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).
So don't marry a polygamist. Have a prenup that says if you're the guy's only wife and he later wants another, he can't without buying you out.
Just because you want to be someone's only wife, don't decide for other women.
Not all women are so possessive.
In fact, some women would probably find it comforting that there are other women in the household to chat with.
Done right, I am sure they would come to love each other as sisters.
And a husband taking an additional wife is less threatening to an existing wife than a husband being forced to chose between marrying his new girlfriend and divorcing his wife, or keeping his wife and losing his girlfriend.
All because he cannot marry both.
But I do believe the birthrate is much higher in so-called retrograde societies than in our "advanced" society, which has a birthrate below replacement level.
And so the "retrograde" society seems more vital.
And as for a patriarchal society--being a man, I like the idea of men being the leaders, as was the case earlier in America.
If a society led by men seems odd, that is only because modern men have not been brought up to lead, but have instead been brainwashed to share leadership with women.
Still, I'd prefer much less immigration and crowding, even if it means monotonous monogamy.
Good.
The ACLU should've been RICOd a long time ago, but now is as good a time as any.
"If a society led by men seems odd, that is only because modern men have not been brought up to lead, but have instead been brainwashed to share leadership with women."
Or maybe we are not all misogynist jerks. And Rousseau was an idiot.
I guess we need to come up with some new terms.
"But I wouldn't call standards like blood alcohol or consent arbitrary; they are the result of accumulated experience (history) as well as scientific study."
Well, there's as much bad science there as there is in the global warming hysteria.
I participated in an early study back in the 70s, and the dirty little secret is that most healthy people actually drive *better* at a blood alcohol level of 1.0. When you get very much over that, performance drops off sharply, but 1.0 was actually below the level at which good sense and science would have put the level.
And now every state has lowered the level to .08. Where's the science behind that?
One problem is that every accident in which there is any excuse at all is classified as "alcohol related," whether alcohol played any role in the accident or not.
Guy has a beer in a bar, gets in his car to go home, is stopped at a stoplight, and some stone-sober citizen slams into him from behind. Bam. Another "alcohol-related accident" for the hysterics to use as an excuse to further restrict our freedoms.
High-school kids get a case of beer and start driving around recklessly at high speed. The driver has half a beer in him and half a beer on him when he fails to negotiate a curve. Another "alcohol-related accident."
Subtact out accidents like that and the number of "alcohol-related" accidents would plunge sharply.
The laws we have no are arbitrary, because they're just a way station on the march to the ultimate goal -- no drinking at all, in any amount, before driving.
The old limit of 1.0 was low. 0.8 is ridiculous. 0.6, 0.4, 0.2, and 0.0 are coming.
"Not all women are so possessive."
That's not the only issue.
Admittedly I am judging by the only standard I have, which is my own experience.
My wife and I, over almost 19 years of marriage, have developed a level of emotional intimacy that I will arbitrarily designate as "maximal" for us.
I think it would be impossible for me to develop and maintain that same level of intimacy with two or more women at the same time. Since I think I am fairly ordinary, that leads me to doubt that any man could develop and maintain his personal level of maximum intimacy with two or more women.
That would mean that a man with more than one wife would be shortchanging all but one of them. In that situation, he might be unable to develop maximum intimacy with any of them, and so would be shortchanging all of them *and* himself.
In a monogamous society, a married couple reach a point at which they say, "Okay, we're middle-aged, we're not 'hot' any more, but we have this relationship of love and trust, shared adversities and joys, and that is a much deeper and more mature kind of happiness than sexual adventurism." In a polygamous society, maybe instead the man goes out and gets himself a new eighteen-year-old wife.
It's "one flesh," not "two fleshes" or "six fleshes."
Sure, we all know what kind of urges men have. As Jeff Foxworthy says, you see an old guy going down the hall at the old-folks home with a walker, and what he's thinking is, "I'd like a beer, and I'd like to see something naked."
But the greater happiness, and the greater good for society, is to be found in putting that aside and cleaving to your wife. Singular.
Motherbear despises people who believe in polygamy.
