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But in our history, as a large religious practice, only the Mormons have ever institutionalized it. Since polygamy that is not recognized by the LDS church is still going on by some of it's offshoots, if and when polygamy is ever allowed civilly will most likely only affect the LDS, and Utah, and possibly some of the states where there are a lot of Mormons.
In reality, the current practicing polygamists are taking full advantage of welfare benefits, MedicCare, Aid to Dependent Children, WICK, and all the other present social services to the max. While only one wife is officially recognized civilly, the Fundamental Latter-Day Saints church recognizes polygamous marriages, and performs religious marriages to second and further wives, but each is married one at a time and never in a group.
These folks are masters of milking our welfare system.
The members do not own their homes, nor do they have to foot the cost of building a home. The church pays for the materials, and the members jointly construct the house. As a result, the church can place anyone they want in that dwelling. A house may be occupied only by multiple wives, for example, and each can legally go on welfare, because the house can be constructed like an apartment.
If anything, legalized polygamy would most likely make it much harder for the FLDS to game the system. It would be the same for the polygamists who aren't affiliated with the FLDS as well, even though their gaming isn't institutionalized like the FLDS' is.
Even so, there is no slope, and nothing is slippery. Each case of civic marriage that is outside the common religious definition will be judged by the courts on it's own civil rights merits or the lack thereof.
Gays are a larger minority than polygamists, but Mormons aren't the only polygamists. We have Pacific islanders as citizens, Muslim citizens, and both are historically polygamous, as are other tiny minorities among us. Obviously, the larger the minority, the more attention to their civil rights is paid. In time, I expect each minority will have it's day in court. I don't believe all will have the same outcome.
The Mormons practiced polygamy without federal hindrance for as long as they were an independent territory with no problems. They were recognized as a U.S. Territory, just like every other state was before admittance into the Union.
It was only when Utah wanted to become a state that the practice was banned, and the banning came about by religious means; the President of the LDS church had a revelation from God that declared the practice must be stopped.
By then, Mormons who lived in other states had already won the right to vote. For a long time, the LDS could not vote, just like women could not. State and federal laws prohibited them from voting.
The fact that Utah's over-restrictive voting law did the same thing for gays as similar laws once did for the LDS is both ironic and a big can of worms for the religion. The Mormons were once the legally oppressed, and are now the oppressors.
Right now, gay citizens of Utah are getting married by the hundreds. Since challenging a state's over-restrictive marriage law obviously works, I expect to see many more states with laws similar to those in Utah and Ohio get challenged, which will open up the floodgates for gay marriages in all those states. Once legally married, it is damned hard to un-marry couples and remove their civil rights, as California's Prop 8 debacle has shown.
Any church can forbid any sort of a marriage ritual as they so choose. But a civic marriage is the one that counts in legal matters, and I fully expect that gays will be able to marry everywhere within a few years.
Will polygamists follow? Sure. But they won't ever be as big a deal, at least until the balance of gender really goes out of whack and many more babies are born of one sex than the other.
Will we ever recognize incestual or bestial marriage? Hell, no. For sound reasons that have nothing to do with religion.
Okay, really simple, the current law, benefits and rights concern two consent adults, that is easy to add same sex marriage to, it does not change the rights or benefits, it only removes a restriction on gender, not amount of partners. Since procreation is not a requirement of marriage, adding two men or two women is not a problem. Now polygamy and or polyandry involves multiple partners of which one is the primary and the women, or in polyandry, the men are the secondary spouses married to the primary spouse and if the primary spouse dies, the secondary ones are no longer married to each other. So, there is a big difference between poly marriages and duet marriages. The hurdles are in the deliberation of rights and benefits in poly, plus taxation, like should the husband in a polygamous marriage pay more due to having more than one spouse? The biggest issue is that same sex couples are really being denied marriage because of the yuck factor.
"Okay, really simple, the current law, benefits and rights concern two consent adults, that is easy to add same sex marriage to, it does not change the rights or benefits, it only removes a restriction on gender, not amount of partners."
Your unfair restriction on gender is someone else's unfair restriction on number.
The restriction on number is as arbitrary or reasonable as the one on gender or race.
A marriage between one man (or woman) and several women (and/or men) would simply be treated as several marriages in which each woman (or man) maintains a separate marriage with one partner who happens to be married to others.
What makes you right about plural marriage and them wrong?
"Since procreation is not a requirement of marriage, adding two men or two women is not a problem."
It is also not a problem for people who do not own watercraft to have boating permits.
So, why can't one or more persons have several boats with a single boating permit?
Are the boating wannabes jealous?
"Now polygamy and or polyandry involves multiple partners of which one is the primary and the women, or in polyandry, the men are the secondary spouses married to the primary spouse and if the primary spouse dies, the secondary ones are no longer married to each other."
That would be the case if only one man or woman were married to multiple members of the opposite sex and the parties involved were all heterosexual.
I thought the sex and sexuality of marriage partners was no longer an issue.
Well, is it or isn't it?
Who decided the multiple marriage partners in your heterosexual plural marriage scenario would be married to anyone except one other partner?
Who decided a bi-sexual man couldn't marry one bi-sexual man and one heterosexual woman?
Who decided marriage was only for heterosexuals or homosexuals?
"The biggest issue is that same sex couples are really being denied marriage because of the yuck factor."
I would argue common sense is also involved, but since common sense is no longer a consideration in retarded PC America, we have to expose the lies of the left through more elaborate means.
The real reason homosexuals want "equal marriage" is because they want to use the power of the state to redefine what is normal.
Same-sex marriage, equal with traditional heterosexual marriage, provides this ruse as long as no other variations of marriage are allowed to dilute the soup.
