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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 9:03:30 GMT -8
Almost all men already like having as many female partners as possible. They have that natural penchant to be with scores of women. If we forbid it because of some so-called Bible teaching, we only create problems, including unfaithfulness, because men, generally speaking, will still go out to satisfy that desire to be with many women. Let’s give men the unhindered chance to do what they enjoy doing – keeping many women as his partners.
Polygamy promotes individual rights and freedom. It is obvious that everyone wants to be free to associate, choose, decide and so on, and this applies to the practice of polygamy. The decision to practice polygamy should be left with the individual; it is a personal decision that no person or institution should interfere with. If a man wishes to practice polygamy, or if a woman wants to live in a polygamous marriage, the decision should be left with the person. No one should deprive that individual of this right. To do otherwise is to trample upon the right of the individual to choose what is good for him.
Polygamy helps to prevent or minimize adultery. Since, generally speaking, a man enjoys having multiple sexual relationships, or since a man is more likely to cheat on his wife, if a man is allowed to have as many wives as he wants, he will have no, or less, need to practice extra-marital sex. Having only one wife creates a condition for the temptation to cheat to flourish. Polygamy can help solve this problem.
Polygamy is part of some culture. By practicing this form of culture, the people feel proud and dignified. Why should some people feel that their one-man-one-wife culture should be more acceptable, or is better, than a one-man-many-wives culture? Is this not what we call ethnocentrism? It is this ethnocentric tendency that has caused many unique cultural practices to be destroyed completely. We must not allow this to happen to polygamy. We must protect our culture.
Polygamy was practiced by great men of both the Bible and the Koran. Abraham had more than one wife. Jacob had more than one wife. David had more than one wife. Solomon had more than one wife. Mohamed had several wives. God did not condemn or punish any of these men for practicing polygamy. In fact, the Koran puts it clearly – a man is allowed to have up to four wives. Those who think that polygamy is wrong because Adam had only one wife don’t understand that Adam had no choice. If God had placed several Eves into the Garden of Eden or somewhere near it, forget it, Adam would have taken them all as wives.
Polygamy helps to reduce the number of unmarried women in a society. In other words, it brings hope to the single women among us. If polygamy is enthusiastically welcome and promoted and accepted, the number of married women in our society will be less. We all know what problems most unmarried women face, don’t we? Polygamy can help solve these problems. You see what joy and balance polygamy can bring to a society?
Polygamy helps men with leadership ability. Most men and women know that women are one of the most difficult creatures to deal with in this world. So, for a man to control a home of three or four wives with different backgrounds and behavior, for example, is a great leadership responsibility. And if a man can successfully manage this, then he’s most likely to manage great institutions or people. If one can understand and deal with women easily and successfully, then he has great management and leadership skills.
Polygamy teaches a man to learn how to be patient. Many of us know that patience is a great virtue. Most of us also know that women do all kinds of things that annoy, infuriate or frustrate men. As mentioned in the previous argument, women, generally speaking, are troublesome creatures. If a man who has two or three wives can learn to keep them in his life for years, in spite of their troublesome nature, then that man has obtained one of the greatest virtues of life. Do we need impatient people in our society, or patient people?
Polygamy is good in that it proves that men have a humanitarian spirit in them – they want to help others. We all know that, as experience has shown, it is the man’s responsibility to provide for the home. So, imagine a man who has four wives, each having three children. If this man can willingly, readily and ably provide food, clothing, shelter and other things for the four women and their children, isn’t he helping to sustain humanity? Isn’t he a humanitarian? Do you know what would happen to those women if they had no one to help them? This is the humanitarian side of polygamy, and it is another reason why we should support it and encourage both men and women to welcome and promote it.
Polygamy, like prostitution, is an age-old normal human practice. Polygamy has been with us for ages. It started long before the Flood of Noah came. Some say that the first man to have ever practiced polygamy was Lemech, a man who married two women. It has been practiced since that time. Let’s not frustrate its continuation.
