Australian SSM Campaigners Distance Themselves from Polyamorists' Demands
The Australian:
The main lobby group promoting gay marriage yesterday distanced itself from polyamorists demanding to be included in the proposed reforms, saying marriage involving more than two people would undermine a traditional institution.
As reported yesterday by The Australian, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has come under attack from polyamorists, including some who are members of her party, for insisting that marriage should be between two people of any sex, but no more than two.
28 Comments
Big surprise. Marriage is the union of two people because it takes two people, a man and a woman to make a baby.
Take away the procreative element and there is no reason for marriage to be between two people. For that matter, there's no reason for it to be a lifelong union either, since the lifelong requirement anticipates children created in the marriage, as well.
And this is how so-called same-sex
"marriage" destroys marriage. It removes its very essence: the procreative and complementary nature of man and woman.
Bigots.
Removing the numerical requirements of marriage undermines a traditional institution in a way that removing the gender requirement does not?
Well, SSMers can *try* to distance themselves as much as they want, but polyamory has fertile support in academia, with supporters hoping that it can follow after ssm.
This one made me laugh. A marriage redefinition group rejecting polyamorist demands b/c "marriage involving more than two people would undermine a traditional institution."
This level of cognitive dissonance would make most people's heads explode
Equality for everyone; except for them, them, them, them, and anyone else that undermines our meme that changing the meaning of the word marriage will not affect anyone else.
Signed,
The Marriage Corruption Movement
That's what happens when you use the word equality. It applies to everyone, not just one group.
So let me understand this..these pro ssmers are using the exact same arguments that traditional marriage supporters have been saying for years. And the poly people are using the exact same arguments that pro ssmers have been using for year. What happened to equality? I guess now the SSMers are going to be referred to as "bigots" and "polyphobes".
Isn't this what we were warning everyone about? Take away the gender requirement in marriage and you open it up for everyone to have a complaint about something. We no longer have a firm foundation rooted in science and nature, and marriage becomes a moving target for other groups to shoot at.
Can one of the homosexuals who posts here explain to me why polyamorists should be denied the right to marry?
I wonder whether there should be a limit to the number of people who can form a marriage and on what basis that limit should be made. And while we're at it, why can't we go in the other direction and allow single people to call themselves "married"?
"This level of cognitive dissonance would make most people's heads explode "
You owe me one quarter cup of coffee and two paper towels
You got it, Rick!
@OvercameSSA - I can tell you why I think the two battles are different from a legal standpoint:
For the case of marriage equality, gay couples are asking to be allowed to participate in an existing legal institution. Sure, some language on documents will need to change (husband/wife >> spouse), but no new laws about divorce, inheritance, custody, visitation, etc., will need to be created. The existing laws will simply apply to a larger group of people. This is why supports of SSM complain about equality--we aren't allowed to participate in a legal institution, and we think that's wrong.
Legal recognition of a three-person "couple" (a thruple?), on the other hand, would require that a new body of law be created. Who inherits what when one person dies? Who can divorce whom, or must they all divorce each other? Who has custody of children? And so on. In this sense, the battle for legal recognition of polyamorous couples will involve proposing entirely new legislation.
So the main difference between the two is this: gay couples seek legal benefits and responsibilities that are already laid out in the law; polyamorous couples would need to first propose a set of laws and then create a new institution.
Nice try NOM. Polygamist are not born that way and they can strike their own path of their very different cause.
Good to see the average NOMer still having the below average issues IQ.
Pete- they aren't born that way? Are you so sure about that? Of course, that is beside the point, because bisexuals are 'born that way' according to 'LGBT' dogma, and many polyamorists claim to be bisexuals. They are 'naturally inclined' to love both men and women. I thought 'love makes a family'?
Gays and lesbians deserve the fundamental right to marry one person of their own gender because heterosexuals are permitted to marry one person of the opposite gender. If nobody is allowed to marry multiple partners then there is no discrimination in the law. The anti-gay lobby continues to try to weigh down marriage equality with the mostly heterosexual Mormon practice of polygamy because they can't come up with a winning argument for why gays and lesbians should be denied their right to marry.
"Gays and lesbians deserve the fundamental right to marry one person of their own gender because heterosexuals are permitted to marry one person of the opposite gender."
how is marrying a person of the same sex a "fundamental right?"
"If nobody is allowed to marry multiple partners then there is no discrimination in the law."
If no one is allowed to marry someone of the same-sex, then there is no discrimination in the law.
Jim -
That doesn't distinguish the claim for equal rights; surely you don't mean that it's ok to deny equal rights because it's too hard to execute the law with the new parties involved? I'm thinking about all those separate facilities that had to be dismantled after separate-but-equal was ruled illegal.
@OvercameSSA - I was trying to avoid judgement on anybody's position and to highlight what I think is the major difference between the paths towards SSM and legal recognition of polyamorous relationships.
Jim -
I think your distinction is interesting, but the point is that polyamory groups are using ss"m" as their springboard to polygamy. How do you argue against that substantively?
