thread.

Let us take, for instance, illegitimacy. Younger people are more tolerant of it. But nevertheless, its normalization lead to enormous damage to society (especially in the black community). Similarly with abortion, etc.

So the fact that the young are more tolerant of some change is not at all inconsistent with the result being further damage to society.

P.S.

One minor point that irks me, although it hardly should determine whether one should be for or against gay marriage, is that the same people who declare gay, or polygamous, marriage to be a union of love and respect and joy, would scream bloody murder if anybody describe "Regular" marriage in such terms. DO make up your mind, mate...
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Do you think you could leave the black community out of your weird diatribes? It's a bit rude to make sweeping generalizations about any community in order to promote your own personal agenda.

Normalization of various types of families means that children within various types of families face less discrimination. If gay marriage or poly-families become universally accepted, the children of those families will have less weirdness in their lives. "My dads are picking me up from school" will get no more notice than "My mom will be here soon." That is a good thing.
 
Rairun said:
Even though I identify as poly, your descriptions are very different from anything I've experienced. This quote in particular, along with bookitty's previous comment about your relationship (in which she hoped it was a fair representation of most), really stood out to me. I don't actually know any polyamorous people who engage in D/s dynamics--though, to be fair, I don't know a lot of poly people.

Do you think most poly groups are led by a dominant person, or is it you who tend to gravitate towards the ones who are? Basically, I'm just curious to know if there's a big overlap between the poly and BSDM communities. That hadn't been my impression so far.
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My understanding is that there is some correlation but it is far from being a large majority. Call it 50/50 ish depending on the validity of the one survey I have seen. No idea about validity of its sampling techniques.

I think his view is likely biased by his social groups. For example even if mtf transgendered people are more common I know more ftm and there were three at my bachelor party. So my sample is not representative.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
When hearing debates about granting marriage to same sex couples (Something I'm firmly in favour of), I often hear "If you are redefining marriage, why not have polygamous ones?" from the conservative side. Now, for the record, I can't say I'm in favour of polygamous marriage, but at present I can't actually answer the above question satisfactorily. What's the answer?
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As a socialist, I object quite strenuously.
 
Rairun said:
To be fair, he meant that when people say "children", they often don't mean only 8 year old kids. For example, I've seen people being called pedophiles for dating 16 year olds. He never said 8 year old children are able to consent, only that 16 or 17 year old "children" (in some democracies, as young as 13) might.
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But the point is that when anti-gay posters claim that giving equal rights to gay people will lead to legalizing bestiality and pedophiles, they aren't talking about someone dating at 17 or getting married at 15, because that's already legal. The sex positive discussion is at best an abstraction in that context.
 
The Greater Fool said:
It's the same biggotted argument, just recycled for the current boogyman.
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Nonsense! What you are saying is no "argument" at all. It is a logical fallacy, that of a false comparison -- that because in the past opposing X was wrong, opposing Y today is wrong. You can just as easily argue for legally recognizing incest or zoophilia as marriage by replacing "his daughter" or "his sheep" with "his black girlfriend". Bad argument by analogy is no reply. It's just an excuse for dismissing any opposition to gay marriage, by trying to brand the opposition as an "evil racist" -- the internet forum's equivalent of, "nah nah nah! I can't hear you! I can't hear you!".

As for inter-racial marriage itself: suppose those arguing for it declared openly that their real goal, the minute they get inter-racial marriage passed, is to use the very same logical arguments they used to pass it to also pass the legalization not just of gay marriage, but then of polygamy, and then incest and necrophilia? Wouldn't you say then there would be a very good reason to opposed inter-racial marriage -- not becasue they themselves are wrong, but due to the people who use them as a tool?

My concern, mind you, isn't merely that legalizing gay marriage MIGHT be used to promote such thing (everything might cause everything, for weak enough definitions of "might"). It is that it WOULD, and indeed already IS, doing just that. In this very thread lots of people already are trying to paint polygamy as just the same as gay marriage. In other threads, others argued they see nothing wrong with necrophilia ("who does it hurt?"), or incest between a man and his (adult) daughter "You just dislike it because it's icky!"). Apparently, support for polygamy (with the enslavement of women that produces, but hey, who cares?), necrophilia, and incest is now the new "progressive" view -- and, of course, it gets a huge lift from the normalization of gay relations as "marriage", and everybody who says it's wrong is a "bigot".

Under these circumstances, I would say opposing gay marriage is correct -- and that at least some (not all) people in this forum seem to be doing their best to convince the lurkers, if there are any, that "progressives" are nuts and perverts.
 
Weird Science said:
Nonsense! What you are saying is no "argument" at all. It is a logical fallacy, that of a false comparison -- that because in the past opposing X was wrong, opposing Y today is wrong. You can just as easily argue for legally recognizing incest or zoophilia as marriage by replacing "his daughter" or "his sheep" with "his black girlfriend". Bad argument by analogy is no reply. It's just an excuse for dismissing any opposition to gay marriage, by trying to brand the opposition as an "evil racist" -- the internet forum's equivalent of, "nah nah nah! I can't hear you! I can't hear you!".