There are many good reasons why polygamy is a fantastic practice. Supporting polygamy is a sensible thing to do because men already like having many partners, it enhances personal freedom, helps to prevent or minimize adultery, is an integral part of some culture, was practiced by great men of Christianity and Islam and other religions, helps to decrease the number of single women in society, helps men with leadership ability, it indicates that men are humanitarian, and it is a normal human practice.
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 9:04:33 GMT -8
After more than a decade of war between separatist rebels and the Russian army, there are not many marriageable men to go around in Chechnya. So, acting Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, probably not a feminist, proposed a radical step: "Each man who can provide for four wives should do it."
Polygyny (having more than one wife, as opposed to polygamy, which is having more than one spouse) is admissible under Islamic law but not Russian law, so Kadyrov is unlikely to make much progress with his proposal. But what difference would such a law make? It's natural to assume that polygyny is bad for women, partly because most of us would rather have our spouse to ourselves, and partly because we look at a place like Saudi Arabia, where polygyny is not uncommon, and note that women aren't even allowed to drive.
I'm not quite so convinced. A lot of the knee-jerk reactions against polygyny are from people who can't add up. In a society with equal numbers of men and women, each man with four wives gives women the additional pick of three men—the poor saps whose potential wives decided they'd prefer one-quarter of a billionaire instead. In the Sahel region of Africa, half of all women live in polygynous households. The other half have a good choice of men and a lot more bargaining power.
It's hardly surprising that in most polygynous societies, the bride's family gets large payments in exchange for her hand in marriage. If polygyny combined with women's rights, I bet we'd see more promises to wash the dishes. Not everybody would have to share a husband, but I can think of some who might prefer half of Orlando Bloom to all of Tim Harford—including my wife.
In a society such as Chechnya, where there is a shortage of young men, we would expect the reverse effect: Men get to pick and choose, playing the field, perhaps not bothering to get married at all. We don't have good data on Chechnya, but we have excellent information about an unexpected parallel.
A little over one in 100 American men are in prison—but there are several states where one in five young black men are behind bars. Since most women marry men of a similar age, and of the same race and in the same state, there are some groups of women who face a dramatic shortfall of marriage partners.
Economist Kerwin Charles has recently studied the plight of these women. Their problem is not merely that some who would want to marry won't be able to. It's that the available men—those not in prison—suddenly have more bargaining power. Goodbye to doing the dishes and paying the rent; hello to mistresses and wham, bam, thank you ma'am. The women whose potential partners have had their ranks thinned by prison are less likely to marry, and when they do marry, are likely to marry a man less educated than they are. Meanwhile, the remaining men, finding a surfeit of marriage partners, suddenly seem in no hurry to marry. And why would they?
The women's response makes sense: girl power. The women affected do everything to make the most of single life, including staying at school for longer and hunting for more paid work. The American prison system hasn't left them much choice.
When men are taken out of the marriage market by war or by prison, women suffer. The reverse is probably true, too: When women are taken from the marriage market, men suffer. In China, the policy of one-child families coupled with selective abortion of girls has produced "surplus" males. Such men are called "bare branches," and China could have 30 million of them by 2020. Perhaps polyandry—women with multiple husbands—would be the logical response to the situation in China. What will happen instead is that these lonely, wifeless men will end up sleeping with a relatively small number of women—prostitutes—with severe risks of sexually transmitted disease all around.
All this suggests that Kadyrov has a point about Chechnya. And perhaps the new HBO series Big Love will help to rehabilitate polygamy's reputation in the United States. Nevertheless, I am resolutely against the practice of allowing several women to marry one man. We men are downtrodden enough already.
