Anyways the entire point of this blog is, as the title suggests, to mock my favorite problem in conservative thought, that being that legalizing gay marriage will lead to legalizing polygamy.
Now the reason this is my favorite, is that, from a conservative point of view......they are 100% correct. However they are also 100% against the conservative point of view.
Alright let me explain. You often see Conservatives asking questions like this:
That was asked just a couple of days ago in fact, during the still ongoing confirmation hearings of Obama's attorney general.
Now liberals like to laugh at that question and just dismiss graham by calling him an idiot.....But here's the thing, Graham is 100% right.
If the Constitution allows the government to redefine marriage to allow gays to get married, why cant they rewrite it to allow multiple people to get married?
Now Loretta Lynch ducked the question, but the real answer is: the government totally could.
And this by and large is the basis of the Conservative objection to gay marriage, that if we allow the government to redefine marriage this way, their is nothing stopping them from redefining it any damn way they please. Until one day we all wake up and we are all able to marry sheep.
Now of course, the sheep thing is taking this to the high extreme (although republicans like using it or another animal as the "end result), and a difference does eventually come into play with the idea of consent. (another area where conservatives tend to have some confusion, just see their comments on rape)
But in all fairness to Senator Graham, he only took it as far as polygamy, presumably among consenting adults. And he's got a point, when you keep it at that level. It is hard to justify gay marriage without justifying polygamist marriage.
The problem that leads to the contradiction here faced by him, and the rest of the conservative movement, is that they have never considered the opposite question.
By which I mean, they have never asked "hey how come polygamy ISNT legal?' I mean hell ask anybody to name the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word "Mormon" and the likely answer is going to be polygamy.
Which is weird because Mormon's are an entirely american religion, they were created HERE, unlike most other religion in this country.
So you'd think there would be a shit ton of polygamist Mormons. Which is weird because all the famous living Mormons only have one wife. Glenn Beck, Andy Reid, Rep Jason Chaffetz, Sen Harry Reid, Mitt Romney, Jon Heder, Orson Scott Card, Stephanie Meyers (her husbands only wife in this case), Wilford Brimley, Jon Huntsman, Sen Orrin Hatch, ect.
So what the fuck happened there? why arnt they all marrying multiple women?
well see way back in 1862 President Lincoln signed into law something called the "Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act" which basically made it illegal to marry more than one person as the Mormons had been doing.
Now this (and its successors laws further restricting marriage) was challenged in court in 1878 in a Supreme Court case called Reynolds vs United States. Which the polygamists lost after the court ruled that marriage was not a religious right and therefore the government was totally fine declaring who could or couldnt get married.
Which means, as of 1878 the Government has had the right to legally redefine marriage whenever it wishes, and in whatever way they wish.
They did the same thing in 1967 with the court case Loving v Virginia, which ruled that it was illegal to prohibit consenting adults of different races from marrying. Now its worth noting that Loving reversed an earlier Supreme Court case (Pace v Arizona from 1883) that said prohibiting interracial marriage was fine and good.
Actually to be honest, the Government has a long history of redefining marriage. I can find almost 2 dozen cases legalizing or illegalizing various forms of polygamist relationships alone (the most recent being 2013), And then there are the ones about interracial marriage and homosexual marriage which adds another dozen or so. And then you have cases like 1987's Turner v. Safley, which declared marriage a basic undeniable right (even to the incarcerated) adding to that count as well.
So, I've been long winded about it, but the real answer to the fear of the right wing, about what stops polygamist marriage if we legalize gay marriage is "because we say so". Thats it. There really isnt a better defense, or one that couldn't be reversed to allow polygamist marriage "because we say so" as well.
Of course the irony is that, if, we did as conservatives suggest, and got the government totally out of marriage, polygamist marriage would become de facto legal anyways.....as would gay marriage. Because we could no longer restrict it.
oops.
So to sum up, Conservatives want the government out of marriage to stop gay and polygamist marriages from being legal. However doing so would legalize gay and polygamist marriages because the only thing making them illegal is the government. Which means, conservatives would not want us to do what conservatives believe we should do to stop gay/polygamist marriage.
Which is probably why conservatives are so obsessed with the "slippery slope" on this one. Its real, there is no way out....and they were the ones who started us down it in 1862.
The other problem for conservatives is they really dont want to push back too hard to try to stop [what they assume is] the eventual legalization of gay and polygamist marriage.
Now most religions in this country are incorporated. Its this incorporation that allows them buy and hold property, trademarks (on some of their symbols), distribute assets, set up charities ect.
Now I say most because the Mormon church is NOT incorporated. They used to be, until 1887, when they were disincorporated by the US government for failure to follow the laws on marriage. (read, they were still attempting to practice polygamy). And following the disincorperation, the US government seized the assets of the church for their own.
This disincorporation was held totally constitutional in 1890's Supreme Court case The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States. Furthermore that case stated that the Government could have taken over the "real property" of the church (read the Mormon temples) even though they had not.
Now while most of the seized assets were returned to the churches followers in 1893, after the Mormons altered their teachings to ban polygamy, the government was under no legal obligation to do so. And to this day the Mormon church still hasnt been able to reincorporate, instead its holdings are managed in a hodge-podge fashion being held in a bunch of small private subgroups of the church that the church officially cant control.
And doing that same thing to any religion that say, refuses to marry gays or allow multiple marriages, is still legal at the governments discretion.
So now maybe you understand both the conservative paranoia about legal polygamist marriages being the next step, and why they cant stop obsession about it....their own ideology on the issue would still lead to that.