@OvercameSSA - I don't think they *can* successfully use the same tactics that the marriage equality movement has been using. The arguments that have been resonating in the courts regarding Prop 8 and similar cases have relied heavily on Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment, noting that straight couples have access to a certain set of legal protections whereas gay couples do not. DOMA has been losing on b/c of both the 14th and 10th Amendment, the latter which protects States' powers.
I don't think that polyamorous groups can successfully argue that they are being denied their 14th Amendment rights. For that to be the case, there would need to be a framework for polyamorous marriage from which these couples are being excluded. But no such framework exists.
A more fair comparison would be to compare the SSM movement to an MMF (male-male-female) movement if the government were, say, to allow only MFF marriages. Using these (admittedly clunky) abbreviations, the SSM movement can be seen as MMs and FFs wanting the same rights, protections, and responsibilities as MF couples.
I suppose thruples could argue that the government is treating groups differently based on number of participants, but I wouldn't expect that argument to be very persuasive in today's courts, but who really knows?
The marriage corruption movement’s entire house of cards is based on a belief that biological facts are not facts at all, but a well conceived plan to deny them their wants.
These miscreants are at war with the source of our freedom; the laws of nature and natures God.
Welcome to yet another aspect of the ensuing chaos when we refuse to acknowledge the God-given natural use of our reproductive organs.
If we can change the laws to say that same sex couples can be married, then we can change the laws that say how many people can be married to each other. Unfortunately, each new law builds upon the precedence of the previous one, and we get farther and farther away from what the original law intended. That is how the 'civil union' laws are being used to strike down marriage laws. Just because there is now no framework for polygamous marriage doesn't mean a judge can't suddenly impose one. If a person's gender doesn't matter, which is a scientific fact, why would numbers matter, which is just a subjective value? To play devils advocate, If you want to tout the arguement that everyone deserves this so called 'equality of marriage' how does that equality translate to only two people at a time? To be truely equal, shouldn't everyone be allowed to marry anyone or any number of people they want?
There is also the fact that the marital presumption of paternity cannot in any way apply to same-sex couples. But this has not been a sufficient reason for SSMers to keep marriage as opposite-sexed.
The presumption is a far more deeply rooted, fundamental part of marriage, than are many of the legal benefits that are tailored to couples. Some would say that establishing paternity and involving fathers with their children is *the* purpose of marriage.
( I recommend all marriage supporters read this excellent article, if you are able to download it: https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=19+Va.+J.+Soc.+Pol'y+%26+L.+133&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=f89a1a7da0278aa40b7c7b8a3ee2027f )
There is no reason that legal complexities resulting from polygamy are good enough to keep marriage between two people, when the legal complexities that would result from trying to transform a very gender-specific doctrine into an androgynous one are not good enough to keep marriage between a man and woman.
I agree, David, If you can cut out the opposite-sex requirement, essentially removing the purpose of the institution, then there is no limit to what can be done to further change it. The 2-person requirement becomes arbitrary, and courts don't like arbitrary. So, they take the existing law and require partnership agreements instead of using existing framework for couples. Easy, peasy..
It is true the marriage statute does not expressly prohibit gay and lesbian persons from marrying; it does, however, require that if they marry, it must be to someone of the opposite sex. Viewed in the complete context of marriage, including intimacy, civil marriage with a person of the opposite sex is as unappealing to a gay or lesbian person as civil marriage with a person of the same sex is to a heterosexual. Thus, the right of a gay or lesbian person under the marriage statute to enter into a civil marriage only with a person of the opposite sex is no right at all.
All are equally required to marry under the eligibility laws of the state, 14th.
Your major problem is that the people wish to retain the definition of marriage which predates the establishment of the USA itself, and there is simply not a single thing you can do to change their minds on this question.
This much having been incontrovertibly established on the ground, we will tidy up the few remaining morsels this fall and sit back and wait for the...oh it is going to be so wonderful!.......for the Great SCOTUS Smackdown of the ignoble Vaughn Walker and his co-conspirators in the Ninth Circuit.
Someone finds sexual exclusiveness unappealing. Let's abolish the two-person limit.
Someone is sexually attracted to his sibling, and she to him. Let's strike out the law against incestuous marriage.
Someone finds it unappealing to be limited to just one marriage at-a-time. Let's drop the monogamy limit.
Someone finds marriage unappealing. Let's abolish marital status.
These are not examples of a slippery slope, really, for the argumentation and rhetoric of the SSM campaign, far and wide, swallows these examples whole -- without chewing.
Just because someone would choose a nonmarital alternative does not mean that is good reason for society to change the law. That person can stay unmarried and indulge in the alternative.
Exercising that choice is a liberty exercised and not a right denied.
Society may discriminate between marriage and other stuff. There is no good reason to elevate the gay subset of the large nonmarital category.
And, no, gay identity does not define the nonmarital category; nor does "same-sex"; nor does the other stuff that 14th Amend and other SSMers have offered in their comments.
There is no constitutional right to abolish the man-woman requirement of marriage law. The very notion that an all-male or an all-female scenario might be deemed a marriage is absurd: for the government to impose such an absurdity would mean entrenchment of a falsehood via legal fiction. It would not be tethered to reality.
As such, all of society would lose marital status but we would all be forced to act as if we believed in the imposed falsehood pushed by gay identity politics.