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 9:30:35 GMT -8
GAY MARRIAGE IN THE BIBLE The Israelites were at war with the Philistines, and the Philistine giant Goliath taunted the Israelites, daring them to send out their best for a one-on-one battle. David took the challenge and slew Goliath with one stone from his slingshot. In victory he cut of Goliath’s head and took it to King Saul. The king’s son, Jonathan, saw David and it was love at first sight, or as the Bible puts it even more clearly,“the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as with his own soul.” Jonathan then “stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.” Certainly a man who gives another man his girdle means business, although I think they mean belt. Considering that this was long before the invention of underwear, that story leaves Jonathan naked. David became part of the household from that day, and Jonathan was so smitten with his hunky buddy that he ends up offering David the inheritance of his throne.(ahem. So…Jonathan didn’t plan on the usual route of having sons to give his kingdom to?) Something in the relationship really bothered King Saul, we can only imagine what, and it was so serious that Saul decided to kill David. Jonathon tells David of Saul’s plan,“and they kissed one another, and wept one with another – until David exceeded.”[1 Samuel 20:41] www.gayexplained.com/king-david-jonathan/
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 9:32:23 GMT -8
Christian Polling Group Finds Atheists Divorce Less Than Christians
thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/christian-polling-group-finds-atheists-divorce-less-than-christians/news/2013/07/02/70328
An Evangelical Christian pollster finds that atheists commit less crimes, divorce less, and are better educated than their fellow Christians. “It is obvious that you do not have to believe in a higher power in order to live a moral and successful life. Quite the opposite,” the Knoxville News‘ Al Westerfield writes of the study, adding that “the groups with the highest crime rate, the poorest marriages and the lowest education continually strive to force their beliefs on the nonreligious. And the politicians pander to them. Why else would they pass laws to put religion in the schools and on courthouse facades? And then they wonder why the godless could possibly be upset.”
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 9:33:09 GMT -8
When conservative evangelical Christians complain about the decline of morals in America, the growth of divorce over the decades is often cited as evidence or pulled out as the consequence. There's just one problem with this: divorce rates are generally higher among Christians than they are among atheists. In fact, divorce rates for atheists are lower than the national average, so if divorce is a sign or symptom of immorality, then atheists should qualify as being more moral than average and perhaps more moral than the average Christian.
So why do evangelical Christians also regularly accuse atheists of lacking a solid foundation for morality? This contradiction points to a clear problem in the position which these Christians are defending, but it's a contradiction that's been known for a long time now and so far none seem to have cared enough to try to resolve it.
Divorce Rates in America
The Barna Research Group, an evangelical Christian organization that does surveys and research to better understand what Christians believe and how they behave, studied divorce rates in America in 2007-2008 and learned that divorce rates weren't quite what they expected. With a margin of error of ±1.6%, they came up with the following divorce rates for various demographic groups:
All born again Christians: 32% All non born again Christians: 33% Evangelical Christians: 26% Non-evangelical born again Christians: 33% Notional Christians: 33%
Non-Christian Faith: 38% Atheist or agnostic: 30%
Protestant: 34% Catholic: 28%
Conservative: 28% Moderate: 33% Liberal: 37%
George Barna commented on the study:
"There no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce; it is now seen as an unavoidable rite of passage. Interviews with young adults suggest that they want their initial marriage to last, but are not particularly optimistic about that possibility. There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life."
Most of the differences in the study above are either within or close to the margin of error, which means that there may not be as much of a difference as there initially appears to be. Earlier studies conducted by Barna showed greater differences, with evangelical Christians reporting higher rates of divorce and atheists reporting lower rates of divorce.
In that earlier study, the highest divorce rates were in the Bible Belt: "Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma round out the Top Five in frequency of divorce...the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average" of 4.2/1000 people. This is the region most commonly associated with higher rates of religiosity in genreal and of Christianity in particular. Nine states in the Northeast (Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Maryland) reported the lowest divorce rates, averaging just 3.5/1000 people. This is the region associated with with lower rates of religiosity and higher rates of secularism.
Divorce and Morality
The obvious question is whether higher divorce rates really are symptom or sign of immorality in the first place. For a long time, divorce was impossible or very difficult to obtain in America. Most religious groups opposed divorce in all but the most extreme circumstances — even if a woman was beaten regularly by her husband, clergy would counsel her to learn how to better submit in order to avoid the abuse.