So next time you hear a conservative ask that question (or one similar), recognize it for what it is....a desperate plea for help in getting out of the corner they put themselves into in their 150+ year crusade to redefine marriage to match only their religions definitions.
Now liberals like to laugh at that question and just dismiss graham by calling him an idiot.....But here's the thing, Graham is 100% right.
If the Constitution allows the government to redefine marriage to allow gays to get married, why cant they rewrite it to allow multiple people to get married?
Now Loretta Lynch ducked the question, but the real answer is: the government totally could.
And this by and large is the basis of the Conservative objection to gay marriage, that if we allow the government to redefine marriage this way, their is nothing stopping them from redefining it any damn way they please. Until one day we all wake up and we are all able to marry sheep.
Now of course, the sheep thing is taking this to the high extreme (although republicans like using it or another animal as the "end result), and a difference does eventually come into play with the idea of consent. (another area where conservatives tend to have some confusion, just see their comments on rape)
But in all fairness to Senator Graham, he only took it as far as polygamy, presumably among consenting adults. And he's got a point, when you keep it at that level. It is hard to justify gay marriage without justifying polygamist marriage.
The problem that leads to the contradiction here faced by him, and the rest of the conservative movement, is that they have never considered the opposite question.
By which I mean, they have never asked "hey how come polygamy ISNT legal?' I mean hell ask anybody to name the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the word "Mormon" and the likely answer is going to be polygamy.
Which is weird because Mormon's are an entirely american religion, they were created HERE, unlike most other religion in this country.
So you'd think there would be a shit ton of polygamist Mormons. Which is weird because all the famous living Mormons only have one wife. Glenn Beck, Andy Reid, Rep Jason Chaffetz, Sen Harry Reid, Mitt Romney, Jon Heder, Orson Scott Card, Stephanie Meyers (her husbands only wife in this case), Wilford Brimley, Jon Huntsman, Sen Orrin Hatch, ect.
So what the fuck happened there? why arnt they all marrying multiple women?
well see way back in 1862 President Lincoln signed into law something called the "Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act" which basically made it illegal to marry more than one person as the Mormons had been doing.
Now this (and its successors laws further restricting marriage) was challenged in court in 1878 in a Supreme Court case called Reynolds vs United States. Which the polygamists lost after the court ruled that marriage was not a religious right and therefore the government was totally fine declaring who could or couldnt get married.
Which means, as of 1878 the Government has had the right to legally redefine marriage whenever it wishes, and in whatever way they wish.
They did the same thing in 1967 with the court case Loving v Virginia, which ruled that it was illegal to prohibit consenting adults of different races from marrying. Now its worth noting that Loving reversed an earlier Supreme Court case (Pace v Arizona from 1883) that said prohibiting interracial marriage was fine and good.
Actually to be honest, the Government has a long history of redefining marriage. I can find almost 2 dozen cases legalizing or illegalizing various forms of polygamist relationships alone (the most recent being 2013), And then there are the ones about interracial marriage and homosexual marriage which adds another dozen or so. And then you have cases like 1987's Turner v. Safley, which declared marriage a basic undeniable right (even to the incarcerated) adding to that count as well.
So, I've been long winded about it, but the real answer to the fear of the right wing, about what stops polygamist marriage if we legalize gay marriage is "because we say so". Thats it. There really isnt a better defense, or one that couldn't be reversed to allow polygamist marriage "because we say so" as well.
Of course the irony is that, if, we did as conservatives suggest, and got the government totally out of marriage, polygamist marriage would become de facto legal anyways.....as would gay marriage. Because we could no longer restrict it.
oops.
So to sum up, Conservatives want the government out of marriage to stop gay and polygamist marriages from being legal. However doing so would legalize gay and polygamist marriages because the only thing making them illegal is the government. Which means, conservatives would not want us to do what conservatives believe we should do to stop gay/polygamist marriage.
Which is probably why conservatives are so obsessed with the "slippery slope" on this one. Its real, there is no way out....and they were the ones who started us down it in 1862.
The other problem for conservatives is they really dont want to push back too hard to try to stop [what they assume is] the eventual legalization of gay and polygamist marriage.
Now most religions in this country are incorporated. Its this incorporation that allows them buy and hold property, trademarks (on some of their symbols), distribute assets, set up charities ect.
Now I say most because the Mormon church is NOT incorporated. They used to be, until 1887, when they were disincorporated by the US government for failure to follow the laws on marriage. (read, they were still attempting to practice polygamy). And following the disincorperation, the US government seized the assets of the church for their own.
This disincorporation was held totally constitutional in 1890's Supreme Court case The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States. Furthermore that case stated that the Government could have taken over the "real property" of the church (read the Mormon temples) even though they had not.
Now while most of the seized assets were returned to the churches followers in 1893, after the Mormons altered their teachings to ban polygamy, the government was under no legal obligation to do so. And to this day the Mormon church still hasnt been able to reincorporate, instead its holdings are managed in a hodge-podge fashion being held in a bunch of small private subgroups of the church that the church officially cant control.
And doing that same thing to any religion that say, refuses to marry gays or allow multiple marriages, is still legal at the governments discretion.
So now maybe you understand both the conservative paranoia about legal polygamist marriages being the next step, and why they cant stop obsession about it....their own ideology on the issue would still lead to that.
So next time you hear a conservative ask that question (or one similar), recognize it for what it is....a desperate plea for help in getting out of the corner they put themselves into in their 150+ year crusade to redefine marriage to match only their religions definitions.
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