• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

What about the polygamists!?! [W:693]

What say you?


  • Total voters
    87
  • Poll closed .
Um, no, you missed the point on purpose, there exists a rationale that exists in the historical record as to why the US on a Federal level outlawed polygamy. You can ignore it if you are not arguing about it, but if you are arguing about it, you just look silly posting non sequiturs.

If this was a legitimate point made by the government for outlawing polygamy, I have not missed it on purpose. If the idea that a fair number of breeding pairs must be preserved has already been covered, it's a new one to me.


Polygamists practice monogamy? That is either dimensional travel.....or a misunderstanding of both terms.

You stated that polygamy is an attack on monogamy. If there were any basis for that then you'd have to show that people would not be allowed to enter into monogamous relationships. If you cannot, then the idea of polygamy being "an attack" is just silly.
 
If this was a legitimate point made by the government for outlawing polygamy, I have not missed it on purpose. If the idea that a fair number of breeding pairs must be preserved has already been covered, it's a new one to me. You stated that polygamy is an attack on monogamy. If there were any basis for that then you'd have to show that people would not be allowed to enter into monogamous relationships. If you cannot, then the idea of polygamy being "an attack" is just silly.
Well, fire away. What is "the historical record"?


I can't help the fact that you are arguing from a position of ignorance. I cannot force you to read Reynolds to understand the arguments made in outlawing polygamy in the US. Since you have not read it, your "accident" is posting on something you are not well versed on...while admitting to being ignorant these basic "new ones".

I'm not going to lead you to the water.
 
In liberal bizarro world that post is irrelevant, but in a healthy, normal society, marriage is about creating AND raising a family.

It's in a conservative bizarro world that facts, information, and reality don't exist, only partisanship, misrepresentations, and a total lack of understanding.
 
After I invest very heavily in diamonds I will staunchly support this polygamy/polyandry thing, reservations about legal complications be damned.
 
I can't help the fact that you are arguing from a position of ignorance. I cannot force you to read Reynolds to understand the arguments made in outlawing polygamy in the US. Since you have not read it, your "accident" is posting on something you are not well versed on...while admitting to being ignorant these basic "new ones".

I'm not going to lead you to the water.

You're a very grumpy man.
 
It's in a conservative bizarro world that facts, information, and reality don't exist, only partisanship, misrepresentations, and a total lack of understanding.
That's your side. Conservatism, on the other hand, is the last bastion of hope for peace and liberty.
 
In liberal bizarro world that post is irrelevant, but in a healthy, normal society, marriage is about creating AND raising a family.

Then why do we not dissolve marriages that either cannot produce children or will not adopt?

Furthermore, why can't gays adopt? Or get sperm/egg donors?
 
What are you talking about? It was perfectly acceptable in several cultures especially among the nobility. Granted we can use those examples to highlight the problems of breeding within a closed group. But still it shows your argument to be false.



One does not have to support a position to point out an untrue argument. For example I did not support Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, but I pointed out the error of people arguing that he hadn't been in office long enough to earn it.



But it was still socially acceptable which counters your previous argument. Personally desirable and socially acceptable are two different things.



Go back to the previous threads on this. There was a link that showed that there is no "smell" of relatives. A father and daughter who never knew each other(mother got inseminated via a sperm bank) until she was well into her adulthood years could meet and be sexually attracted. There would be no smell that made them not attracted to each other. The incest taboo comes from having been together while the child(ren) grow. In India, where the child bride of an arranged marriage is sometimes sent to live with the child groom's family until the children are of legal age to marry, the children more often than not do not desire each other and react via the incest taboo.



And plenty of people are turned on by the concept of incest as well as are turned on by people who they are not aware of being related to. What's your point?



You can't cause genetic defects if the couple are same gendered or if one or both are sterile. Child abuse occurs regardless of whether incest is involved or not. Since the qualifier is consenting adults the child abuse issue is not part of the argument. Now the grooming idea put forth by Roguenuke would be since that encompasses the consenting adult part.

The standard changed to include interracial when no one thought it would ever happen. Then it changed to include same gendered couples. So why wouldn't it change to include incest and (to try to keep on the topic) polygamy?



