Polygamy, is it really that far away?

[Havard]

Yesterday morning, I was switching back and forth between my local Catholic radio station and a local FM station (KNGY in San Francisco.) The morning show on KNGY “Fernando and Greg” was on; it’s hosted by two homosexual men, who do pretty much the same kind of wacky bits that every FM morning shows do, and as far as that goes, their humor is actually fairly charitable and clean.

The topic I tuned into yesterday was about successful marriages, and they were accepting calls from both gay and straight married listeners about what it took to make their marriages work. One of the gay callers informed them that he had been with to his two male partners for 12 years, and that the arrangement was generally a happy and successful one. The only surprise that Fernando and Greg expressed was that the caller’s relationship had lasted so long, they said nothing about the morality of a polygamous relationship. Fernando and Greg aren’t radical or militant liberals, in fact they’re often critical of radicals and militants.

Now I know a lot of gay people, and the aforementioned caller’s arrangement isn’t the norm among them at all, but it certainly wasn’t the first time that I’d heard of such a thing either. For example, I attended the “winter holiday” (Christmas) party of a major law firm in SF several years ago, and one of the attorneys I met there had brought two same-sex domestic partners. It seemed like a lot of people knew about the arrangement, as far as I could tell. I won’t name the firm, but I will point out that this was a 700+ attorney firm that was founded in the 19th century - it was not some blip on the radar.

Now during the Prop 8 debates in California, I heard a lot of pro-gay marriage advocates dismiss the “if this is allowed, won’t polygamy be next” arguments as if they were completely bonkers. The modus operandi here in San Francisco is not to pass judgment on other people’s lifestyles - even polyamorous ones. It just seems logical to me that these views are going to pave the way for making polygamy more accepted in the U.S. at large.

Edit: I’d really like to hear from some of the gay posters that frequent these forums, specifically about how they would react to the aforementioned polyamorous relationships.

 

[Dtmccameron]

Sounds…like it would lead to even more paperwork. I mean, it’s tricky enought to split stuff up when someone dies, or there is a divorce, but, with two or more partners? shudder

No, but this can lead to all sorts of stuff, from freaks in Japan marrying cartoon characters, to Romanians, for an instant, thinking about legalizing consensual incest. And one could then see, if I might stray off topic, the precedent set in Japan (the cartoons) leading to marriages between humans and animals. Now how one dicerns consent with a sheep, I don’t know, all I’m saying is, people will look at one thing, and then push their agenda.

 

[wasmit]

Yesterday morning, I was switching back and forth between my local Catholic radio station and a local FM station (KNGY in San Francisco.) The morning show on KNGY “Fernando and Greg” was on; it’s hosted by two homosexual men, who do pretty much the same kind of wacky bits that every FM morning shows do, and as far as that goes, their humor is actually fairly charitable and clean.

The topic I tuned into yesterday was about successful marriages, and they were accepting calls from both gay and straight married listeners about what it took to make their marriages work. One of the gay callers informed them that he had been with to his two male partners for 12 years, and that the arrangement was generally a happy and successful one. The only surprise that Fernando and Greg expressed was that the caller’s relationship had lasted so long, they said nothing about the morality of a polygamous relationship. Fernando and Greg aren’t radical or militant liberals, in fact they’re often critical of radicals and militants.

Now I know a lot of gay people, and the aforementioned caller’s arrangement isn’t the norm among them at all, but it certainly wasn’t the first time that I’d heard of such a thing either. For example, I attended the “winter holiday” (Christmas) party of a major law firm in SF several years ago, and one of the attorneys I met there had brought two same-sex domestic partners. It seemed like a lot of people knew about the arrangement, as far as I could tell. I won’t name the firm, but I will point out that this was a 700+ attorney firm that was founded in the 19th century - it was not some blip on the radar.

