From the Vancouver Sun:
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is calling for Canada's polygamy law that bans multiple marriages to be found unconstitutional and "relegated to the scrap heap of history."
In written submissions filed Thursday, the association urged B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman to find that the law offends fundamental freedoms.
The parties in favour of upholding the law have argued that there are numerous social harms associated with polygamy.
The association says that while harms can occur in plural relationships, there is no evidence that there are harms specific to polygamy.
33 Comments
Proponents of same-sex marriage now actually need to provide a good answer to the question we've been asking all along: on what ground of principle do you say 'no' to group marriage? Would your answer convince Judge Walker?
SSM advocates are against polygamy only insasmuch as polygamy prevents SSM from being legalized.
If you let homosexuals "marry" one another, who cares who marries whom or what in what number anymore? Marriage at that point has become meaningless. Beastiality easily follows, as well.
This only shows that the government forced legalization of SSM is not a forward evolutionary step, but a backward slide into pagan barbarity. Is polygamy not one of the twin pillars of barbarism?
Well said, ConservativeNY. Once we open the doors to SSM, the floodgates of all sorts of immorality just burst open. Liberals deride us for pointing this out but it's the plain and simple truth.
Can you guys point out a single country in the world with SSM that has legalized polygamy?
Mike Brooks, gay marriage is already allowed in the united states. You already have legally married gay neighbors. We live in every state. That fight is over already.
For instance I live in Alaska. They don't have SSM here. I am friends with several gay families that went to DC, Canada, CA, or Mass and are legally married. Marriage certificates and everything. DOMA is literally the only thing standing in the way of the 1000+ federal rights married couples get. DOMA has already been declared unconstitutional. My partner and I will also be getting married once DOMA is officially gone.
The way things are going, we probably won't even have to travel. Since prop 8 is on it's way out in the 9th circuit(which Alaska is part of)
Let me clear up a few misstatements have made.
@ Mike P. - Most proponents of marriage equality do not support polygamy.
@ Mike Brooks - Are you actually so ignorant to believe that animal - human marriage is legally possible. The last time I checked, animals are not legally able to give consent.
@ ConservativeNY - I guess if the Republican Party wants to resurrect its platform from the 1850's, more power to it.
@SC Guy - Conservatives have never been able to point to any "immorality" that follows the legal acceptance of marriage equality. Beastiality and marriage to children are out because animals and minors cannot legally consent to marriage. So far as I know the only countries in the world that permit polygamy are religiously conservative NOT the countries that have marriage equality.
These arguments are red herrings and prove that opponants to marriage equality are bereft of any real intellectual arguments.
No harm in polygamy? Throughout history and in our own time, Women are major losers in this scheme. And yet, crickets from the 'feminists'.
E2U, misses the point.
The SSM idea and the argumentation used to promote it actually swallows incestuous-SSM, polygamous-like SSM, group-SSM, and underaged-SSM. The SSM idea is bereft of justification for drawing lines against any of that.
When SSMers demand that the basis for eligibility/ineligiblity be changed, they take on the onus to justify drawing any sort of limitations based on the one-sexed scenario.
It turns out that they usually shrug when it comes to group-SSM, incestuous SSM, and polygamous-like SSM. And they have very little to offer to justify age limitations for the one-sexed scenario.
So without solid principles they hide behind the lines that are justified by the core meaning of marriage -- a core that SSMers reject outright as intolerable. They copy-paste lines that are based on the core meaning that SSMers reject strenuously.
This is not a slippery slope argument; it is the SSM argument and the result that it produces.
SSMers depend on the arbitrary exercise of governmental authority to favor the gay identity group over all other considerations. This blatantly contradicts the puffed-up pro-SSM complaint that the man-woman basis of marriage law (including the sexual basis for eligilbity) is supposedly arbitrary. But marriage, and its special status, and the lines drawn around its core meaning, are justified within both our legal system and our culture.
