Posted on 06/01/2015 2:56:54 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
For years, religious conservatives argued against same-sex marriage by saying that it would put society on the slippery slope to (horrors!) polygamy. Now comes the New York Times‘ Ross Douthat, a day late and a dollar short.
In yesterday’s column, Douthat seizes upon a new Gallup study that shows a broad shift to the left in Americans’ social values during the present century. The exception, he says, is on abortion, but actually it’s not an exception; the pro-choice position has gained some ground. The exception is adultery — where the old-time disapproval is holding firm at over 90 percent.
You’d think Douthat would take some comfort in that, but instead he leaps at the polygamy approval number, which has jumped from seven percent in 2003 to a not-so-whopping 16 percent. He sees it as “bobbing forward in social liberalism’s wake,” even as he concedes that the only out-and-out polygamists are fundamentalist Mormons and traditionalist Muslims.
A couple of months ago, he had this to say about how a liberalizing American culture should go forward “on issues related to sex and marriage and abortion and homosexuality and more.”
One possibility, the one I favor and have argued for (for self-interested but hopefully principled reasons as well), is basically to allow a fairly wide latitude for these religious subcultures, with legal protections and a general tolerance that makes it relatively easy for the observant and traditionalist not only to worship and find fellowship but also to run businesses, schools, colleges, hospitals, etc. in accordance with their beliefs.
I’d have thought the principled position for Douthat would be to support a right to polygamy, along the religious freedom lines that he thinks are necessary to enable traditionalist believers to maintain their codes of conduct. Indeed, it would be interesting to know how many of those new supporters of polygamy are frequent churchgoers and how many not, or how many are Republicans and how many Democrats. Crosstabs, Gallup?
What’s certain is that the federal judge who threw out a hunk of Utah’s anti-polygamy law is a born-and-bred Mormon whose decision turned on the constitutional right of free exercise. If polygamy is to achieve legal recognition in 21st-century America, it won’t be because of what Douthat calls “the now-ascendant model of marriage as a gender-neutral and easily-dissolved romantic contract.” It will be because of the increasingly robust view of religious liberty now being embraced by him and his kind.
Yep. This is the next thing down the road.
The have the right to marry.....marry their pets...marry the horse they rode in on.....marry the squids in the sea.....marry their Prius.....marry dozens together.....all in peace and lust.
You’d think Douthat would take some comfort in that, but instead he leaps at the polygamy approval number, which has jumped from seven percent in 2003 to a not-so-whopping 16 percent. He sees it as “bobbing forward in social liberalism’s wake,” even as he concedes that the only out-and-out polygamists are fundamentalist Mormons and traditionalist Muslims.
I dunno - a 200+% jump in a decade isn't something to be ignored.
It was endemic among many Native American tribes. Our plural marriages were even grandfathered in as legal slightly more than a century ago when the last ones reported to the reservations,
about Mark Silk-
“In the 1980s and 1990s Silk was a regular contributor to the New York Times, contributing essays and book reviews on feminist theology,[3] new religious movements,[4] Jewish identity, and other religion-related topics. [5] In 1984 he traced the use of “Judeo-Christian” in American culture.[6] In 1995 he argued that the American news media approach religion with certain Western religious preconceptions that do not always do justice to the varieties of religious belief and behavior.”
i'd really like to marry my long time girlfriends and officially adopt our children (tho we needed a surrogate father).
here's a picture of our wonderful kids:
btw, who would i talk with about dependency limits and death benefits from the loss of a family member?
If we erode marriage across this nation, under the notion of equality; how can anyone who claims support for homosexual marriage even try to argue against polygamy, or any othere freakish exercise in “marriage”?
Why not, it’s just as silly as gay marriage. Oh now gays are going to become “conservative” and deny others the benefits they have?
He was on his second marriage (married again as a widower).
He was married to both women -- supposedly "for eternity" -- in the Mormon temple.
So, per Lds doctrine...as soon as Perry & his two wives arrives make it to the highest celestial kingdom...Perry becomes an eternal polygamist.
All from the religion that supposedly disavows polygamy!
Evil is in control.
We didn’t need laws against it before the Mormon cult started, and what do you mean when you say “Our plural marriages were even grandfathered in as legal slightly more than a century ago”
That is vague on details, what do you mean “legal” and where, among non-citizen Indians in the territories like the Apache?
IIRC, the Bible says you’re married to every individual you have sex with.
Gay ‘marriage’ is the stalking horse for muslim.
You have to read down to the end of the article to realize where he's coming from in this one:
I’d have thought the principled position for Douthat would be to support a right to polygamy, along the religious freedom lines that he thinks are necessary to enable traditionalist believers to maintain their codes of conduct. Indeed, it would be interesting to know how many of those new supporters of polygamy are frequent churchgoers and how many not, or how many are Republicans and how many Democrats. Crosstabs, Gallup?
What’s certain is that the federal judge who threw out a hunk of Utah’s anti-polygamy law is a born-and-bred Mormon whose decision turned on the constitutional right of free exercise. If polygamy is to achieve legal recognition in 21st-century America, it won’t be because of what Douthat calls “the now-ascendant model of marriage as a gender-neutral and easily-dissolved romantic contract.” It will be because of the increasingly robust view of religious liberty now being embraced by him and his kind.
He's saying that religious conservatives and others who support a more "robust view of religious liberty" will be the ones to legalize polygamy, not supporters of gay marriage like himself.
Like I said, a lot snark.
“marry their pets...marry the horse they rode in on.....marry the squids in the sea.....marry their Prius.”
I know that many women have claimed to have married mules and Jackasses since time immemorial
Good old American hypocrisy--It is estimated that roughly 30 to 60% of all married individuals (in the United States) will engage in infidelity at some point during their marriage....
http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/cheating-and-infidelity/stats-about-infidelity.html
They can't. If we legalize homosexual "marriage", then there is no reason why polygamy or polyamory or whatever, cannot be called marriage.
Once it is redefined, it is open to further re-definitions. If there is nothing special about marriage being between one man and one woman, so that two men or two women can marry each other; then, what is so special about the number two? Nothing, in fact, nothing special about marriage at all -- and that is the end of it. This was the purpose all along --- marriage equality -- don't make me laugh. It was always about the destruction of marriage as a fundamental societal good.
What happens in group marriage when the two biological parents of a child are out-voted by the group on what to do with the kid?
That’s why we’re called sinners.
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