Now during the Prop 8 debates in California, I heard a lot of pro-gay marriage advocates dismiss the “if this is allowed, won’t polygamy be next” arguments as if they were completely bonkers. The modus operandi here in San Francisco is not to pass judgment on other people’s lifestyles - even polyamorous ones. It just seems logical to me that these views are going to pave the way for making polygamy more accepted in the U.S. at large.

Edit: I’d really like to hear from some of the gay posters that frequent these forums, specifically about how they would react to the aforementioned polyamorous relationships.

I don’t see a problem with polygamy. Why should I have a say on whether two or more people of any sex are allowed to be married? It doesn’t affect me in any way if John, Sarah and James decide to get married polygamously.

 

[Havard]

Precisely my point. Lots of people think it’s no big deal.

 

[TracyJ]

Precisely my point. Lots of people think it’s no big deal.

If a person is a member of a faith that allows polygamy I don’t want the law interfering
with them provided that minors are not forced into marriage and that all parties are
consentual.
I didn’t like the idea of taking those kids away from FLDS ranch, at least not the little ones
but the older girls were at risk and they did need protection from the Church leaders…and they were NOT getting it so Social Services had to intervene.
I don’t think that our US government is going to tackle this question…it just doesn’t
cause a ping on the interest scale.
My guess is that there are a number of three member relationships but they’re undercover.
I would prefer that they stay there until we get other issues settled.

 

[Luis_Santiago]

To be fair, the Catholic Church allowed polygamy for a brief period after (I believe) the 30-years war in Europe. At the time, there were far more women than there were men, and permitting polygamy allowed these women that option in order to have a home and a family. Right now of course, polygamy isn’t allowed by the Church, but it’s more of a cultural issue than it is a moral one. After all, polygamy is fairly common in the Bible.

 

[manualman]

To be fair, the Catholic Church allowed polygamy for a brief period after (I believe) the 30-years war in Europe. At the time, there were far more women than there were men, and permitting polygamy allowed these women that option in order to have a home and a family. Right now of course, polygamy isn’t allowed by the Church, but it’s more of a cultural issue than it is a moral one. After all, polygamy is fairly common in the Bible.

I call BS.

The church may have failed to enforce prohibitions on ploygamy in the same way she has at times failed to enforce priestly celibacy and prohibitions on pedophilia - shamefully.

But I rather doubt you can find me any evidence of formal approval of polygamy at any time in Churhc history.

As for the OP, there is no logical reason to permit homosexual marriage and disallow polygamy. Marriage stands on its traditional definition or it falls altogether.

 

[praise_Jesus_1]

I agree with manualman.

Article 2387 of the Catechism states that polygamy is against the Moral Law.

From my understanding the Moral Law does not change.

 

[Luis_Santiago]

All I could find is this:

On February 14, 1650, the parliament at Nürnberg decreed that, because so many men were killed during the Thirty Years’ War, the churches for the following ten years could not admit any man under the age of 60 into a monastery. Priests and ministers not bound by any monastery were allowed to marry. Lastly, the decree stated that every man was allowed to marry up to ten women. The men were admonished to behave honorably, provide for their wives properly, and prevent animosity among them.

It’s not clear what role the Church played in this.

 

[manualman]

I’m a not a history scholar, but wouldn’t Germany in 1650 have been protestant?

Putting that aside, it’s an awful large stretch to say that the CHURCH allowed and back that statement up with a reference to the act of a regional secular government decision. I don’t mean to pick a fight, but you made an awfully strong statement in your original post and haven’t yet backed it up.

 

[Wowbagger]

The Nurnburg declaration appears to have been Protestant–apparently Lutheran. So, no, the Church’s teaching against polygamy is consistent.

That said–I think that, from a natural law, Catholic standpoint, polygamy and polyamory are far less troubling than homosexual civil marriage. As C.S. Lewis noted, societies throughout history have disagreed with the number of husbands or wives a person should have, but they all agreed that men and women getting married was important.

