[2ndDivisionVet]

I’ve often wondered how they can rule against polygamy if two men or two women may marry one another?

[dufekin]

Polygamy frankly makes more sense to me than homosexuality does. Some of the greatest figures in the Bible practiced polygamy, for example, Elkanah with Hannah and Peninnah; Hannah gave birth to the prophet Samuel. Never and nowhere, insofar as I know, does the Bible ever endorse homosexuality or portray non-negatively any of its unrepentant practitioners. Perhaps the Mormon (religious, politically conservative) historic practice of polygamy in this country makes that lifestyle choice too politically incorrect for the courts to endorse it.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

They can’t. Legalized homosexual marriage opens the door to everything up to group marriage. If 10 men and 10 women all profess their love and want to engage in consensual sex, with all the benefits of a married entity, there is absolutely no basis to ban the practice once you say marriage is no longer one man to one woman.

Prohibitions on any number or type of marriage become indefensible as soon as homosexual marriage becomes legal. A Grandmother could marry her grandson.

[old republic]

I have wondered that too, but my reasoning is a little different. Most state constitutions say something like "only marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized in the state of X". This definition of marriage doesn't actually explicitly prohibit polygamy. You can use this definition to argue that every polygamous marriage is a marriage between one man and one woman. The woman only marries one man, she doesn't marry the other wives of the polygamist husband. Each of the husbands marriages are therefore separate and independent from each other and each of those separate marriages are between one man and one woman. There is nothing explicitly in the text of those kinds of laws that says that person can only contract one marriage at a time, at least as it was worded in Prop.8. In other words, you could justify polygamy even under the current law in most states without the ruling of Judge Walker.

Speaking of Polygamy the SCOTUS issued rulings that Congress had the power to forbid immoral marriages back in the 1890s when it was suppressing Mormon polygamy. Those might make good precedents to argue in defense of real marriage, if the Prop.8 fiasco ever gets to SCOTUS.