Homosexuals want equal marriage as long as the only marriage equal to same-sex marriage is traditional heterosexual marriage.
I have no objection to polygamy, but our current legal structure for marriage does not work for more than two people. If or when that is fixed, go for it.
The age restriction has to do with giving informed consent. Children can not legally consent to enter into ANY contract.
Consanguinity has the issue of force or coercion. Adults grooming children from a young age to marry their parents or uncle/aunt.
Animals can not give legal consent to enter ANY contract.
Inanimate objects can not give legal consent to enter into ANY contract.
Plants can not give legal consent to enter into ANY contract.
FTR the ability to reproduce is not a requirement for any marriage, and in some cases the couple has to prove that they can NOT reproduce to get married. So please stop with the "reproduction is needed for marriage" thing, it makes you look foolish.
My surname is the same as my father's because my parents were married.
My mother's legal name changed because she married my father.
My bother and sisters have the same last name as me because my parents married.
A family is defined by marriage and families are the product of sexual reproduction.
Gay or straight, we are all created by sex between one man and one woman.
There is no equality for homosexuals in that.
If the "reproduction is needed for marriage" thing makes someone look foolish, ignoring the connection between sexual reproduction, marriage and the family unit makes you look intellectually dishonest.
Prior to 1967, blacks and whites could marry, but not to each other, today in many states men and women can marry, but only to each other as opposite sexes, the discriminatation and bans against interracial marriage were motivated by religion as is the bans against same sex marriage. Get used to it Harrier, because some day you will be looking down the barrel of history from the wrong side.
Inter-racial marriage has absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand.
Please try to stay on topic.
It has everything to do with the topic. And you say you study law. If you did, you would know that all laws are tested against others and in this case the bans against same sex marriage are similar to the bans against interracial marriage. Maybe you should ask for your money back for your supposed law education.
"Okay, really simple, the current law, benefits and rights concern two consent adults, that is easy to add same sex marriage to, it does not change the rights or benefits, it only removes a restriction on gender, not amount of partners."
Your unfair restriction on gender is someone else's unfair restriction on number.
The restriction on number is as arbitrary or reasonable as the one on gender or race.
A marriage between one man (or woman) and several women (and/or men) would simply be treated as several marriages in which each woman (or man) maintains a separate marriage with one partner who happens to be married to others.
What makes you right about plural marriage and them wrong?
"Since procreation is not a requirement of marriage, adding two men or two women is not a problem."
It is also not a problem for people who do not own watercraft to have boating permits.
So, why can't one or more persons have several boats with a single boating permit?
Are the boating wannabes jealous?
"Now polygamy and or polyandry involves multiple partners of which one is the primary and the women, or in polyandry, the men are the secondary spouses married to the primary spouse and if the primary spouse dies, the secondary ones are no longer married to each other."
That would be the case if only one man or woman were married to multiple members of the opposite sex and the parties involved were all heterosexual.
I thought the sex and sexuality of marriage partners was no longer an issue.
Well, is it or isn't it?
Who decided the multiple marriage partners in your heterosexual plural marriage scenario would be married to anyone except one other partner?
Who decided a bi-sexual man couldn't marry one bi-sexual man and one heterosexual woman?
Who decided marriage was only for heterosexuals or homosexuals?
"The biggest issue is that same sex couples are really being denied marriage because of the yuck factor."
I would argue common sense is also involved, but since common sense is no longer a consideration in retarded PC America, we have to expose the lies of the left through more elaborate means.
The real reason homosexuals want "equal marriage" is because they want to use the power of the state to redefine what is normal.
Same-sex marriage, equal with traditional heterosexual marriage, provides this ruse as long as no other variations of marriage are allowed to dilute the soup.
Homosexuals want equal marriage as long as the only marriage equal to same-sex marriage is traditional heterosexual marriage.
What? just a bunch of word garbage. Normal is subjective and homosexuality is normal. Homosexuals want marriage for the same reasons straight people do, companionship, protections, benefits, rights. We do not want it because you straight people do. How lame and narrow sighted. And traditional, yeah right, like you straight people even have traditional marriages anymore. Tradition is no reason to deny us marriage equality. Common sense tells me that there is no reason to deny us equal marriage rights.
My surname is the same as my father's because my parents were married.
My mother's legal name changed because she married my father.
My bother and sisters have the same last name as me because my parents married.
A family is defined by marriage and families are the product of sexual reproduction.
Gay or straight, we are all created by sex between one man and one woman.
There is no equality for homosexuals in that.
If the "reproduction is needed for marriage" thing makes someone look foolish, ignoring the connection between sexual reproduction, marriage and the family unit makes you look intellectually dishonest.
Umm? Ever study biology? Marriage is not needed for reproduction, nor is reproduction needed for marriage. It is a lame and no where arguement that does not float in court or law. Give it up.
My surname is the same as my father's because my parents were married.
My mother's legal name changed because she married my father.
My bother and sisters have the same last name as me because my parents married.
A family is defined by marriage and families are the product of sexual reproduction.
Gay or straight, we are all created by sex between one man and one woman.
There is no equality for homosexuals in that.
If the "reproduction is needed for marriage" thing makes someone look foolish, ignoring the connection between sexual reproduction, marriage and the family unit makes you look intellectually dishonest.
My last name was the same as my parents, because they were married, my adopted sisters last name is the same as mine even though she is not biologically related to any of us.
I legally changed my last name years ago, and my children have the same last name as my fiancee and I.
It is really telling that you don't consider couples that choose to open their homes and hearts to children through adoption to be "real families"
Many same sex couples use medical means to have children just like millions of heterosexual couples. Are we not real families? Do you think that the elderly should not be allowed to get married? How about the infertile that use medical means to reproduce? Or sterile people?
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Some days I think she even likes me. 