As I pointed out before there is no messing with the gene pool if children are not produced. Birth control are highly effective, but I do concede not 100%. However, sex between same gendered couples and between couples where one or both are sterile ARE 100% effective in not producing offspring, risk of defect or not. Yet you would deny them as well. Not only that you would NOT deny a couple who have a HIGHER chance of producing a child with birth defects than any random incestuous couple. Quite hypocritical to me.



You kept this offshoot going. I said from the beginning I didn't want to thread jack and that I was just pointing out that your statement that you support the right of consenting adults to make their own decisions was simply not 100% true. Then I pointed out how the arguments that you were using were also used before on interracial marriage and SSM and are currently being used on polygamy, thus staying on topic.

Your ridiculous strawman arguments only serve to magnify the hopelessness of your case against SSM.
SSM will be legal because it is the right thing to do, because gays have PROVEN to be normal couples who happen to be the same sex. Many of us know them personally and they are just like you and I. Why this sham that they may not be recognized as such? Do you think polygamy and incest have the same standing in the community? No not hardly. That's why they are strawmen and have no bearing on SSM.
No one but the homophobic sees this as a sea change in the concept of marriage in any way. Just the opposite, gays have fought to be married and that can only strengthen the entire institution which is having a rocky time with heteros for a long time. They have been more interested in getting UN-married in record numbers.
 
Last edited:
Where you aware that same sex couples can create and raise families?
Am I also supposed to be aware that homosexuals grow on trees?
 
If - and this is one huge hypothetical if that I will carry through for the rest of my post - polygamous marriages were allowed then polyandrous marriages would be as well (equal protection, male cannot be the only one to choose to take on more than one spouse). This opens a whole new range of complications, especially if it were legally defined as multiple individual marriages. We have male spouse A with 5 marriages and 5 wives, we have Female spouse B with 5 marriages (one wife and 4 husbands), female spouse C who has 5 husbands (one of which is also married to female D) ect. This is just one nightmare tangled web of marriages that could potentially increase exponentially until there is some crazy 6 degrees of separation issue - kind of like a pyramid scheme for marriages. Everyone is intermarried and households are completely muddied and blurred. There just would just be one huge tangle of interwoven chainmail-esque marriages - entire communities all intermarried, and potentially infighting (screw potentially - inevitably). There is no way to keep track of this and to deal with it.

First off polygamy automatically includes polyandry. You are mistaking polygamy for polygyny. Polygamy is multiple marriages period and has no implication as to what the gender combination is. However you are correct, there are many logistical issue that would need resolving prior to instituting polygamy. Most polys recognize that. While our end goal is indeed the re-legalization of polygamy, the immediate goal is to not have negative consequences visited upon us for entering into social/religious marriages which are not controlled by the state. Also one needs to note the difference between polyamoury and polygamy. The former are more likely to form the kind of complicated chains you have shown. There might be a few marriages there, but not everyone would seek the legal recondition.

In the one huge happy blanket marriage scenario we would have all current individuals under one umbrella marriage who would have to come to a consensus as to whether or not to take on a new spouse into this arrangement (contract). This would at least serve to encourage limits to the size of the marriages, but what is to stop one group, one organization, or one community to decide to have one monstrosity of a marriage that covers thousands of individuals? If there were to be multiple individuals allowed under one blanket marriage it would have to be unlimited as to how many this could be - how is it that it could be legally argued to instate some arbitrary upper limit on this without also encountering the counterpoint that if this is to be the case that the arbitrary upper limit should be set to 2 people?

This is the type of arrangements that one would typically find in a Heinlein novel. I have to agree that to set any kind of limit invited the question of why not 2? Again I would have to simply say look at the community. We are not likely to form such large groups looking to be a single family in that manner.

If you are saying that you think incestual couples should be able to be married, then you are supporting it.

I say that abortion is wrong, but I don't support anti-abortion legislation. But that is still beside the point. One can agree with your conclusion but still tell you that you arrived at it through faulty logic. And that is what Oscar was doing. Simply because you do not want to accept that people in the past found inbreeding as acceptable does not mean it wasn't. We are not saying that ALL people found it acceptable, but your argument was that ALL found it unacceptable even though they practiced it. And BTW it was not just limited to royality. Much of the nobility (which is not considered royality) also practiced it as well as some of the more wealthy gentry. Then you had clans which were the same thing but over a larger range of people. For some of them you were not allowed to go outside the clan to marry.


