Let’s start here, with an article by Noah Feldman on why polygamy is Constitutional
Now that a U.S. appeals court has declined to strike down Utah’s bigamy laws, it’s reasonable to ask: What does the Constitution, properly interpreted, have to say about the topic?
Legally speaking, the issue can be split in two. The first question is whether a state may criminalize marriage to more than one person. The second is whether, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year to require states to recognize same-sex marriage, there now exists a fundamental right to marry more than one person — and to make states treat plural marriages on equal terms with marriages between two people.
I’ll leave you to read the rest, but, it is something many people, including myself, noted in the post gay marriage as approved by the Supreme Court nation. If marriage is no longer between a man and woman, if this all about love being love and no one should stand in the way, then why not have bigamy and polygamy be legal? Love is love. If it’s consenting, sure thing. Ah, not according to the always very leftist and unhinged Washington Monthly
In our present society, marriage is a consensual matter and an entirely optional one. It isn’t actually necessary anymore. But that doesn’t mean that we’ve entirely transcended human nature. There are still a host of reasons why our society benefits when people form monogamous units, including the increased likelihood that children are raised by both parents, the avoidance of the transmittal of sexual diseases, the reduction of how many families need government assistance, and (yes) a reduction in male violence.
Finally, if we look around the world and in the history books, polygamy and women’s rights do not go together. If we’re talking about a situation where women are completely autonomous agents who enter into these plural marriages voluntarily, that may seem almost like an advance in rights. After all, they’d be free to have multiple husbands. Somehow, it never works out like that, as we can see in the still-surviving polygamist outposts in our own country.
Got that? Having just two parents over multiple parents is supposedly a benefit. It’s not explained, we just have to take their word for it. Interestingly, Liberals have worked very hard to destroy the family unit. Double interestingly, those against gay marriage have stated that it is a benefit to have a mother and a father, rather than 2 mothers or two fathers. Suddenly, liberals like a similar argument.
Furthermore, we are being told that a consensual arrangement is Violence Towards Women in practice. What happened to Love Is Love?
However you look at it, I don’t think you can productively analyze the merits of anti-polymany laws without reference to more than the implications of some recent Supreme Court cases and an appeal to fundamental rights. We’re people who are trying to live together in societies. Our laws and customs reflect that, even when they become less and less ideally suited to the times.
Yes, our laws and customs do reflect our rights. Why did the political Left destroy them regarding gay marriage? Why are they looking to destroy them regarding the restriction of people to the bathroom of the biological sex? Why the need to make belief in abortion a sacrament? Why the need to go against the passage of time and look to re-institute authoritarian government within democratic societies? Why the need for class warfare? And so, so much more? And it does beg the question within context: if gay marriage is suited for the times, why not polygamy and bigamy? Love is love, right? Right?
