leejo

So I was wondering, if homosexual marriage is ok, why isn't polygamy ok? Or hell, incest? If a 43 year old man who lives with his parents wants to marry his 39 year old sister who also lives with her parents, is there anything wrong or weird about that? Suppose they own a lot of kittens and like to punt them over the fence in the backyard into the river? Why not let these two marry?

Rincewind

Jeez leejo, why do you always gotta bring your family problems to the sandbox?
















Wide open.

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~~ Veritas simplex oratio est ~~
No matter how far a wizard goes, he will always come back for his hat. --T. Pratchett

<---- You know you're getting old when you rely on your forum meta-data to remind you how old you are.

Required Reading for all TG sandboxers

xTYBALTx

Now, how many kittens we talkin' about here?

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A policy of freedom for the individual is the only truly progressive policy. -F.A. Hayek

Steeler

Didn't we do this already? What's this obsession with killing kittens?

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Evo<^|SiNz|^>

I was under the impression that incest has very damaging genetic side effects that could transcend multiple generations.

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
- Attributed to General George Patton, Jr.

Trooper

where does incest fit into polygamy?......

The term polygamy (literally many marriages in late Greek)

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that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

Mateo

Incestuous polygamy has to be a usenet site somewhere.

Trooper

I really need to start reading the entire thread.....move on nothing to see here.....

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that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

TheFeniX

Polygamy tends to be decidedly one sided (Men marrying many females). It's mostly an economics issue that taking care of multiple spouses and children. Then you have the insurance issues: would they have to cover all those extra people? In many societies that allow polygamy, the issue is pretty much forced upon the women (or girls, depending on how you look at it) to marry. There's not much choice in the issue.

Further, polygamy may be less harmful in a society that practices it fully, but in mainstream America: I would suspect that a polygamist woman would have more emotional issues. I had an interesting article on this way back in the day, but I'm not going to dig for it now.

You're seriously comparing homosexual marriage to incest? I think just the medical issues alone (severe genetics defects) would be the deciding factor, but you also have to take into consideration how that relationship sprange up anyways. Any incestual relationship is most likely going to be the product of abuse in the family.

To be completely honest, as long as both of them were willing to go through with it, and there's was no sign of coersion: let them get married. I might find the idea of marrying my sister disgusting: but that's none of my business.

Their marriage wouldn't hurt anyone (although, I'm sure people would disagree with me). The only restriction I would have is that they cannot bear children together (but they could still adopt or have a surrogate mother/father).

Are you just being coy? You still seem to be lumping a bunch of completely unrelated issues into the same area as gays. And the way you're wording it, that being homosexual is some form of pervertion.

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Diceman

I would say that marriage is a commitment to another person, in as deep as sense as we can make. The idea that a man can only have one master is also true in marriage; either you are fully committed to one of your wives, or you are fully committed to another of your wives - but you can't be fully committed to both of them, and that means that someone is getting short-changed.

Homosexual marriage is not comparable to incest, rape or any other nasty equivocation that anyone may care to make. TheFenix is correct: You seem to be lumping together a bunch of completely unrelated issues. I would note that it looks to be purely for rhetorical effect.

Perhaps you would care to detail how these other subjects are a necessary consequence of gay marriage, as you seem to be implying.

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[drill][medic][conduct][tg-c1][tpf-c1]
[ma-c2][taw-c1]

leejo

Jeeze guys I was just spouting out crap to kill a cat.

Diceman

Ah. Well then. In my best Monty Python: Carry on.

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[drill][medic][conduct][tg-c1][tpf-c1]
[ma-c2][taw-c1]

Wulfyn

I wasn't aware that there was anything specifically 'wrong' with polygamy. Marriage is a societal / religeous concept, and thus different societies should be free to dictate what works for them.

Polygyny is the most common form for 2 principle reasons:

1/ Traditionally men have the power in society, and thus they make the rules / have the power. It would be beneficial for a woman to have to take a small slice of a big cake then eat dirt.
2/ In energy / offspring terms (a common anthropological technique) men can play the numbers game. Assuming a twice a day rate at 50% pregnancy I could conceivably have 365 offspring a year, of which I'd be reasonably sure that a couple would survive. A woman does not have that luxury, and barring multiple births is pretty much restricted to 1 offspring/year. It makes sense for her to put a lot of effort into rearing this child, and she of course wants the man to stick around to help out to increase the chances.

Genetics (2) combined with opportunity (1).


Polyandries are less common, but have been found. Typically they involve 2 allies (usually family) "sharing" a wife.

As a side note a lot of animal groups are polygamous, with a single dominant male having mating rights with a number of females.

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Karkianman101

People say that homosexuality is wrong because it isn't natural.
Not only has homosexuality been found in over 50 species, but nature also practices polygamy.
Yet polygamy is not allowed, even though it (and homosexuality) are in fact perfectly natural.

And, thusly, any reason left for banning homosexuality or polygamy falls to religion, which is not something that should dictate the state.
(those are my overarching thoughts on this topic of many threads)

TheFeniX

The natural arguement only takes you so far. As I said: Homosexuality does not hurt society. To simplify it: you're mearly replacing one partner in the couple.

Whereas polygamy has both economic and social impacts past that.

Exactly: Christians (and other religious groups) lost their "exclusive" claims to marriage and some other rituals when they passed control over it to the government.

The Boy Scouts can get away with their exclusion of homosexuals because they are a private entity. Churches can stop certain people from gaining membership into their congregation (which, since they are tax free, which entails getting "help" from the government, I don't like this idea, but oh well).

But marriage is both a spiritual and legal joining of two people. Hence, it's bound by Constitutionality. Bush wants his ammendment so this isn't an issue.

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