You go back to post #351 (I think). Roguenuke posted a very informative article about it. There is scientific evidence that even when people grow up separately, there is "something" that turns them off in a normal situation.

Saw them. I'll admit that I've only scanned through them so far, but they still support what I said; that the taboo is a learned trait and not an automatic repulsion. Here's a couple of example:

As mammals, human mothers nurse and care for their newborn infants, so seeing your own mother care for a newborn is a reliable cue that this baby is your sibling. Our data show that if you are older, and are present in the home when your biological mother is caring for a new baby, the mind tags that baby as a sibling—leading to high levels of altruism and sexual aversion toward that particular younger sibling, regardless of how long the two of you subsequently co-reside in the same household.

So what happens when one's mom is a wet nurse? Or for that matter when one's mother is caring for an adopted child. There is no blood relation but that taboo still arises. It's not a blood thing, but because of the nature of how most kids grow up, the likelyhood of their developing the taboo towards a blood related individual is higher than towards the non blood related individual. Again I point back to the India example.
Pioneering archival studies by Arthur Wolf and others provided support for this view, by showing that the fertility rates were lower and divorce rates higher among Chinese marriages involving non-siblings raised together from childhood.

Exactly what I just said. They weren't blood relatives but they still develop the taboo because they were raised together.

Perhaps, but if they found out? They would most likely be immediately disgusted. Because some things are just WRONG.

You completely disregarded the first part of that statement. Incest stories are quite popular among porn stories. They make movies about it even though the actors are not usually actually related, at least by blood.

Child sex abuse is more common to happen by a child's own family member. THAT is a fact. I also mentioned the grooming idea. When abuse has happened for a child's whole life, this would carry over into adulthood too. They would be messed up people by then.

We're still at correlation is not causation. Why is child sex abuse more prevalent by a family member? Maybe because the opportunities are easier and the power they hold over a relative is stronger than a non-related child. It's easier to commit their crime and cover it up. What you fail to show is whether the individual would or would not sexually assault a non-related child if there were no related children available to them. In other words, you cannot claim that the blood bond is the problem when the problem is actually that the individual is a pedophile and is simply taking the easiest route. When a dog chases a cat, is it because "dogs hate cats" or because the dog would actually chase any small animal but cats are the only ones around to chase?

Straight, gay and any couples can be sterile. That is a pretty WEAK argument.

The birth defect argument is the weak argument. Aside from the fact that you would still ban couples who could not produce a child you would also allow a non-related couple who would have a 30% chance of creating a child with birth defects while denying a related couple who would have a 20% chance of creating a child with birth defects (Disclaimer: numbers are for example sake only and are not intended to reflect the actual chances). For the birth defect argument to be valid, then the line has to be set a a certain risk level (say 25% chance or higher) and applied to everyone.


YOU brought it up.
Look again. I pointed out your hypocritical statement on supporting the right of consenting adults to make choices by noting that you had made arguments counter to that statement. You said:

...I think consenting adults SHOULD be able to make their own choices regarding personal matters such as marriage and things like that.

But you don't. Everything that you have argued here proves that you only support the right of consenting adults to make choices as long as they are choices you agree with.
 
Your ridiculous strawman arguments only serve to magnify the hopelessness of your case against SSM.
SSM will be legal because it is the right thing to do, because gays have PROVEN to be normal couples who happen to be the same sex. Many of us know them personally and they are just like you and I. Why this sham that they may not be recognized as such? Do you think polygamy and incest have the same standing in the community? No not hardly. That's why they are strawmen and have no bearing on SSM.
No one but the homophobic sees this as a sea change in the concept of marriage in any way. Just the opposite, gays have fought to be married and that can only strengthen the entire institution which is having a rocky time with heteros for a long time. They have been more interested in getting UN-married in record numbers.

What the hell are you talking about? At what point have I ever stated that I am against SSM? My uncle and one of my brothers are gay and I have bi-sexual siblings as well. I fully support the rights of ANY two consenting adults to get married. And if you had bothered to really read any of my posts in this thread (and others for that matter) you would see that I also support the right for any given number of people to enter into polygamous relationships while also noting that right now it would be a legal logistical nightmare to just "make it so".

On top of that there is not one statement in the entire quote post you responded to that shows ANY opposition to SSM.