I think the fact that polygamy is on its way is stunningly, unutterably obvious to anyone with a brain and a sense of history. People reacted the same way when Catholics said that contraception would lead to a skyrocketing of the abortion rate, or that the proliferation of easy and frequent divorce would lead to acceptance of homsexuality. Americans reacted with shock, outrage, offense, and disproportionate anger precisely because they wanted to do X and Y without acknowledging that X and Y led, by inexorable logic, to Z. Ten years later, they’ve quietly adopted Z anyway and pretended to themselves that they’ve been enlightened, rather than merely stubborn.

The same thing is happening here. If you meet an honest thinker on either side, he will acknowledge that open homosexuality will lead ultimately to open polygamy. However, this is a politically inconvenient truth for the pro-homosexuality movement, so they push back by screaming that this is a filthy conservative slander. It isn’t, but they’ve done such a good job screaming that it’s almost impossible to get anyone to listen to you when you say it–even if anyone wanted to hear such a challenging claim in the first place.

So, yes, polygamy is not only on the way; polygamy is imminent. No, it’s really not as bad a thing as you think it is: a polygamous relationship can much closer to expressing the Christian idea of sexual communion than a homosexual one can. And, finally, no, it’s not worth pointing out, because Americans don’t want to hear it and won’t listen to you and in five or ten years they’ll be open and accepting of polygamy anyway. Best to spend our energies arguing for the whole Christian vision of sexuality: start with the fundamental understanding of self-gift we learn from condemning masturbation, then move to pornography, infidelity, remarriage, contraception, homosexuality, polygamy, and so on. If we can win back the basic vision, everything else will fall back into place.

I’m rambling, I think, so I’ll stop now.

 

[Luis_Santiago]

I’m a not a history scholar, but wouldn’t Germany in 1650 have been protestant?

Putting that aside, it’s an awful large stretch to say that the CHURCH allowed and back that statement up with a reference to the act of a regional secular government decision. I don’t mean to pick a fight, but you made an awfully strong statement in your original post and haven’t yet backed it up.

At the time, Germany had both Catholics and Protestants, which was part of the reason they were fighting the Thirty Years’ War in the first place. Still, that ruling applied to both Catholics and Protestants, and the Church held those marriages as being legitimate even after everything settled down. I guess it wasn’t the Church’s idea, but they did go along with it.

 

[manualman]

You still are providing assertions without references. Shamefully ignoring immorality is serious business, but it is NOT as shattering as offical endorsement of said immorality.

You’ve made the assertions, now provide some documentation that recognizes the differerences between church and state (which contrary to popular belief is NOT an American invention).

And for the record, I disagree that polygamy is a minor sin compared to homosexuality. Different, yes. With polygamy, it is virtually always a man with multiple wives (but the problem would apply the other way too). This inherently degrades the importance and dignity of the woman and places her in an inferior role to the man. Such a clear subordinate level of dignity is an affront to the equal dignity God has given to each sex. Adam was created in the image and likeness of God BEFORE God removed the rib and fashioned it into Eve. Thus, both sexes are of equal dignity and possess characteristics in God’s image that places neither in a superior position of dignity and value to the other.

Polygamy desecrates that reality and is always a degrading thing to the plural spouses.

 

[Luis_Santiago]

You still are providing assertions without references. Shamefully ignoring immorality is serious business, but it is NOT as shattering as offical endorsement of said immorality.

You’ve made the assertions, now provide some documentation that recognizes the differerences between church and state (which contrary to popular belief is NOT an American invention).

At the time, the Catholic Church had exhausted its ability to exert control over that region. The civil authority required priests and monks to marry, and permitted men to take multiple wives. After Church authority was reestablished in parts of this area, they recognized these polygamous marriages as being legitimate, and thus children born into them were born within wedlock. It was an exception granted in extenuating circumstances, that’s all. It wasn’t the Church’s idea, but when faced with whether to break up polygamous families or to make an exception for them, the Church chose to make the exception. They also allowed priests to keep their wives. I can’t find any more documentation on this, but I remember this because it was one of the few instances in which priests were permitted to be married.