Edgewaterprog
1. SSM argumentation is at issue, here, not the whims of those who support SSM.
But here is the challenge to you, as an SSMer: Justify, if you can, society drawing a line against group-SSM, polygamous-like SSM, incestuous SSM.
You cannot rely on SSM as a sexual type of relationship in the law. There would be no legal requirement that would force same-sex sexual behavior on those who'd SSM.
You cannot rely on provision for responsible procreation, nor even on child raising, since SSMers have insisted that SSM and procreation are seperate issues; and that raising children is not mandatory for those who'd SSM.
Also, you must not trangress the pro-SSM term of argumentation that insists that if something can occur outside of SSM, it is not essential to SSM; if it drawing a line against something does not prevent it from occuring outside of SSM, then it is not justification for drawining limitations.
If, on the other hand, you are trying to justify line drawing based on a show of hands -- "most proponents" (to use your own phrase) -- then, you cannot dismiss such an accounting when it comes to support for the man-woman basis of marriage law. You are already showing the unprincipled approach of SSMers.
Edgewater - Ignorant? Dude, people have already tried to marry their pets. To legalize is just a matter of making a convincing argument to a legislator/judge that a consent requrement for marriage is unnecessary for marriages involving property (e.g., pets, but theoretically including non-living property), because property owners have the right to consent on behalf of their property.
When you take away procreation - the unique aspect of heterosexual couples - you can formulate an argument that a person is entitled to marry, e.g., his horse, his computer, his Magic 8-Ball for purposes of making decisions on his behalf.
50 years ago people could have called someone ignorant to believe that a man could ever legally marry another man.
Edgewaterprog
2. Whether or not an animal can consent, the issue is SSM argumentation which makes consent a trump card for those who'd show-up to demand marital status.
A lone individual is just another one-sexed scenario. Governments license individuals for all kinds of things; and the consent required is of the individual. As per SSM argumentation, if this is just about a contract, then, the contract between the individual and the government does not negate a lone individual being registered.
If that individual consents to a registered relationship between herself and an animal, on what principled basis can you deny her that?
Governments often have systems for registering animal-human relationships. Sometimes the animals are pets and sometimes not. As with the SSM idea, protections can be accorded for the sake of addressing dependancies and even mutual affection. There is no reason to depend on some sexual connoation; there would be no requiremetn for sexual behavior, just as with SSM law.
Of course, this illustrates that the key is not consent, in and of itself, but that to which consent is given. And not just consent given by the participant but also consent given by society, via government.
The SSM idea, again, is quite different from the marriage idea. You need to show how the pro-SSM notion that consent trumps the basis for eligiblity is not also a trump card when it comes to the human-animal arrangement.
Edgewaterprog,
3. You did no deal with what ConservativeNY said. Try again or drop it and we'll understand that to mean you have no reasonable response.
Edgewaterprog.
4. Never? Your certitude does not suffice. Deal with what is actually said rather than pretend that your contrarism sweeps aside what you have not bothered to engage.
SSM argumentation, when it comes to same-sex sexual behavior, insists on moral neutrality. Apparnetly sexual behavior is not the business of society nor of SSM law. So you can't pretend that has anything to do with drawing a line regarding incestuous SSM or even animal-human SSM. Indeed, since, technically, human beings are animals, what could you offer in the way of a morally neutral basis for disapproval of animal (non-human) and animal (human) sexual behavior? Apparently, if it does not adversely effect your SSM, then, it is irrelevant, anyway.
This is just an example that illustrates your problem, as an SSM supporter, when it comes to public morality -- particularly when it comes to sexual morality. Besides, SSM, at law, would not be a sexual type of relationship precisely because SSM argumentation hides same-sex sexual behavior behind a wall of insistent moral neutrality.
Even age limitations are thus undermined when it comes to the pro-SSM attempt to copy-paste lines of eligiblity/ineligibility from marriage to SSM. Moral neutrality is the rule, Edgewaterprog, and that is your problem, not the problem of those who support the marriage idea.
