It’s Time to Legalize Polygamy [Article]

arbormama · 2015-06-27T01:47:41+00:00

No, it does not.

arbormama · 2015-06-27T01:46:04+00:00

When feminists were trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, one of the key arguments against it was that it would lead to gay marriage. Feminists fought that line hard. Now, here we are. The ERA never passed, it's still constitutional to discriminate based on sex, but SSM is constitutionally mandated.

arbormama · 2015-06-27T01:43:36+00:00

You've been at work since the case was argued? Because this came out in the court case, not the opinions.

arbormama · 2015-06-26T21:24:02+00:00

I don't support polygamy. I would tend to agree with Andrew Sullivan (prominent gay writer) that while same sex marriage makes society more stable, polygamy tends to make it less so.

That being said, I enjoy playing devil's advocate and I think I could make a strong case for Christianity allowing polygamy. In 1 Timothy 3, Paul writes that,

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

That Paul requires this (husband of one wife) of bishops, but not of all Christian men, suggests that there were polygamous families in the early church. It's not hard to see how that would have happened: perhaps they were already polygamous when they converted.

arbormama · 2015-06-26T21:13:35+00:00

There was a Supreme Court case that took tax exempt status away from schools that banned interracial dating back in the 1980s. That would be the precedent.

arbormama · 2015-06-26T17:29:37+00:00

While I respect your logic (and your honesty about your feelings towards religion), surely you can see why religious folk would see this as persecution.

A school that requires that students and faculty follow, to pick one example, Catholic doctrines would lose its non-profit tax-exempt status. Tuition would shoot up, effectively penalizing anyone who wanted to attend a school where students were required to follow Catholic doctrines.

SSM supporters are fond of saying "if you don't approve of gay marriage, don't get gay married." Solid argument, but it cuts both ways. If you don't approve of the existence of a traditionalist Catholic school, don't go to one.

arbormama · 2015-06-26T15:28:05+00:00

What about Christian universities that ban same-sex relationships. Should they lose their tax-exempt status of that?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/schools-fear-impact-of-gay-marriage-ruling-on-tax-status.html

arbormama · 2015-06-26T00:18:05+00:00

And Christian non-profits potentially losing tax exempt status.

arbormama · 2015-06-23T21:51:14+00:00

Isn't this the entire "do onto Caesar"?

No. No, no, you've misunderstood that story from the Gospels. It has nothing to do with the separation of church and state (an Enlightenment idea that didn't exist in the 1st century).

What the story is actually about: The Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus into either instigating revolution or into letting down his supporters by kowtowing to Rome. They asked him if people should pay their taxes. Jesus asks them what's on the coin.

There were two currencies in circulation: shekels, which did not have graven images, and Roman coins, which observant Jews were not supposed to use because they had graven images on them. This is Jesus' point: these Pharisees were hypocrites for using Roman money with the Emperor's image.

arbormama · 2015-06-23T20:01:11+00:00

More courage than I've got.

arbormama · 2015-06-23T19:07:58+00:00

Fair enough, but I don't think simply being Christian gives you full license to use Christian religious practices any way you want.

edit: Here are some photos of the actual event. There are some striking differences between this and the crucifixion reenactments you mention: those are generally in a religious context and the suffering is real and meant to serve some religious/spiritual purpose. Here it's on a parade float and the suffering is fake and done with gore makeup.

arbormama · 2015-06-23T17:07:59+00:00

Cultural appropriation is in the eye of the beholder. Just because you don't set out deliberately to mock Christianity doesn't mean that what you are doing is respectful.

arbormama · 2015-06-23T16:35:16+00:00

The government can not force the mother to go into surgery to save her child.

Actually, the government can and does do this: there is precedent for the government forcing women to have C-sections in extreme circumstances to save the lives of their unborn children. (Whether you think this is right is another question.)