As for inter-racial marriage itself: suppose those arguing for it declared openly that their real goal, the minute they get inter-racial marriage passed, is to use the very same logical arguments they used to pass it to also pass the legalization not just of gay marriage, but then of polygamy, and then incest and necrophilia? Wouldn't you say then there would be a very good reason to opposed inter-racial marriage -- not becasue they themselves are wrong, but due to the people who use them as a tool?

My concern, mind you, isn't merely that legalizing gay marriage MIGHT be used to promote such thing (everything might cause everything, for weak enough definitions of "might"). It is that it WOULD, and indeed already IS, doing just that. In this very thread lots of people already are trying to paint polygamy as just the same as gay marriage. In other threads, others argued they see nothing wrong with necrophilia ("who does it hurt?"), or incest between a man and his (adult) daughter "You just dislike it because it's icky!"). Apparently, support for polygamy (with the enslavement of women that produces, but hey, who cares?), necrophilia, and incest is now the new "progressive" view -- and, of course, it gets a huge lift from the normalization of gay relations as "marriage", and everybody who says it's wrong is a "bigot".

Under these circumstances, I would say opposing gay marriage is correct -- and that at least some (not all) people in this forum seem to be doing their best to convince the lurkers, if there are any, that "progressives" are nuts and perverts.
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Weren't you saying something in that other thread about the myth of the bigoted white male? But I digress.

Allowing consenting adults to do something does not negate the idea of consent in any way. A child or animal can not give consent. Your slippery slope is built upon a false premise.
 
bookitty said:
Weren't you saying something in that other thread about the myth of the bigoted white male? But I digress.

Allowing consenting adults to do something does not negate the idea of consent in any way. A child or animal can not give consent. Your slippery slope is built upon a false premise.
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Or a complete disregard for the notion that consent is meaningful.
 
Weird Science said:
The reason to oppose gay marriage, I would say, apart from the absurdity of the whole proposition -- but then again human beings accept all kinds of absurdities -- is what I said before: that many people's real cause in supporting gay marriage is to undermine marriage in general, not because gay marriage itself does it, but because they will then demand polygamy -- as they do right now
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What the hell are you talking about? And who exactly are "many people's"? Name them. Seriously, I want to know. Because I've been in the gay rights movement for a long time, I've never met anyone whose "real reason" matches anything close to what you describe. You made similar remarks on this forum several times, and unanimously gay marriage supporters on this site fire back that they don't hold the views you describe. The people in PFLAG don't hold those views. I've never seen that view represented by any mainstream gay rights activist, and certainly not on any LGBT websites. I've met "many people" who support gay rights, I've yet to meet any single person on the planet who supports gay rights to attack straight marriage.

You don't have intimate, secret knowledge of a profound, nefarious conspiracy to undermine straight marriage. You don't have access to any information that the rest of us don't. So, when you say that "many people" support gay marriage as a way to attack straight people, where are you getting your information from? My bet is a bizarre dystopian fiction created in the mind of an anti-gay bigot, because you certainly didn't get that view from gay marriage supporters themselves.

Let me tell you why people support gay marriage, I hope you're ready for it: gay couples want to marry to form a lasting, loving commitment to one another. Straight people support gay marriage because they support those lasting, loving commitments they form with one another. They want to marry for exact same reasons straight people do.

Gay rights opponents believe that gay relationships are less worthy, less important, less valid, less acceptable than heterosexual relationships, or they believe gays are just plain gross. These people are wrong. They have an anti-gay prejudice which is backed by no possible rational reason. This is a problem. The Supreme Court has upheld marriage as a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution on 14 separate occasions. So, equal protection in the US demands that, if we withhold equal rights from gay couples in a way that puts them in a separate class from straight couples, we better have a damn good reason. No such reason exists. Gay rights advocates like myself view laws against gay marriage as heterosexist, irrationally discriminatory, and existing to demean gay couples relationships as less valid than straight couples for no damn good reason. We're understandably upset that laws like this even exist in the first place, especially when civil rights for all other minorities are accepted without question

then incest and pedophilia or zoophilia be legalized, too.
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"If gays can marry, pretty soon we have to legalize child rape and animal cruelty." Stop. Seriously. Just stop. There's no possible way you can believe the words you're saying. Think about it. Actually think for a second whether the slippery slope argument you're advancing is something you actually believe will happen, or whether its a paranoid talking point which attacks a bizarre dystopian fantasy which will never materialize. Case in point: There are a dozen countries which recognize same-gender marriage. Canada legalized same-gender marriage over a decade ago, and so far the likelihood of legalizing dog *********** and child rape is as remote now as it was 10 years ago.

There might be a rational case for polygamy, but not for child rape, and not for animal cruelty. Your argument that people support gay marriage to undermine straight marriage is false, is so far beyond wrong that it might as well be a parody. Whatever the case, you're putting words in gay rights activists that they do NOT agree with with, you get no points for arguing against a position that nobody holds in the first place.
 