Edgewaterprog, if you have an intellectually honest argument in favor of the SSM idea, present it.
State the essential(s) of the type of relationship (or types of relationships) that you have in mind -- before you'd stick the label, marriage, on it and before you'd give it special status (marital status is a special status).
Then show how the essential(s) would be made mandatory for those who'd SSM. SSM argumentation insists that the lack of such a mandatory requirement is decisive. So you can't just depend on a gay emphasis in your rhetoric. You need far more than that if the type of relationship you have in mind is gay, or is based on same-sex sexual attraction, same-sex sexual behavior, and the like.
And, to return to the issue of boundaries, justify the special status for the one-sexed scenario -- the type of relationship you have in mind; and with that justification front and center, with the necessary mandatory requirements, proceed to justify limiting eligiblity. You can't point outside of the type of relationship; you must depend on the essential(s) that would justify the special status for that type of relationship.
Start with the one-sexed scenarios, only. Then, we can see how it might apply to two-sexed scenarios. Afterall, the SSM idea is that if something does not fit the one-sexed scenarios, then, it cannot be a just basis for limiting eligilbity.
Show us your stuff, Edgewaterprog, and back up the certitude you have invested in your assertions. Or retreat to namecalling and the like, as SSMers often do when their SSM idea is challenged forthrightly.
Edgewaterprog- are you so sure that most proponents of same-sex marriage object to polygamy in principle? Can you actually answer the question I asked: about your reasons for opposing polygamy? Of course, most people who support interracial marriage –which is virtually everyone– did not think in 1967 that it required that same-sex marriage be legal (SCOTUS rejected this in Baker v. Nelson (1972)). But now we are told that it does. Not everyone agrees about this (I certainly don’t) but the argument is made and has certainly been successful in some quarters.
Equal2You- seeing as hardly any countries have same-sex marriage, and none has had it very long, just because none formally have polygamy does not mean that none will. A case is making its way through the Canadian courts right now that seeks to legalize polygamy; we will see how it turns out. Can you answer the original question, or not?
Marriage law is determined by each state under the Constitution; DOMA is an exercise of Congressional power under the ‘effects clause’ of Article IV, Sec 1. Five states have same-sex marriage and the rest do not have it. Even without DOMA (which is perfectly constitutional), no state would be required to recognize a same-sex marriage performed in another state unless they wanted to. Any state with an amendment or statute that defines marriage as man-woman would not have to do so. As for the 9th Circuit, this is the same circuit that ruled that ‘under God’ cannot be the pledge, and that suicide is a constitutional right. Both of these rulings were unanimously reversed by the SCOTUS. It is an aggressive left-wing circuit that makes many wrong decisions.
You can't simultaneously believe that states should get to decide about marriage and that DOMA is constitutional. It forces the government to ignore legal marriages.
That is like rand Paul saying he supports the 10th ammendment, then saying he support the govt overriding those states decisions. Deerrr!
Wow...I guess I must have hit a nerve since you are all saying the same thing and imagining a time when you can marry your dog or your first-cousin.
That aside, I do find it interesting that you are arguing a slippy slope that for the most part is not rational. These types of contracts have been argued to the courts and have not made as much progress with them or with the electorate. The argument can be made that people do not equate beastiality or incest with SSM and it will take a completely different set of arguments beyond the fundamental right of two adults to enter into a marriage contract together to convince society of their value or acceptability.
The polygamy debate is different and there are arguments from the left and the right in support of it. I personally do not care one way or the other and I think it is up to those who support it to make a reasonable case for it.
BTW Chairm... I did address ConservativeNY directly.
edgwaterprog,
Your shrug is typical of those who advocate for SSM. Your argumentation does not provide justification for lines of eligiblity/ineligibility.
That belies your claim that SSMers do not support what the SSM idea already swallows.
This is not a slippery slope argument. It is the product of your argumentation in favor changing the basis for eligibility. To hold a line against group SSM, polygamous-like SSM, and incestuous SSM, you need justification that survives your own terms of argumentation in favor of the SSM idea and against the marriage idea.
