We have gay marriage, why not polygamy?

[shybipinay]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090629/national/polygamy_charges

I just love this farce the BC government has created and it will all be at tax payers' expense. If gay marriage is legal then all forms of love have to be protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

If you say they were involved with underage girls, then tell me why they have not been charged as such. They've been charged with one count each of polygamy, not any criminal charges pertaining to the violation and or influence of minors.

There's definitely something wrong with this picture.

[12voltman59]

Well-I hope that polygamy is not something that is successfully advocated and won in Canada--if it is---we can forget ever having same sex marriage her in the states--because those here opposed to "gay marriage" will point to Canada and say "See--we told ya--sanction gay marriage and all kinds of things will have to be allowed!!" and even those her in the US who favor same sex marriage will back off and even say---"you were right---no same sex marriage now here!"

Some limits do need to be set and polygamy is a step too far for most people I would dare say---I would be foresquare against it----because a strong case can be made--if the only polygamous marriages are one man and a bunch of women--then it can't be an equal thing---and there is a smell of almost putting women in a state of slavery of sorts with it--and women engaging in a marriage with a bunch of men--it sounds good---but I really don't think it would happen since lets face it--while women have "come a long way baby"--they still face a great deal of inequality in many relationship situations with men---I can 't imagine a woman having a bunch of men around when things are still tilted towards men having more power and such.

[NightHawk]

It would be best to get the state out of the marriage business altogether and leave the spiritual side of marriage to the individuals involved, whether that spiritual content be religious or purely of personal conscience. The state should recognize its limitations and simply provide legal domestic partnership contracts. These contracts should be little more limited in who enters into them than are business partnerships. The state should have no objection to consenting adults in any combination entering into such a contract. Polygamy is just one such partnership arrangement which should be allowed, as of course gay domestic contracts, one man- one woman, two men and two women, or whatever combination consenting adults want. People are too complex and individual. Only each individual is competent to manage his or her own life in the pursuit of their individual happiness. Social engineering by the state to dictate such an important part of someone's life as their domestic partnership, or their marriage as they see it, fails to recognize the fundamental individuality of adult human beings. It is immensely presumptuous.

Some will say that people will try partnerships that will not work. Yes, they will. But many a one man and one woman partnership does not work. In the business world, more businesses fail than succeed, but people try and try again until they often get it right. People need the right to try and hence to either fail or succeed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Just as the free market is the best business model, I am sure that the free domestic partnership model is the best to promote general human happiness.

[dickhand]

We had a fellow in Cambridge , Maine that was upset that he couldn't marry his dog . Even testified before our legislators about it . After all , he loved her emotionally and physically . His father went to jail for beating the crap out of him . If you ask me , I think the bitch put him up to it !

[NightHawk]

There is a choice to be made: Either one decides what the state will make available in terms of domestic partnerships on the basis of individual rights or one decides that it will be rather like cliques in high school where some relationships are seen as cool and some not. The latter approach lends itself to a democracy in which the plurality of voters decides whether gay marriage is cool or not. But if they decide it is not cool, then that arbitrary decision is as good as any other.

On the other hand, if we recognize that people are highly distinguishable individuals and that they should be given maximal freedom to manage their own lives, then we do not have to think that gay domestic contracts or group marriages are cool to say that we should allow others to do their own thing. This is the principled approach to political decision making, rather than the clique approach of children or neo-adults.

[shybipinay]

...........we recognize that people are highly distinguishable individuals and that they should be given maximal freedom to manage their own lives,...............

Hits the nail on the head