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Perhaps they want to get married for the exact same reasons straight people do -- one of them wants to be a house slave, chained to the house due to the evil nature of our patriarchial phallocentric society... oh wait, that's just heterosexual marriages that are like that. Homosexual and polygamous marriage are just about love and happiness, er, except for polygamy, which really is de facto enslavement of women everywhere it is legal, but of course that's not something that should be mentioned in polite society.

And anyway -- leaving aside the condenscending "you slow child, you just don't undestand" attitude -- it's not a reply to my argument. I didn't say anything about why gays want to marry; that's obvious. I said things about what is the real motivation of many who are promoting gay marriage. Besides, it is just not true that gay and regular relationships are the same. Among male homosexuals in particular, less among lesbians, relationships are usually much shorter, and the partner much less faithful to each other; which, knowing men's much higher propensity to stray, is hardly surprising.
 
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Weird Science said:
Perhaps they want to get married for the exact same reasons straight people do -- one of them wants to be a house slave, chained to the house due to the evil nature of our patriarchial phallocentric society... oh wait, that's just heterosexual marriages that are like that.
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What the hell are you talking about? Its not normally my style to condescend down to others, but goddamn, what on god's green earth are you going on about? This bizarre diatribe has NOTHING to do with the post you're responding to.

It's like you feel this need, in every one of your posts, to construct a hyperbolic caricature of some ultra fringe flavor of leftism and generalize it as criticism of all left-leaning people. Yes, that's right, the view you're criticizing, which states that heterosexual marriage enslaves women, is so far out of the mainstream that almost all progressive liberals reject it entirely. Repeatedly, over and over again, you're putting words in the mouths of progressives that they don't agree with. I have not the faintest clue where you get your picture of progressive liberals, but you certainly don't get it from the views liberals actually hold.

Since you're fond of labeling logical fallacies, perhaps you will recognize this one:
Wikipedia said:
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:
  • Person A has position X.
  • Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
    • Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position.
    • Quoting an opponent's words out of context — i.e. choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context).[2]
      Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments — thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
    • Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
  • Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.
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Weird Science said:
And anyway -- leaving aside the condenscending "you slow child, you just don't undestand" attitude -- it's not a reply to my argument. I didn't say anything about why gays want to marry; that's obvious. I said things about what is the real motivation of many who are promoting gay marriage.
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I absolutely did reply your argument:
Dessi said:
What the hell are you talking about? And who exactly are "many people's"? Name them. Seriously, I want to know. Because I've been in the gay rights movement for a long time, I've never met anyone whose "real reason" matches anything close to what you describe. You made similar remarks on this forum several times, and unanimously gay marriage supporters on this site fire back that they don't hold the views you describe. The people in PFLAG don't hold those views. I've never seen that view represented by any mainstream gay rights activist, and certainly not on any LGBT websites. I've met "many people" who support gay rights, I've yet to meet any single person on the planet who supports gay rights to attack straight marriage.

You don't have intimate, secret knowledge of a profound, nefarious conspiracy to undermine straight marriage. You don't have access to any information that the rest of us don't. So, when you say that "many people" support gay marriage as a way to attack straight people, where are you getting your information from? My bet is a bizarre dystopian fiction created in the mind of an anti-gay bigot, because you certainly didn't get that view from gay marriage supporters themselves.
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The problem in a nutshell: people who support gay marriage don't hold the motivation you accuse them of holding. You can't find those views anywhere.

Seriously, who are these "many people" pretending to support gay marriage as a way to attack straight marriage? And why are they, for how numerous you believe they are, completely and totally off the radar of gay rights activists in any major LGBT rights group in the country?

If you think people hold this "real" reason, but not a single person actual comes out and says it, where on earth are you divining this special information from, and why are you the only one so privileged to have access to this secret knowledge?
 
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Weird Science said:
Perhaps they want to get married for the exact same reasons straight people do -- one of them wants to be a house slave, chained to the house due to the evil nature of our patriarchial phallocentric society... oh wait, that's just heterosexual marriages that are like that. Homosexual and polygamous marriage are just about love and happiness, er, except for polygamy, which really is de facto enslavement of women everywhere it is legal, but of course that's not something that should be mentioned in polite society.
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That is traditional marriage not heterosexual marriage.
 
Weird Science said:
And anyway -- leaving aside the condenscending "you slow child, you just don't undestand" attitude -- it's not a reply to my argument. I didn't say anything about why gays want to marry; that's obvious. I said things about what is the real motivation of many who are promoting gay marriage. Besides, it is just not true that gay and regular relationships are the same. Among male homosexuals in particular, less among lesbians, relationships are usually much shorter, and the partner much less faithful to each other; which, knowing men's much higher propensity to stray, is hardly surprising.
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And who cares? If two adults want to get married several times in their lives, (a la Newt Gingrich) why is that anyone else's business? Two consenting adults should be able to get married because they love each other or because they're in Vegas and it sounds like fun. It's nobody's business.
 
Polygamy

I just watched a documentary about Mitt Romney and Mormanism. It, understandably, spent a lot of time on polygamy.

Can anyone come up with a rational explanation of why polygamy should be illegal? I can't think of one.
 
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