It is interesting that you have no substantive response. Your shrug insufficient and I expect you know as much.
Gay and lesbian people are not obligated to argue about polygamy (an almost exclusively Christian, heterosexual practice), bestiality, incest or adult-child marriages in order to validate their rights to marry one human, unrelated adult. You're trying to change the subject out of desperation.
Bob -
Actually, that's the point of the post. With a ban on polygamy being proposed in a country that has legalized gay marriage, the hypothetical slippery slope is now fact.
That means that homosexual advocates will have to address the issue, and, frankly, the only way to address it is to embrace it (what argument against it could they make?) which is not going to be a very popular position in the US.where over 30 states have laws protecting real marriage.
Incest is already illegal(as in criminal offense) in almost every state.
Children cannot legally consent to marry. And even if they could, that is still considered rape and child molestation pretty much everywhere.
Apparently bestiality is legal in many states. But since there is no technology to let animals speak their consent, or sign a marriage certificate, they can't marry.
None of these things have anything to do with my partner and I getting married. It's worth noting none of the experts for the prop 8 proponents brought up any of these prophetic predictions. In fact blankenhorn said that the 1-man 1-woman strategy was an argument in favor of polygamy.
Bob- you haven't answered the question, which is perfectly reasonable to ask. Proponents of same-sex marriage believe that the government must recognize as marriage any relationship you wish to engage in in accordance with your personal sexual desires. Given this, it is not clear that there is any ground of principle that would preclude polygamy. If you are so certain that polygamy is irrelevant, demonstrate it by drawing a line of principle and explaining why marriage must involve only 'two people.' The fact that neither you nor any other proponent of same-sex marriage can do this explains why those of us who support normal marriage are skeptical.
The major flaw in the position of SSM advocates is that their sexual desires constitute rights. And that the refusal to redefine marriage for homosexual desires is equivalent to racial segregation.
If racism and family values are moral twins, why can't we treat all sets of sexual desires equally to one another like we do all races? That is the moral confusion that is motivating the push for the legalization of polygamy.
Also, we don't need an animal's consent to kill them for food or keep them as pets. So why is their consent required to marry them?
SSM advocates show outrage over the animal-human-marriage comparison. They say things like, "How DARE you campare us to animals!" however, the real issue is that the comparison is valid and reveals how SSM renders marriage to be anything anyone who wants marriage benefits says it is.
List the circumstances on which homosexuals claim their "marriages" are based, and you can apply them to any combo of person or animal. Most commonly, homosexuals argue they are denied marrying the person they love. Then why deny a blind person's desire to marry his seeing eye dog - can you imagine a closer relationship?
The point is not that people WILL marry their dogs; the point is that the same legal argument for homosexuals apply to dogs, and thus, marriage is no longer marriage.
When pressed to apply their own terms of argumentation to the SSM idea, SSMers shrug and concede that because there would be no legal requirement making same-sex sexual behavior mandatory for those who'd SSM, then, SSM would not be a sexual type of relationship at law.
Take that into account when you read E2U's talk of incestuous sexual relations being illegal. How does that justify a line against incestuous SSM -- given that SSM would not be a sexual type of relationship at law?
Likewise with " rape and child molestation"? If that is E2U's objection to underaged marriage, then, it does not suffice, given the terms of SSM argumentation.
Likewise with beastiality.
Besides the key is that to which consent is given -- not just by the participants but also by society via our laws.
These are not "prophetic predictions" but the results of SSM argumentation. SSMers don't want to own their argumentation when its terms are applied to testing their SSM idea.
That is their desperation on display.
