If it feels good - do it!
Rules are for old, white, straight Christians.
/s
Posted on 02/26/2015 11:07:16 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
few weeks ago, Lindsay Graham asked Loretta Lynch an interesting question at her Senate confirmation hearings: “What is the legal difference between a ban on same sex marriage being unconstitutional, but a ban on polygamy being constitutional?"
The question, understandably, took her by surprise. “Senator, I have not been involved in the argument or analysis of the cases that have gone before the Supreme Court, and I’m not comfortable undertaking legal analysis without having had the ability to review the relevant facts and the precedent there…but I look forward to continuing the discussions with you."
No one takes the issue of polygamy seriously, so I accept Lynch’s answer at face value, and also appreciate the Senator’s question. And I hope an unemotional discussion of polygamy does come out of it. Polygamy usually only enters the discussion as part of the “slippery slope” litany — bringing us to the brink of bestiality on our way to some unnamed, unspeakable perversion. As you recall, gay marriage was the first slippery step, so we apparently have already lost our footing. Look out below!
I remember learning in a cultural anthropology class that the majority of societies ever studied were found to be polygamous. In primitive societies, the advantages are obvious. A team of sister wives could share food gathering, chores and midwifery duties. If one of the wives died, her children would still be mothered. Naturally, there would be bickering and issues of pecking order, but that’s what all families do. Another thing that families do is stick together in times of crisis. It’s not hard to see how in our ancestral past polygamy might have improved our species’ chance of survival.
Today, polygamy is illegal worldwide, except for most Muslim countries. Women are shamefully oppressed under sharia law, so I think polygamy is somewhat tainted by association. But the question of whether polygamy should be illegal in the United States is its own issue, and ought to be considered on its merits. And it seems to me that it’s the kind of thing consenting adults out to be able to choose for themselves, just like gay marriage has been found to be — outside Alabama, at least.
Like you, I never gave polygamy much thought until I watched the HBO series "Big Love" in 2006. (It was followed in 2010 by "Sister Wives," a reality show which I have not seen.)
"Big Love" is the story of a family of uppermiddle class Mormons who live in suburban Salt Lake City and practice polygamy — which was legal in Utah until the 1880s. Pressured by the federal government, the Mormon Church officially banned it in 1890, and many polygamists fled to Mexico, Canada, and creepy remote rural compounds.
In "Big Love," the modern day sister-wife arrangement introduces some interesting twists to the basic soap opera themes. The three wives are distinctly different types and ages, with different sexual appetites. The teenage daughter of Wife #1, for example, is decidedly more mature than Wife #3, and not much younger. Also, the 18-year-old son of Wife #1 has a crush on the vivacious Wife #3. Meanwhile, shopaholic Wife #2 is secretly running up a huge credit card debt.
My main takeaway from watching "Big Love" is that polygamy is no crazier than monogamy, and no more likely to fail or harm children. It can work, given the right combination of individuals, particularly if religious conviction is a big part of their motivation. We do demand that the government respect all religious beliefs, don’t we?
Not really. Polygamy seems to be one of those rare issues that liberals and conservatives agree on — they both disapprove, but for different reasons. Liberals tend to go along with the standard feminist critique of polygamy — any woman who chooses to share a man with another woman is submitting to patriarchy and must have low self-esteem.
Conservatives will dig up some obscure Biblical verse that seems to condemn polygamy, ignoring the numerous Old Testament polygamists who God selects to do his work.
Frankly, I think it’s hypocritical to have laws that permit nitwit or sociopathic heterosexuals to leave a series of broken homes in their wake while banning big, happy polygamist families. Hypocrisy aside, I just can’t see how the court could legally defend banning it.
There is at least one guy in town who sees it this way. If I understand him correctly, Charlie Gruner feels that any combination of consenting adults should be able to sign any marriage contract they can dream up. The government should be involved only to resolve lawsuits or to protect minor children from abusive guardians. That’s what separation of church and state looks like, y’all. I can’t imagine what possible rationale the Supreme Court might have for not seeing the choice of marriage partner(s) the same way they saw same-sex unions. We’re talking inalienable rights here, people. Remember, we put “the pursuit of happiness” on the same pedestal as “life” and “liberty.”
1) isn’t one nagging wife enough?
2) isn’t one mother-in-law more than enough?
There either IS or ISN’T a standard definition of marriage.
We have entered the zone of NO STANDARD.
Which of the 57 genders is the lyncher?
Polygamy is “crazier.” It creates especially in Western societies numerous conflicts - overall, not a lifestyle for a happy home life.
You marry sisters to solve the mother-in-law problem. LOL
And “gay marriage” does?
Ping
When logic becomes the driver for “law”, then Schick will be right. We are on our way there. However, law has since the beginning of the US, been based on morality which in turn is based upon our view of the Scriptures. Recall, God giving certain rights. The God referred to is the biblical God, not an imaginary god, or a Muslim god. Whatever the naysayers would like to harp on, there is no real basis for law without a moral system...and ours has been heretofore, the Bible. Polygamy, homosexuality, beastiality, marrying one’s sister, or one’s child are all prohibited.
If it feels good - do it!
Rules are for old, white, straight Christians.
/s
Once the one-man, one woman definition of marriage falls, there can be no objective legal standard for marriage ever again.
Because what will be the limiting factor if the definition is tied to “happiness”?
Marrying three woman and two men will make me happy—who are you to interfere?
I want to marry a horse—who are you to say I cannot be happy?
A moral society is a strong society, and that moral strength has been eaten away by design over the last fifty years or so, on purpose.
The Communists(yes, Virginia, they still exist) will tear down the old order, and then, when everyone thinks they are free, they will establish their own new order and dissenters will disappear. Literally.
When do we fight? Who will lead?
Why is everyone silent?
My main takeaway from reading this ridiculous screed is that the author believes that profound moral and psychological issues are resolved by watching politically correct television show fantasies and expressing mocking insults towards whatever the television show stands against.
In other words, he's a liberal.
Your early posts on the topic and your persistence in posting on it, indicate that polygamy is not something that you strongly oppose.
Am I correct in thinking that forbidding polygamy is not a major goal to you?
I want to marry my grill. We've known each other a long time.
Recipe for an explosion in food stamp benefits for the “haves” and increasing numbers of surly angry male “have note”?
We have quite the hypocritical society in which a man who commits to loving and supporting more than one woman is demonized.
But if he calls his women ‘mistresses’ then no one says a word.
Or if a man sleeps around and has babies with multiple women then he’s a hero in the ghetto and neither liberals or conservatives will say a word for fear of being branded a racist.
Or if a man marries and divorces a series of women then that’s okay despite the fact that Scripture will define this man as a polygamist.
Or if it’s Charlie Sheen or Hugh Hefner and they live with multiple women in a somewhat committed relationship then it’s okay because they’re doing so in the name of debauchery and (nudge, nudge, wink, wink!) boys will be boys, right?
As for the comment about living in a ‘creepy rural compound’ I double dog dare anyone to tell Ted Nugent he lives in a creepy rural compound!
To the Christian, the words of Jesus Christ Himself are hardly "obscure."
Matthew 19:4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
From the beginning, God's intent is clear: One man, one woman, for life.
The writer is biblically illiterate, which is not surprising.
Grills and boys should marry each other.
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