I personally think that, even in our monogamous society, guys who chuck their wife and kids for a younger woman are even worse.
I love how so many people here wetting their shorts over polygamy are suddenly assuming ALL women would change their minds and marry rich guys. Are y'all saying women are ALL really just whores, then?
Now, some are. But Hugh can take his ho's and do whatever he wants. Who cares what rich males and prostitutes, or rich women and their studs do?!?!? Nobody seems inclined to ban James Bond's screwing around--it's just illegal AFTER he's married. I prefer just one woman who loves me, thanks. I have enough problems keeping one woman happy. But if some guy or gal wants multiple bedbunnies, and they can please 'em, what do I care?
"I am raising my daughters to have more respect for themselves than to join a legalized harem!"
If so, what are you worried about? They wouldn't have to be married to such people, and I'm sure they wouldn't be. Or is it that you assume your daughters are that naive and stupid enough to be fooled?
I'm stunned to discover they were both psychiatrists. A degree in psychology or practice in psychiatry ought to constitute prima facie evidence of mental illness.
"Nah - cat's tongues are too rough!"
ROFLMAO. You sick, perverted...funny...bastard, ya. 8^)
"I personally think that, even in our monogamous society, guys who chuck their wife and kids for a younger woman are even worse."
I personally think the same. Shouldn't we make that illegal? And how would polygamy make that MORE likely? I would think it'd be LESS likely.
If the problem is not polygamy but screwing around and dumping your kids in the divorce, then ban divorce and immoral screwing around. Enforce the fornication laws on the books.
"Shouldn't we make that illegal?"
Well, until very recently, it was...in that neither spouse was able to obtain divorce on demand, without grounds. No-fault divorce paved the way.
"And how would polygamy make that MORE likely? I would think it'd be LESS likely."
With polygamy, the man would still be married to the earlier wife, but he would put her away emotionally. Today, he can divorce his wife, but has to endure the financial devastation that entails.
A polygamous society allows him to get (probably buy) a new wife freely. In a healthy monogamous society, he is told to suck it up and stop acting like a jerk.
"Well, until very recently, it was...in that neither spouse was able to obtain divorce on demand, without grounds. No-fault divorce paved the way."
---So end no-fault divorce. None of this stupid covenant marriage crap--end no-fault divorce if it's so awful. That has nothing to do with polygamy.
"With polygamy, the man would still be married to the earlier wife, but he would put her away emotionally. Today, he can divorce his wife, but has to endure the financial devastation that entails. A polygamous society allows him to get (probably buy) a new wife freely. In a healthy monogamous society, he is told to suck it up and stop acting like a jerk."
---In both cases, the extent of the penalty to the male is a fine. In the case of a legal no-fault divorce, the kids are put aside as well as the wife. That's just more of a fine to the dad, and no real penalty to him if he's willing to dump the kids anyway. But in a polygamous society, that would seem not to be the case, dad would still be living with the kids and subject to their daily demands.
I don't know whether a 'healthy monogamous society' is worth defending, if what we live in is one of those. I can't imagine how much worse a polygamous one could be when a single Jerry Springer episode provides firm evidence of how healthy our monogamous society is.
And what is this 'buy-a-wife' crap? When did society start selling its women again? And what are Maureen O'Hara lookalikes going for?
Oh, now you're just being provocative. Of course I'm not saying that I --- or that all women ---would participate in legalized polygamy, any more than legalized prostitution would cause me --- or most women --- to become prostitutes.
Legalizing behavior doesn't compel it; but it unquestionably legitimizes it, encourages it, causes it to be treated as normal via the indoctrination our children receive in the schools, and opens the door for special accommodations and incentives (why not affirmative action?!)
I don't like the kind of social change which goes along with polygamy (Southern Utah, say) or prostitution (Netherlands, say) and I and I would guess a couple hundred million fellow citizens would like to prevent that kind of social change occurring where we live.
Remember "State governments: the laboratories of democracy"?
If and when we Americans want to try sweeping social experiments, such experiments ought to be authorized by our representatives in our 50 state legislatures, and not by the ACLU-managed courts who have taken away our self-government "for our own good."
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