And I can guarantee you sir that polygamy and polyamory do indeed hold standing within the LBGT communities because many of us polys are, surprise, LBGT. And both LBGT and polys also have a large overlap in the BDSM community also.
 
What the hell are you talking about? At what point have I ever stated that I am against SSM? My uncle and one of my brothers are gay and I have bi-sexual siblings as well. I fully support the rights of ANY two consenting adults to get married. And if you had bothered to really read any of my posts in this thread (and others for that matter) you would see that I also support the right for any given number of people to enter into polygamous relationships while also noting that right now it would be a legal logistical nightmare to just "make it so".

On top of that there is not one statement in the entire quote post you responded to that shows ANY opposition to SSM.

And I can guarantee you sir that polygamy and polyamory do indeed hold standing within the LBGT communities because many of us polys are, surprise, LBGT. And both LBGT and polys also have a large overlap in the BDSM community also.

Sorry but I confused your post with all the others that are comparing polygamy and incest with SSM. Like I said there is no comparison and I'm afraid you have a long long way to go before "polys" will be accepted as normal or even tolerable. Don't confuse this ruling with anything resembling a breakdown of all marriage constraints.
 
Sorry but I confused your post with all the others that are comparing polygamy and incest with SSM. Like I said there is no comparison and I'm afraid you have a long long way to go before "polys" will be accepted as normal or even tolerable. Don't confuse this ruling with anything resembling a breakdown of all marriage constraints.

Polygyny has been accepted as normal and tolerable in very much of the past. Throughout most of the Old Testament, it was accepted. It has long been accepted, to this day, in many predominantly Muslim nations. It was accepted in the early Mormon settlements in Utah. There is plenty of historical and scriptural precedent for polgyny.

Homosexuality never has and never will be normal. We may “accept” it as a society, but it will always remain a sickness and an evil.
 
That's your side. Conservatism, on the other hand, is the last bastion of hope for peace and liberty.

I'm impressed. You're a stand-up comedian. That was pretty funny.
 
Am I also supposed to be aware that homosexuals grow on trees?

Oh, so you don't know that same sex couples can create and raise families. Perhaps you should educate yourself on these issues before you choose to participate in them.
 
Sorry but I confused your post with all the others that are comparing polygamy and incest with SSM. Like I said there is no comparison and I'm afraid you have a long long way to go before "polys" will be accepted as normal or even tolerable. Don't confuse this ruling with anything resembling a breakdown of all marriage constraints.

Interracial marriage, SSM, Polygamy and even incest being legally allowed are very well comparable. All bring about a major change to society and the established structure of the past several generations. All are or have been argued that they are immoral, against nature and bring "doom and destruction" upon society, that only sick and mentally deranged people would practice such things. All have had the examples of those who do wrong things within them used as arguments against them while the examples of the same wrongs being done within "normal" marriage are ignored or dismissed, at least as an argument. Yes each on e has a different foundation as to what it specifically deals with but in the end here is what it all boils down to and why they are indeed really all the same. They are all about the right to, as a consenting adult, to marry any other consenting adult(s) that one wishes, and have those bonds legally recognized.
 
Then why do we not dissolve marriages that either cannot produce children or will not adopt?
There's no reason to. Only a bitter gay rights activist would ask such a thing.

Furthermore, why can't gays adopt? Or get sperm/egg donors?
Because gays don't have the "other half" component that kids need for effective parenting. At least polygamists have that.
 
Oh, so you don't know that same sex couples can create and raise families. Perhaps you should educate yourself on these issues before you choose to participate in them.
Same sex couples need to keep their business private. We'll stay out of their bedrooms if they will stay in them. ;)
 
Polygyny has been accepted as normal and tolerable in very much of the past. Throughout most of the Old Testament, it was accepted. It has long been accepted, to this day, in many predominantly Muslim nations. It was accepted in the early Mormon settlements in Utah. There is plenty of historical and scriptural precedent for polgyny.

Homosexuality never has and never will be normal. We may “accept” it as a society, but it will always remain a sickness and an evil.

Of course homosexuality is normal. It has been a part of the human race since the beginning. Polygamy is the result of male domination and female subjugation which is NEVER normal or acceptable in an enlightened society. The very reason that SSM is being accepted today is that many of us know these gay couples and they are just like hetero couples except for being of the same sex. Only the homophobic would see SSM as a huge change in the metrics of marriage.
 