Conservative Christians argued that divorce laws should be tightened, not relaxed; that marriage was a religious rather than a legal issue; that the law should be used to defend religious tradition as they defined it; that divorced people should be treated like criminals; and they argued for greater social censure and ostracism for those who get divorced anyway.
Divorce rates started increasing in America when divorce was made easier to obtain — largely because because women were finally able to escape unhappy marriages, at least at first. Today both men and women seem to avail themselves of the option fairly equally.
Conservative Christians no longer express quite so much concern with divorce — certainly not as they do with issues like abortion and homosexuality, even though the Bible has a lot more to say about divorce than the other two. Regardless, the underlying problem with all three seems to be the same: restricting women to particular familial, social, and cultural roles which are subordinated to the authority and control of men.
Divorce, Secularism, and Religion
As with earlier studies, this one reveals that atheists get divorced at lower rates than the national average and at lower rates than most Christian groups. At the same time, atheists also express less interest in having a single marriage partner in their lives. This may only make atheists more careful before getting married rather than more likely to get divorced, but it is a potential contradiction.
The question is raised, though, as to why atheists and agnostics would have lower divorce rates than most other groups. Is there something about American Christianity which makes it harder to stay in a marriage? Could it be that a marriage where one or both people are less religious is easier to maintain in the modern world?
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 10:06:37 GMT -8
WHY POLYGAMY IS GOOD
Polygamy lessens the likelihood of sexual child abuse: in a home where there is more than one wife, Daddy is less likely to become sexually frustrated and take those sexual frustrations out on the children. It could be argued with equal theoretical validity that men drawn to the sexual abuse of children are less likely to enter polygamous marriages.
Polygamy increases the likelihood that Dad will be around throughout the child's childhood. Historically, polygamous societies tend to have less divorce and less single family homes. Children need their dads and moms both to grow up as well balanced people.
Polygamy increases the availability of adults for one on one time. Pretty simple. There are more adults around. If a child needs an adult to talk to, learn from, be held by, get bandaged, comforted, taught, whatever, there are more adults around in the home.
Polygamy increases opportunities for personal growth for the child. There is evidence that polygamy tends to produce more wealth in the family. With more wealth comes more options. One of those options in many homes is that the children are exposed to more opportunities for personal growth. Dancing lessons, music lessons, art classes, modeling school, gymnastics classes, martial arts classes, horseback riding, water skiing, snow skiing, museums, travel, you name it. The less wealth is available in the family, the less these options are open. So, it stands to reason that if polygamy results in a better financial situation for the family, that is good for the child.
Polygamy improves a child's respect for law and order: the more well ordered the home in which a child is raised, the more clearly the lines of authority are drawn and respected, and the more likely the child is to accept the necessity for it in society on the larger scale. The case is made quite convincingly, in both popular and professional literature on the subject, that the increase in single parent families has given rise to increased juvenile delinquency. The case has also been made that this is an inevitable reaction, repeated throughout history within the relatively few monogamous societies. Reasoning it through, families that stay together should be better. But many families which do stay together are still mixed up. All too often, Dad is drunk or stoned a good deal of the time. He may have good reason to be. He can't figure out what role he should be filling in the home beyond providing a paycheck. When he is home (drunk or not) he may waver between harsh authoritarianism and totally indifferent leniency. Or he may just practice good old consistent harsh discipline ("Go out and cut me a switch, you no-good, yellow bellied, bleep, bleep, bleep!"). Not all monogamous homes are this way, but way too many are. With the series of mixed messages thus provided, it is no wonder that one of the main tasks of adolescent seems to be to throw out everything they've learned from their parents, and form their own conclusions about life. And it isn't too surprising that in increasing numbers children are concluding that law and order are not viable options.
Polygamy improves a child's socialization skills. During a child's most formative years, ages 0-4, the family provides most of the child's opportunities for interaction and growth. Since polygamous families tend in general to be larger than those of society as a whole, it stands to reason that the child has a greater opportunity to interact with people.