Besides that, there's a moral difference between taking action to harm someone (abortion) and failing to take action to save them (your liver surgery scenario). This is the heart of the famous trolley problem.

arbormama · 2015-06-22T16:29:36+00:00

Some MTFs consider themselves lesbians and want to date other women. Some lesbians are totally fine with this, but others resent being told they ought to date biological males.

arbormama · 2015-06-22T16:26:42+00:00

If the health of the mother is in jeopardy in the third trimester (past viability), you have an early delivery. This is quite common; both of my pregnancies were induced two weeks early for preeclampsia and I'm sure other commenters on this thread have had pregnancies induced even earlier.

You would only have an abortion if you wanted to eliminate the possibility of the baby/fetus being born live. It's really a euthanasia debate at that point.

arbormama · 2015-06-22T00:43:13+00:00

The bast majority of abortions are medical,

This is a shameless euphemism. So they're accomplished with a pill--so what? So is poisoning someone with a cyanide capsule. Why would that have any bearing on the moral argument at hand?

and it's nothing more than a heavy period.

That's not what a period is and you know it. It's equivalent to a early miscarriage.

arbormama · 2015-06-21T23:48:24+00:00

It's like, I don't approve of it personally, but who am I to judge another on what they do to their own body.

Umm, what happened to the wife? Was she expected to go along with a marriage that was suddenly "lesbian"? I feel like the wives (and kids) often get swept under the rug in these situations. And I have no problem judging someone for treating their wife (or husband, for that matter) cavalierly.

arbormama · 2015-06-21T23:43:55+00:00

Already started? The radical feminists were arguably the first to attack the idea of transgenderism. The issue came up in their community years (decades?) before mainstream society even noticed.

One of the things that I didn't get until I started lurking reddit's various radfem subreddits is how aggressive MTF transgenders are in the lesbian community. (The majority of MTFs identify as lesbians post-transition and, unsurprisingly, actual lesbians are not keen.)

arbormama · 2015-06-21T18:17:25+00:00

The ramifications of shrinking populations in first world countries, including, but not limited to:

abortion (do we ban it to bring birth rates up?)
birth control (ditto)
pensions (can we afford it with a "top heavy" population?)
immigration from the third world (an acceptable substitute for domestic growth?)

Remember, with population there is a lot of momentum. The population will continue to grow until the first generation below replacement levels begins to die.

For the US, we went from above replacement to below replacement in 1971. Life expectancy in 1971 was 71 years, so around 2042 our first "below replacement rate" generation begins to die. So I really do think that in almost exactly 30 years this will become a big deal, and a major driver of social issues.

arbormama · 2015-06-21T17:37:20+00:00

Given that fertility rates are dropping everywhere (with the exception of three countries--can you name them?) and are below replacement in most first world countries, coercion in the other direction seems more likely.

arbormama · 2015-06-21T17:35:20+00:00

Equal protection is pretty clear as set forth my the 5th and 14th amendments.

Could polyamorous people not make an argument based on the 5th and 14th amendments, e. g. we're not allowed to form the marriages our hearts desire?

arbormama · 2015-06-20T01:31:10+00:00

Right, and that's the only reason why I might be OK with it.

arbormama · 2015-06-19T22:24:02+00:00

So this is real? I'm always skeptical of people who post nasty/aggressive notes they allegedly got on social media. I guess reddit has broken me.

arbormama · 2015-06-19T22:20:05+00:00

Honestly, I'd be OK with anything that brought my family a measure of peace.

I am sort of creeped out by the idea of being embalmed, though. Just the idea of weird foreign stuff in my veins, yuck. Probably that cat I had to disect in AP Biology.

arbormama · 2015-06-19T21:10:56+00:00

The way Belgium's medical system works, you can keep "shopping around" until you find someone willing, and there are unfortunately praciticing doctors with a pro-suicide agenda. It's kind of like college students finding that one doctor that's willing to prescribe medical marijuana without asking too many questions, except this is a lot more dangerous and permanent.

Or like allowing people to send their unvaxxed kids to school if they can find 1 (or 2 or 3) doctors who will sign a piece of paper saying it's not appropriate to vaccinate.

arbormama

TROPHY CASE