Posted on 06/24/2005 8:00:10 PM PDT by wagglebee
(AgapePress) - In comments at an Ivy League school, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union has indicated that among the "fundamental rights" of people is the right to polygamous relationships -- and that the ACLU has defended and will continue to defend that right.
In a little-reported speech offered at Yale University earlier this year, ACLU president Nadine Strossen stated that her organization has "defended the right of individuals to engage in polygamy." Yale Daily News says Strossen was responding to a "student's question about gay marriage, bigamy, and polygamy." She continued, saying that her legal organization "defend[s] the freedom of choice for mature, consenting individuals," making the ACLU "the guardian of liberty ... defend[ing] the fundamental rights of all people."
The ACLU's newly revealed defense of polygamy may weaken the pro-homosexual argument for changing the traditional definition of marriage. Proponents of same-sex "marriage" have long insisted that their effort to include homosexual couples in that definition would only be that. However, conservative and traditional marriage advocates predict "other shoes will drop" if homosexual marriage is legalized -- perhaps including attempts to legalize polygamy and to changed current legal definitions of child-adult relationships.
Crawford Broadcasting radio talk-show host Paul McGuire concurs. He says in his opinion, the ACLU "has declared legal war on the traditional family."
"Now the ACLU is defending polygamy," he continues, in response to Strossen's comments. "You know, there are male and female lawyers who wake up in the morning and are actually proud of being ACLU lawyers. But I think the majority of Americans view ACLU lawyers as people who hate America and who want to destroy all Judeo-Christian values and beliefs."
McGuire summarizes by saying that Strossen's organization seems "to only defend things that tear down the fabric of society."
National Review correspondent Ramesh Ponnuru provides some additional insight. "It could be that the ACLU has defended a right for people to set up households in this way without necessarily fighting for governmental recognition of polygamous 'marriages,'" he says.
"Even if so," Ponnuru concludes, "it is hard to see how the ACLU, on its own principles, could stop short of demanding a change to the marriage laws to allow for polygamy."
Strossen has been president of the ACLU since 1991. She is also an acting professor of law at New York Law School and the author of the book, Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex & the Fight for Women's Rights (Scriber).
Whydja bring Barney Frank into this?.....LOL....
Regards,
It may not please many people but one can do what one wants to a very large degree if one is simply quiet about it.
I'm not quite sure I get your point (or you get mine.) This was supposed to be a "thought experiment." Pickup trucks and other vehicles can be manufactured in greater quantities to meet demand. Other vehicles can be chosen: vans, cars, panel trucks.
On the other hand, women cannot be manufactured in greater numbers; nor are there any other available marriage partners for men. That leaves huge numbers of men permanently unmarriageable. This has consequences beyond the individual.
I suspect that's why polygamy is such a social-ecology throwback. It's hard for societies to assimilate the energies of large numbers of mateless men constructively. In our own society, men who never marry are vastly overrepresented in prison; in Islamic societies they make up the bulk of the criminals, crazies, cannon-fodder.
Can we talk about this?
All the societies which are polygamous are also retrograde and virulently patriarchal. Under polygamy, the market--- to which you refer so confidently ---- is indeed a market that renders women semi-chattel if not outright slaves. Market forces distribute young women---like property--- to the older men that have the most money. This is not satisfactory to women, but in polygamous societies women have negligible social power.
This has a predictable, disastrous effect on both the equality of the sexes and the intimacy of the sexes. One-to-one correspondence works for both equality and intimacy. One-to-three-or-four doesn't.
I know that there are some people to whom everything (marriage, sex, childbearing, whatever) comes down to a question of market, property, ownership. This is a serious error. It brings us back to a mindset on human dignity typical of the Bronze Age; typical also of Shari'a law.
The American people must have the power, and the opportunity, to say No to polygamy. We want our ethic of human dignity, not market forces; we want such social changes as we choose to come by legislatures, not by judges; we want Western Civilization and Constitution, not some retrograde Mormon-Muslim model and Shari'a.
"You're either heartless or a polygamous jerk yourself if you can't see that."
From a guy's POV, too, how could you possibly have the same sort of intimacy that you have with one wife and six kids if you have six wives and 36 kids?
Somebody has to be getting the short stick in that arrangement.
And six mothers in law?
Polygamy can be a practical necessity if war or disease has left a society with a large surplus of women, particularly if it's a primitive society and the surplus women need someone to protect and feed them.
But that's a case of half a loaf being better than none, not an optimal situation.
It's really about men wanting to do that, then to legitimize those relationships through marriage in order that everyone can collect a welfare check and no one has to work. No man in his right mind wants to support more than one woman plus her children. It's lunacy.
Polygamy only made real sense in an underpopulated agricultural society, where children were an economic asset. Today it's financial suicide.
"Polygamy makes a lot of sense."
It sure does. Think of all the government workers, teachers, etc, who can enroll dozens of spouses in their benefits package.
There will be a lot fewer people without insurance.
Yeppers, and then human/animal marriages.
Nah - cat's tongus are too rough!
"You know, I seem to recall making an ad hominem attack on a previous polygamy thread."
Not directed at me.
"I DESPISE anyone who believes in this."
Was there something in my note that gave you the impression that I was supporting polygamy?
Oh what a shocking development. /sarcasm
Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005
Information here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1413875/posts
There you will find information about the bill, links to contact your congressmen and state representatives, and links to Stop the ACLU, among others.
Dogs don't sweat, that's why you see them running around with their tongues hanging out, drooling to cool off.
You're not implying that the Senate has any type of constitutional duty to confirm whatever judge the President nominates to the supreme court, are you?
They already have voting rights as registered Democrats.. why not marriage rights too?
Sex is something that two consenting adults have with each other. Let's call it what it is, pedophilia.
Are you defending child molesters?
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