Slate Magazine published a piece today calling for the legalization of polygamy pronto.
Wow. That was the fastest slippery slope ever. The thing is that the link between gay marriage and polygamy was never a maybe someday thing. Once marriage is destroyed, it becomes whatever consenting adults wish it to be.
It’s funny how things come back. When the Republican Party was formed and had its first convention in Philadelphia in 1856, it announced “It is the duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.”
Slavery is the dehumanization of a class of people much like abortion is today and polygamy is well…polygamy. Now, it seems Republicans are in the same fight to recognize the humanity of all and to preserve marriage. Sadly, that fight might look like more of an uphill battle now than it did in 1856.
Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?
We can only hope.
Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.
For decades, the prevailing logic has been that polygamy hurts women and children. That makes sense, since in contemporary American practice that is often the case. In many Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints polygamous communities, for example, women and underage girls are forced into polygamous unions against their will. Some boys, who represent the surplus of males, are brutally thrown out of their homes and driven into homelessness and poverty at very young ages. All of these stories are tragic, and the criminals involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. (That goes without saying, I hope.)
But legalizing consensual adult polygamy wouldn’t legalize rape or child abuse. In fact, it would make those crimes easier to combat.
Right now, all polygamous families, including the healthy, responsible ones, are driven into hiding…
Hmmm. That sounds familiar. We have to legalize something to avoid back-alley polygamy. Yeah sure, if we legalize polygamy it’ll make it so much better. Kinda’ like what happened with abortion. And we know how safe that is, right?
April 16, 2013 at 9:46 pm
Follow the link. Read the comments. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard.
April 16, 2013 at 9:57 pm
I am very curious as to why we Christians have been taking the position that this is a "slippery slope." Slopes obviously slope in a downward direction, leading from bad to worse. However, how is polygamy worse than gay marriage? It seems to me that the slope is going the wrong way. I don't like the idea of polygamy, but there are certainly historical examples of it, even in the Bible. Gay marriage, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have been accepted even in societies that were completely open to homosexual practices. Therefore, while polygamy may not be a move towards holiness, it is certainly not a slide down any slope, slippery or otherwise. At least not so far as I can tell.
April 16, 2013 at 10:24 pm
In this instance one could argue the slippery-slope position strictly based on the history of the argument over the past few decades. For years gay-marriage opponents tried to argue that changing the definition of marriage to allow for homosexual couples would fundamentally alter the nature of marriage in our society. They pointed out that allowing legal gay-marriage could and probably would stand as legal precedent to the undermining of marriage as a definable institution (secular or religious). These arguments were generally mocked by the gay-marriage advocates as being preposterous.
Gay marriage is now considered part of the mainstream, and already liberal/progressive thinkers are moving on to the next cultural battlefield: polyamorous relationships. I am sure that the irony escapes them.
April 17, 2013 at 12:36 am
It's ironic that they mock the 'slippery slope' argument and then immediately proceed to confirm it.
But it is a slippery slope, an icy slope even.
April 17, 2013 at 2:07 am
And the "zoophiles" in Germany want bestiality legalised. This is what comes of the denial of objective morality and the objective nature of man and marriage.
April 17, 2013 at 5:35 am
Hmm.
I'm thinking we need to add a "C" for Chaste to the end of
LGBTTIQQ2SA…
and seek protection as a sexual minority that desires only one mate of the opposite sex…
and for whom the healthy construction of sexual self-identity requires satisfying a unique desire to teach our biological children to also be chaste.
C'mon guys, we can do this. We become one more stripe of color in the rainbow flag and we enjoy all the protections. Baby we were "born that way" etc.
April 17, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Then we'll see how "tolerant" they truely are 🙂