All too typical are essays like this bus-sighting one from Leonard Pitts Jr., noting the boos Rick Santorum received recently when he refused to support the same-sex freedom to marry. Pitts invokes Discredited Argument #3.
Namely, that there is not and never has been a large culture of people who felt biologically driven toward polygamous behavior, much less who seek social sanction for it.
Rights aren’t reserved for the majority. Rights are not determined by how many people are being denied. That an adult should be free to marry any consenting adults applies to the polyamorous as well as the monogamous, regardless of whether the poly person is heterosexual, gay, bisexual, etc.
Far more people are nonmonogamist than are gay or lesbian. But it wouldn’t matter if there were just two gay men in the entire country. They should be free to marry. And it wouldn’t matter if there was just one polycule in the entire country. They should be free to marry, too.
Rather than throwing other adults in consensual relationships under the bus, why not respond to Santorum and other bigots with “Why not let an adult marry any consenting adults?” They won’t be able to defend their bigotry.
It’s wrong for countries that allow polygyny to ban same-gender marriage as well as other forms of polygamy, and it is wrong for countries like Canada, with same-gender monogamous marriage, to ban polygamous marriages. We have enough experience to see that some people are polygamous and unable to be happily monogamous. Some people are polyamorous as a basic part of their personality.
Equality just for some is not equality. We need full marriage equality sooner rather than later. A woman should be free to marry another woman, or two, even if one is her sister, even if one is already married. As long as they all consent, none of that hurts anyone.
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