Polygamy tends to improve a child's intelligence: it is an established fact that the richness of sensory inputs during a child's formative years, ages 0-4, has a direct bearing on his intelligence. And there is a growing problem in our society of sensory deprived children who are being left uncared for and without mental stimulation at an early age. When they hit school it is posing a bigger and bigger problem: many of them come from single parent families where the parent is just too overwhelmed to provide what the child needs. That likelihood seems lessened in a polygamous home. The more people who are running around doing things, cooking, cleaning, playing, reading, hugging, the more sensory experience the child is likely to have. So theoretically the more intelligent he is likely to become.
Polygamy guards against Attachment Disorder. Attachment disorder occurs typically within the 1st 18 months of a child's life, at a time when his needs are not being met. The attachment between child and parent is broken and sometimes never restored. Without attachment to humans, the child is unable to empathize. Without this ability, he tends to NOT develop a conscience which would have said, "Don't do this or that. It may hurt someone else." Without a conscience we end up with sociopaths -- the Ted Bundys of the world. Sound extreme? It is. But it is also reality. Mental health professionals in the know are seeing this problem growing at an epidemic rate. Adopted children are at greatest risk, followed by children in single parent families. It is less common but still does occur with natural children in monogamous families. A common cause in families seems to be when the mother has read and followed books by certain well known authors teaching that when the infant cries, he just wants attention and should be ignored. This problem is far less likely to occur in a polygamous household. In the first place, there is more likely to be someone at home when the child is an infant. In other words if there are three adults and it is a two or three income family, the mother may more easily be able to take the time off from a formal job to concentrate on being a mother during the most formative and high risk period of the infants life than in a two-adult, two income, scraping by family.
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 14:35:29 GMT -8
Evolution theory says that women want the best genes. While males prefer quantity rather than quality, women prefer quality over quantity. A male's childhood dream is to have sex with as many females as he can. A girls' dream is to have sex with a rock star or movie star.
Because males are not equally sexually attractive, some women would rather choose to share that alpha male than settle for one of the other less desirable males. Some women really prefer to share a male. Consensual polygamy can be beneficial for women.
Women in the Utah territory got the vote in 1870, 50 years before women in the United States.
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 14:40:22 GMT -8
Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?
We can only hope.
Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.
For decades, the prevailing logic has been that polygamy hurts women and children. That makes sense, since in contemporary American practice that is often the case. In many Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints polygamous communities, for example, women and underage girls are forced into polygamous unions against their will. Some boys, who represent the surplus of males, are brutally thrown out of their homes and driven into homelessness and poverty at very young ages. All of these stories are tragic, and the criminals involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. (That goes without saying, I hope.)
But legalizing consensual adult polygamy wouldn’t legalize rape or child abuse. In fact, it would make those crimes easier to combat.
Right now, all polygamous families, including the healthy, responsible ones, are driven into hiding (notwithstanding the openly polygamous Brown family on TLC’s Sister Wives, that is). In the resulting isolation, crime and abuse can flourish unimpeded. Children in polygamous communities are taught to fear the police and are not likely to report an abusive neighbor if they suspect their own parents might be caught up in a subsequent criminal investigation. In a United States with legalized polygamy, responsible plural families could emerge from the shadows—making it easier for authorities to zero in on the criminals who remain there.
Many people argue that there is no such thing as a “healthy, responsible” polygamous family, particularly for the children born into one. “Children are harmed because they are often set in perennial rivalry with other children and mothers for the affection and attention of the family patriarch,” argued John Witte Jr. in the Washington Post. “Men with lots of children and wives are spread too thin,” agreed Libby Copeland in Slate. The earnestness of these arguments is touching but idealistic. Men in monogamous marriages can’t be spread too thin? Children in monogamous families don’t rival each other for the attentions of their parents? Two-parent families are not the reality for millions of American children. Divorce, remarriage, surrogate parents, extended relatives, and other diverse family arrangements mean families already come in all sizes—why not recognize that legally?
