What's Worse for Western Society?

Polygamy or same-sex marriage?

This is the question that I think all opponents of SSM should be thinking about when the argue so vehemently against it, because I am afraid that the more they push against gay marriage and against the acceptance of homosexuality in general, the more likely polygamy will be to follow.

I think it is safe to say that polygamy is generally harmful to our society and I don't think I'd get any arguments from SSM-opponents. I'm not convinced that any new style of polyandry is actually beneficial to a significant enough population to outweigh the backwards slide to women's equality that would undoubtedly occur due to the use of polygamy by more inherently misogynistic populations, namely your more fundamental branches of Mormonism and Islam. We should, of course, be concerned with the possibility of polygamy in the United States since traditional polygamy is gaining popularity world-wide.

It is clear to many supporters of SSM, however, that polygamy does not naturally follow from gay marriage, yet to many SSM opponents it remains a mystery as to why this may be the case. The reason that SSM opponents find the slippery slope argument so compelling is because of the way they have been forced (and are forcing the rest of us) to shape the debate. And this all comes down to the refusal to choose to recognized sexual orientation as a suspect and protected class.

If sexual orientation were considered along with religion, race and sex, then the entire debate is an open/shut case. Restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples discriminates against gays, therefore gays should be allowed to marry. End of argument. The conservatives don't get their way, necessarily, but they get to keep marriage defined as a monogamous relationship. It would then be up to the polygamists to come up with a specific reason why they have the fundamental right to marry more than one person and why this would not only be beneficial to society but not harmful to an already protected class, oh, let's say women. I do not think that this would be an easy task, especially considering that a judge in Utah already found a compeling state interest in defining marriage as a monogamy.

But without any legal protection of sexual orientation, gays are forced to look outside of legislative means in order to secure protection for their families, namely suing in court. This leads to two problems for those of us who wish to keep the lid clamped firmly down on polygamy. First, marriage equality has to be argued for in terms of freedoms of choice (right to choose one's life partner) rather than on suspect classes. Second, arguments in favor of OSM-only have to exclude both SSM and polygamy.

While Gabriel Rosenberg (and others) makes some brilliant arguments for same-sex marriage based on sex discrimination, as well as against polygamy, it is becoming increasingly obvious that liberal-leaning courts will probably rule in favor of SSM not based on sex (which while articulate an argument, often comes across as clever world-play and manipulation of a system), but rather rule based on issues of privacy. And that leaves the door wide open for polygamy. Understand that I'm not making claims of a slippery slope. It's still possible to argue against polygamy even if the SSM debate is won over privacy; it's just that it's going to be a bit harder.

This leaves us with the opposition. How do they argue against SSM? Their two main pieces of ammunition seem to boil down to tradition and procreation, neither of which are terrible blows to polygamy. If we take a broad look at tradition, we lose to polygamy almost immediately, since polygamy was practiced not only by our own cultural ancestors but by the more recent ancestors and living relatives of a population of our country as well. And even if we limit the tradition argument to the traditions of our own country, since the Constitution was ratified, the traditional argument against polygamy is stronger, but not absolute given that the Church of Latter Day Saints has its roots in America and practiced polygamy in territories controlled by this country. And the procreation argument makes absolutely no sense against polygamy, since many children born out of wedlock could potentially benefit from having their father marry their mother, even though he is already married to someone else. In fact, it can be argued that outlawing polygamy can have a detrimental effect on those children, since it seems extraordinarily important to SSM opponents that children have "mothers and fathers" and that they be married to each other.

So what does that leave us? What's the bottom line? Same-sex unions cannot be stopped. They are legal in Vermont and Massachusetts and we can hopefully add Connecticut to that list soon, not to mention the millions of informal arrangements gay couples have already made. The path to recognition of homosexuality as a non-deviant orientation is well underway. Gays are already having families and the government has a compelling interest to protect its citizens, even ones that might not have 100% popular approval. Any evidence for the harm gay marriage causes to society is tenuous at best; the harm of polygamy, however, is well-documented.

So in arguing against same-sex marriage, we don't automatically exclude polygamy; but by arguing in favor of same-sex marriage, we can reinforce the importance of monogamy to a healthy society. It is essential for opponents of same-sex marriage to figure out exactly what about "traditional" marriage is important enough to fight for and what ideas can be sacrificed. Is it monogamy? Or heterosexuality? Or simply misogyny?