 

[Wowbagger]

Ah.

To enter into a polygamous marriage is always sinful and usually invalid, but my understanding is that they are not necessarily invalid, and the current teaching that a polygamous person must repudiate his or her excess spouses is a discipline, not a doctrine. I could definitely be wrong.

However, it really doesn’t make one whit of difference unless Luis can provide some kind of documentation that explains when, where, and how this happened, who did it, and precisely what the attendant circumstances were. Until I see some document that lists more that single repeated sentence (and, granted, perhaps there is such documentation out there), I’m going to follow the time-honored internet practice of “calling B.S.”

 

[stormcloud]

Since gay marriage and polygamy don’t infringe on the rights of any “third parties” (so to speak), I don’t know that our system of government has the authority to prevent it despite it’s immorality. As for the other combinations mentioned, there are solid roadblocks already in place, mostly involving the fact that (for legal purposes) a marital contract (as with any contract) has to be between competent human beings of legal age.

 

[JimG]

It seems that if homosexual marriage is allowed, there is no reason that polygamy wouldn’t also be allowed. If marriage can be self-defined, it can be anything. The next step will be for groups such as NAMBLA to push for the lowering of the age of consent to age 12, so that man-boy lovers could marry.

 

[stormcloud]

It seems that if homosexual marriage is allowed, there is no reason that polygamy wouldn’t also be allowed.

This I can see happening, because I fail to see where the constitution would consider polygamy an infringement on someone’s rights.

If marriage can be self-defined, it can be anything. The next step will be for groups such as NAMBLA to push for the lowering of the age of consent to age 12, so that man-boy lovers could marry.

Would NAMBLA attempt to push for a lowering of the age of consent? Probably, but please don’t tell me you actually think they’d have any kind of a chance at success.

 

[Aramis]

I don’t see a problem with polygamy. Why should I have a say on whether two or more people of any sex are allowed to be married? It doesn’t affect me in any way if John, Sarah and James decide to get married polygamously.

how naïve of you.

It affects you indirectly, but it affects you. If you have children, they will ask when they encounter JS&J or their children. It affects you by putting the expectation into others that you shouldn’t mind if they also pursue you and/or your partner. It affects you by increasing the tax burden. It affects you because their medical risks go up, and thus also goes up your health insurance costs.

If you teach, it affects you directly, because you have to deal with the children of that mess; which children belong to which parents, and do the semi-parents have any parental rights? Also, if legalized, you can be required by law to teach that it is normal and healthy, no matter your personal or religious views, even in religious schools if they require a state teaching certificate.

I’ve dealt with children of polygamous marriages All these students concepts of family and marriage are in fact very oppressive of women, treating them as property. Younger sons also tend to be excluded from marriage contracts; they tend to join gangs more readily, for it is a way to gain access to women. The sub-population I’ve experienced this amongst also turns to violence when polyandry or polyamorous non marital relationships are exhibited. The subcultures engaged in polygamy are also rapid breeders, producing disproportiontely large families, and doing so on public assistance funding in many cases.

So it does affect you.

 

[JimG]

Would NAMBLA attempt to push for a lowering of the age of consent? Probably, but please don’t tell me you actually think they’d have any kind of a chance at success.

Not yet. But 40 years ago, proposals for gay marriage would have had no chance of success. They will argue that children ought to have equal rights with adults, that they are capable of giving consent, and that their rights to do so ought not to be infringed. They will point out that the Catholic Church considers the “age of reason” to be about age 7, and that Mary was about 14 when she married Joseph. (Sure they are capable of using religion to make secular arguments.) They will point out that even today, minors can obtain an abortion without a parent’s consent, and that in many places, their medical records can not be released to a parent without the child’s consent. The will argue that equal rights under the law should not be denied to children of 12 or 14 merely because of their age, as that would constitute age discrimination.