It’s also hard to argue with the constitutional freedom of religious expression that legalized polygamy would preserve. Most polygamous families are motivated by religious faith, such as fundamentalist Mormonism or Islam, and as long as all parties involved are adults, legally able to sign marriage contracts, there is no constitutional reason why they shouldn’t be able to express that faith in their marriages. Legalized polygamous marriage would also be good for immigrant families, some of whom have legally polygamous marriages in their home countries that get ripped apart during the immigration process. (It’s impossible to estimate exactly how many polygamous families live here, since they live their religious and sexual identities in secret. Academics suggest there are 50,000 to 100,000 people engaged in Muslim polygamy in the U.S., and there are thousands of fundamentalist Mormon polygamist families as well.)
Finally, prohibiting polygamy on “feminist” grounds—that these marriages are inherently degrading to the women involved—is misguided. The case for polygamy is, in fact, a feminist one and shows women the respect we deserve. Here’s the thing: As women, we really can make our own choices. We just might choose things people don’t like. If a woman wants to marry a man, that’s great. If she wants to marry another woman, that’s great too. If she wants to marry a hipster, well—I suppose that’s the price of freedom.
And if she wants to marry a man with three other wives, that’s her damn choice.
We have a tendency to dismiss or marginalize people we don’t understand. We see women in polygamous marriages and assume they are victims. “They grew up in an unhealthy environment,” we say. “They didn’t really choose polygamy; they were just born into it.” Without question, that is sometimes true. But it’s also true of many (too many) monogamous marriages. Plenty of women, polygamous or otherwise, are born into unhealthy environments that they repeat later in life. There’s no difference. All marriages deserve access to the support and resources they need to build happy, healthy lives, regardless of how many partners are involved. Arguments about whether a woman’s consensual sexual and romantic choices are “healthy” should have no bearing on the legal process. And while polygamy remains illegal, women who choose this lifestyle don’t have access to the protections and benefits that legal marriage provides.
As a feminist, it’s easy and intuitive to support women who choose education, independence, and careers. It’s not as intuitive to support women who choose values and lifestyles that seem outdated or even sexist, but those women deserve our respect just as much as any others. It’s condescending, not supportive, to minimize them as mere “victims” without considering the possibility that some of them have simply made a different choice.
The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less “correct” than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting adults. Though polygamists are a minority—a tiny minority, in fact—freedom has no value unless it extends to even the smallest and most marginalized groups among us. So let’s fight for marriage equality until it extends to every same-sex couple in the United States—and then let’s keep fighting. We’re not done yet.
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Post by Admin on Sept 18, 2014 14:43:54 GMT -8
The Snapper wrote: What I am about to say may or may not be completely absurd: I think polygamy, or group marriages, should be legalized. I know, I know, the first thing that comes to mind are all those crazy religious cults that practice polygamy and have a bad reputation for child abuse and brainwashing. However, there are a few reasons as to why polygamy should be legalized in the United States.
First, let’s get the basic argument out of the way. I am supposed to have freedom in this country. I do not see any reason as to why the government should be allowed to limit a person in how many spouses he or she has at a given time. There are more than 50 countries in the world that recognize polygamy, so why not the United States, too? If I want to have eight husbands, why does my government have the right to stop me? Is it not possible to love more than one person at a time?
I believe that polygamy is illegal solely for religious reasons. If this is in fact the case, then doesn’t that whole separation of church and state concept come into play here?
Next, I argue that polygamy actually promotes healthy relationships. In many polygamist marriages, there is a discussion about taking on a new husband or wife. This discussion is frequently open and honest. Open and honest discussions are becoming hard to come by in many monogamous marriages today.
Divorce is also far less frequent in polygamist families. We all have heard about the awful baggage that comes along with divorce; from legal fees, child custody battles, separating property, and not to mention the emotional trauma. Can you imagine what kind of world we would live in if there was less divorce? Just think of the toll it has on children. If children can grow up in a loving, divorce-free environment, is that not better for their future?
