polygamists are lining up along with other non-traditional marriage arrangements to press the same argument and there is nothing you can do to argue against it.
You shouldn't tell people what they can and can't do...especially when you're so amazingly wrong about it.
First, there's no argument that can be made regarding polygamy that qualifies as an already established middle or higher tier of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. So already, the level of difficulty on the part of the state to justify it's discrimination is lower than it would possibly be for Same Sex Marriage on the basis of gender.
Second, even when it comes to the issue of sexual orientation, there is FAR more case law pushing sexual orientation closer to a middle tier level of scrutiny then there is for pushing polygamists that direction.
Third, there are additional factors regarding polygamy that legitimately can impact the discussion that aren't present under the notion of Same Sex Marriage, instantly making it more difficult to compare the two as exact analogs. By having multiple people signing into a marriage contract you open up entirely new pitfalls into the law. Changing most marriage laws from a man and a woman to two people requires little but verbage change. That is SIGNIFICANTLY different when you start allowing people to get married to multiple people.
Tax law, inheretance, power of attorny, property rights, divorce law, child custody, etc all would not simply need a verbage change but a complete rewrite to account for this. This is an additional burdern onto the government that absolutely can be taken into account and is absolutely not present in the same sex marriage debate.
So one would need to argue for a less crucial state interest, and need show a lesser degree of importance to that interest in regards to the dsicrimination, when it comes to polygamy over same sex marriage. It wouldn't be hard at all to argue for one and not the other unless someone was arguing from a non-sensical and laughable emotionally laden point like "Everyone should marry who they love!".
For those that actually speak about things from the notion of constitutionality and the law...not from a stance of morality or emotions or religion...it's not difficult in the least to argue for one of those and against another.
once you redefine marriage into a generic definition of just people that love each other then everything else doesn't matter.
True, but most SSM people don't use "people that love each other" as the foundation of their argument.
we are talking about peoples lifestyle choices. lifestyle choices are not a protected class like race and gender.
One, we absolutely COULD be talking about Gender
Two, there's far more research and evidence towards sexual orientation not being a "lifestyle choice" then there is towards polygamy regardless of your PERSONAL opinion on the matter.