Of course homosexuality is normal.

No, it is not, it never had been, and it never will be. It is a sickness and an evil, an abomination against God and against nature. It is a sick mockery of the sexual union that God intended to bind a man and his wife in a sacred intimacy. No amount of so-called “enlightenment” will ever change this fundamental, unalterable truth.


It has been a part of the human race since the beginning. Polygamy is the result of male domination and female subjugation which is NEVER normal or acceptable in an enlightened society.

My great-great grandfather, Edwin Rushton, would disagree with you, as would any who knew him and the society in which he lived.


The very reason that SSM is being accepted today is that many of us know these gay couples and they are just like hetero couples except for being of the same sex.

Which entirely misses the point of marriage. That the two partners are of opposite sexes, each bringing into the relationship their respective parts, is an essential, defining part of marriage. Without that, what you have is not, and cannot ever be, a marriage.


Only the homophobic would see SSM as a huge change in the metrics of marriage.

Or anyone who actually understands and respects the value of marriage as an institution, and who does not wish to see it replaced with a sick mockery that undermines its true purpose. If that makes me “homophobic”, then so be it. I do not see it as a bad thing to be “phobic” about a blatant and destructive evil that threatens to undermine the very basis of the society in which I must live.
 
No, it is not, it never had been, and it never will be. It is a sickness and an evil, an abomination against God and against nature. It is a sick mockery of the sexual union that God intended to bind a man and his wife in a sacred intimacy. No amount of so-called “enlightenment” will ever change this fundamental, unalterable truth.


My great-great grandfather, Edwin Rushton, would disagree with you, as would any who knew him and the society in which he lived.




Which entirely misses the point of marriage. That the two partners are of opposite sexes, each bringing into the relationship their respective parts, is an essential, defining part of marriage. Without that, what you have is not, and cannot ever be, a marriage.




Or anyone who actually understands and respects the value of marriage as an institution, and who does not wish to see it replaced with a sick mockery that undermines its true purpose. If that makes me “homophobic”, then so be it. I do not see it as a bad thing to be “phobic” about a blatant and destructive evil that threatens to undermine the very basis of the society in which I must live.

If you believe God created man then you must believe he created homosexuals too. That's what makes your righteous indignation so amusing.
 
Last edited:
Of course homosexuality is normal. It has been a part of the human race since the beginning. Polygamy is the result of male domination and female subjugation which is NEVER normal or acceptable in an enlightened society. The very reason that SSM is being accepted today is that many of us know these gay couples and they are just like hetero couples except for being of the same sex. Only the homophobic would see SSM as a huge change in the metrics of marriage.

No, it is not, it never had been, and it never will be. It is a sickness and an evil, an abomination against God and against nature. It is a sick mockery of the sexual union that God intended to bind a man and his wife in a sacred intimacy. No amount of so-called “enlightenment” will ever change this fundamental, unalterable truth.

My great-great grandfather, Edwin Rushton, would disagree with you, as would any who knew him and the society in which he lived.

Which entirely misses the point of marriage. That the two partners are of opposite sexes, each bringing into the relationship their respective parts, is an essential, defining part of marriage. Without that, what you have is not, and cannot ever be, a marriage.

Or anyone who actually understands and respects the value of marriage as an institution, and who does not wish to see it replaced with a sick mockery that undermines its true purpose. If that makes me “homophobic”, then so be it. I do not see it as a bad thing to be “phobic” about a blatant and destructive evil that threatens to undermine the very basis of the society in which I must live.

Wow! the blind fighting the blind!
 
No, it is not, it never had been, and it never will be. It is a sickness and an evil, an abomination against God and against nature. It is a sick mockery of the sexual union that God intended to bind a man and his wife in a sacred intimacy. No amount of so-called “enlightenment” will ever change this fundamental, unalterable truth.
Who made you God's spokesperson? I believe the biggest evil Jesus ever talked about was hatred. The words vomiting from your mouth are full of it. If homosexuals are so evil they will be oppressed in hell. Its not your business to oppress them on earth. Luckily in a few decades most of the people who think like you will be rotting in their graves, right alongside all the other bigots that have tried to oppress others in this country.
 
Same sex couples need to keep their business private. We'll stay out of their bedrooms if they will stay in them. ;)

Your comment has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Complete diversion.
 
Back
Top Bottom