I know what you’re thinking right now, “But polygamists abuse their children and force them into marriages with gross old men.” I understand your thought. However, one out of eight children are abused in polygamist households, whereas one out of six children are abused in monogamous households. There is a national problem with abuse. It isn’t just a polygamist thing.
I also argue that religious “brainwashing” polygamist groups are a minority among polygamist groups. These few bad eggs give the practice a bad name, and I think that is unfair.
Lastly, I argue that polygamy tends to benefit women the most and disadvantage men. According to David Friedman, anarcho-capitalist and author of “The Machinery of Freedom,” the idea is that many women would prefer half or one-third of someone especially appealing to being the single spouse of someone who doesn’t provide as much economic utility to them. Secondly, that the remaining women have a better market for finding a spouse themselves. Say that 20 percent of women are married to 10 percent of men, so that leaves 90 percent of men to compete over the remaining 80 percent of women. Friedman uses this viewpoint to argue in favor of legalizing polygamy.
I guess I am just gung-ho for freedom. If I am not hurting anyone, why should the government stop me? Polygamist relationships can be just as healthy as monogamous relationships, for the spouses and children alike. This practice has a pretty bad reputation from media frenzies surrounding a few isolated cases.
I challenge everyone to think about why polygamy should be illegal. If you find yourself resting on some moral basis taught to you by any religious organization, then it violates the separation of church and state concept. In the divorce-happy, depressing world we live in, why can’t we just celebrate love in all forms? I say, the more love the better!
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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2014 6:40:17 GMT -8
endervidualism.com/guest/polyamory.htmI know because I'm part of a polygamous family. Actually, because none of us is married in the legal sense (no church or state papers, just our own personal ceremonies), we use the term polyamory, which means "many loves." My family is a triad, one woman and two men. None of us is gay, so its really more like she has two husbands, but we're all very good friends. We also have some kids. (Yes, we all know which man is the dad of which kid.) Our family looks a lot like any family you'd like to have as your neighbors. We're quiet, decent people, and we mind our own business. We don't party, our kids are all well behaved, and even if you tried, you wouldn't catch either of us so much as holding our wife's hand outside. We're not wild sex swingers and we're not horny kids. Our sex lives are private - even from each other as much as we can. In the town where we live we look as dull and normal as much as possible. My libertarian stuff is all on-line, under a different name than the one my neighbors know. The only difference between our family and others is that we have an "Uncle Steve" that lives with us. Yes, one of us pretends to be our wife's brother so that we can all live together and be left alone. Some of the kids pretend that their dad is really "Uncle Steve" when they're out in public. This isn't all that important because we all raise the children equally, and treat them all like they are our own kids. Because they are - all of us are one family. We love each other, we respect each other, and we try, like all married people, to talk things through and keep small problems from snowballing into big ones. Mostly we make it work. Without any pieces of paper, our marriage probably works better than most of the marriages in this country - because we want it to work and we do what it takes to make it work. Why don't you hear about people like us? We're out there. There are a lot of poly situations around. There are lots of reasons why, unless people like me decide to talk, you don't hear about us. First, our story isn't nearly as exciting as Mormon polygamists that forcibly take child brides. I mean, how can a happy suburban life compete with stuff like that in a society that loves their news as sick as they can get it? Just like the newspapers don't tell the stories about crimes being stopped because somebody pulled a gun, they aren't interested in stories about poly families that work. It doesn't fit the stereotypes. Second, how many of you have heard of April Divilbiss? She was on an MTV show in 1998 talking about her poly family (like ours, but with less kids - you can see a report), and after it, her daughter's grandmother got the government involved. She ended up losing her daughter permanently. April's situation wasn't the best, but the daughter wasn't being hurt and the state decided to take her away anyway. That's why I'm not putting my name on this article. If my family was identified, the state could steal our kids and force our family to breakup just because some people think what we're doing is wrong. They do it to "normal" families for less reasons everyday. Even some libertarians like Young and Boaz apparently think it's okay for the state to do that to families like mine. We'd like to be more public about our life but our family is way more important