@ Chairm - Proponents of same-sex marriage are not "desperate" to distinguish marriage between two consenting adults of the same gender from marriage involving children or dogs. All but the most extreme lunatics know such comparisons are absurd. Although I recognize the effort, your overly wordy attempts to intellectualize the "well then maybe I'll just marry my cat" arguments are no more convincing. They're the equivalent of arguing that babies and horses at the ballot box were the inevitable consequences of extending voting rights to women. The fact that some people on the fringe may attempt to make the legal argument that legalized SSM means they should have the right to marry several people at once, a snake or their sister does not constitute proof that the slippery slope argument is valid, it simply means that someone else is making the same argument you are, only for different reasons.
" the equivalent of arguing that babies and horses at the ballot box were the inevitable consequences of extending voting rights to women"
I've never heard that argument, but babies and horses were incabale of making arguments on their behalfs. That's why those arguments were inane. Worth mentioning, though, that liberals would love to lower the voting age beyond the already ridiculous age of 18 legalized in the 70s.
Thanks Bob.
18.Chairm. Same-sex marriages of consanguineous partners or of multiple partners are still incestuous and polygamous respectively and they will be treated as such. Your fanatasies that these kind of relationships will be legalized with the legalization of ssm are sadly, for you, fantasies.
The accusations for others on this board that I am "shrugging" off polygamy are in fact inaccurate. I have no interest in being part of a polygamous relationship and I have no interest in supporting the legalization of polygamy because I believe women and children are particularly vulnerable when involved in those relationships.
Edgewaterprog, it is not fantastical.
You did not offer justification for drawing a line against group SSM, polygamous-like SSM, nor incestuous SSM.
Try to do so by sticking with the one-sexed scenario. The closing sentence of your comment failed to do that.
Bob, your assertions don't add-up to providing justification for lines of eligiblity for those who'd SSM.
This is the desperation I was referring to: you try to wiggle out of your own terms of argumentation when those terms are turned to challenge your SSM idea.
Indeed, the lack of justification demonstrates that imposing the SSM idea -- and copy-pasting limits from the core meaning of marriage that you reject -- would be an arbitrary exercise of governmental power.
That is so whether or not you can muster the intellectual and moral courage to acknowledge it., SSM argumentation is formulated by those who support the imposition of SSM. You own it even if you are desperate to disown it.
Insistent objection to arbitrariness is the central complaint of SSMers who demand that the basis for eligibility be changed if not justified.
You are on the hook of your own making. I can understand your squirmishness and desperation but you have only yourself to blame for this predicament.
edgewaterprog did shrug on polygamous-like SSM when the following was said in conclusion to an earlier comment:
" I personally do not care one way or the other and I think it is up to those who support it to make a reasonable case for it."
The SSM idea and its argumentation has already made the case for it, reasonable or not.
It is amusing that when pressed on group SSM and polygamous SSM, SSMers shrug and then concede that their own SSM argumentation signifies a lack of a reasonable case for replacing the marriage idea with the SSM idea.
Their problem is not merely that a nerve has been touched; their whole enterprise has been debunked by their own shrugs and argumentation.
Chaim... I have explained the difference between incest and polygamy and the marriage equality for consenting adults. If those explanations are not good enough for you or they do not fit into your world view, so bit it. But please stop accusing me of not explaining myself properly.
Edgewaterprog,
There is no legal requirement that would make same-sex sexual behavior mandatory for those who'd SSM. Not where SSM has been imposed or proposed.
So, when it comes to group SSM, or to a series of SSMs (polygamous-like SSM), and SSM of related people, your answers do not apply, because -- according to the terms of your own SSM argumentation -- SSM would not be a sexual type of relatoinship at law.
You can not rule out consent in any of those scenarios. You can not invoke the lines drawn around the core meaning of marriage that you have rejected as illegitimate. You must provide some other basis for eligiblity and ineligibility -- based on your SSM idea alone.
You do not do that. This reflects your world view. The problem belongs to you and your lack of justifrication for drawining these lines based on the SSM idea.
You can assert otherwise, but you cannot argue otherwise. Hence your shrugs and evasions. You disprove your own pro-SSM complaint and you destroy your own pro-SSM remedy.
Your intellectual cowardice is on display.
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