than being a good example. Third, it's nobody else's business. Our marriage was chosen by each of us because it's the relationship that works for us. We've been together for over ten years because we keep choosing to be together. In a lot of ways we're just like any family, except that ours has one more dad. So our kids get more time and attention from grownups that love them. We're a lot better off financially, because of the extra adult that gives us all more time for stuff we need or want to do. Who has the right to tell us that what we're doing is sick, or less moral than some of the crap we see nonpoly kids go through, with divorce, after divorce, after divorce? Fourth, everybody thinks these relationships are all about sex, when they're not. Yes, sex happens, but the basis for our polyamory relationship is love, not hormones. (Swingers are the ones that trade spouses just for the sake of sex with somebody different. Some polys do this, just the same as some supposedly monogamous couples do.) We don't want cameras in our bedrooms or anywhere else in our lives. Guest Soloist Jealousy and sexual temptation and all that stuff happens to a lot of people, not just polys. I think it happens more in married couples because our culture teaches unrealistic ideas about love and sex. American society is, in a lot of ways, psychologically sick, because of a lot of those ideas. We believe very strongly that a healthy intact family is very important in raising healthy kids. None of us took our marriage vows lightly; we thought and talked and made contracts to spell out how the relationships would work and how they'd end, if they end. It works for us. And that's what really matters. Monogamous marriage seems to work for a lot of people. For some people, it doesn't. As a freedom loving libertarian, I respect other people's choices to live their lives.
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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2014 6:56:36 GMT -8
FACT: The legal recognition of same-sex marriage makes the legalization of polygamy more likely.
It's a valid argument!
The legalization of same-sex marriage shows that polygamy will receive legal recognition, sooner rather than later.
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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2014 7:16:32 GMT -8
Polygamy is not limited to being a religious matter any more than monogamy is only a religious matter. Yes, a person should have freedom of religion to choose polygamy, just as much as they would have that freedom of religion to choose monogamy. But just as some people might choose monogamy for non-religious reasons, people may also choose polygamy for non-religious reasons too. It is simply a matter of personal choice for freely consenting adults, either way.
Polygamy is currently illegal in the United States, but all of these problems you are so worried about are still happening. The government cannot prevent harm, only punish people (rightly or wrongly) after the fact.
Libertarians believe in smaller government. One of the ways to keep government small is to make as few laws as possible. Therefore the laws should specifically address harm to individuals and not try to prevent situations in which people may allow themselves to become harmed. If you’re worried about child abuse, make child abuse illegal; if you’re worried about economic standing then make laws about economic standing; if you’re worried about ability to consent to a contract, then make laws about that. However, outlawing a practice that may or may not lead to such things in every case is trampling on the rights of others and protecting no one’s.
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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2014 7:22:33 GMT -8
The proposed Gay Marriage Ban would expand government control and restrict the freedom of consenting adults to live their own lives as they choose. Libertarians believe that marriage is a private matter between individuals. We believe that marriage is a fundamental human right, and that all personal relationships, including marriage, should be at the sole discretion and agreement of the individuals involved, as well as any family, friends, or religious institutions they may choose to involve. Government has no business restricting or interfering with marriage. This ban would create a caste system by dividing society into two classes: those who are permitted to marry, and those who are not.
""""" The hypocrisy needed to tell citizens they must abide by these rules, when the very governing body that dictates them doesn't abide, is staggering""" ""
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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2014 8:20:00 GMT -8
If a man and a woman want to live together and call themselves partners, buddies, teammates, friends with benefits or Bonnie and Clyde, the government will leave them alone. Ditto if a guy can entice several fertile females to shack up with him and spawn a noisy horde of offspring.
But in Utah, it matters what the man calls the women living with him. If he refers to them as wives, he can go to prison.
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Post by Admin on Sept 20, 2014 8:29:41 GMT -8
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