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Subject: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: GWBush2004 on 12/28/04 at 12:49 am

Wonder how much longer before it's legalized in Massachusetts:

By Mark Steyn

When it comes to social progress - hang on, where are my scare quotes? - social "progress" - that's better. Anyway, when it comes to it, Britain and America often wind up at similar destinations but by two very different routes.

In the US, big changes - on abortion, gay marriage - are ushered in by judges claiming to have discovered a hitherto unknown right to them lurking in the "emanations" of the "penumbra" of the constitution: the "right to privacy", for example, under which abortion was legalised coast to coast. In Britain, everything's much more incremental and utilitarian: there was no great constitutional principle or human right attached to the legalisation of abortion; it was just a practical approach to a political problem.

On the whole, I prefer the American way. If someone constructs a great epic principle as the justification for social change - "a woman's right to choose" - it's very easy to respond with a great epic principle of your own - the "right to life". That's one reason why the anti-abortion movement in America is a going concern - and, indeed, year on year winning the argument. In Britain, by contrast, it's very hard to argue a great principle in the absence of any on the other side: "right to life" works well against the "right to choose"; it's less effective when the other chaps are mumbling, "Yes, well, there we are. Difficult question, did the best we could, all in the past now, no point raking everything up again."

Likewise, gay marriage. The guys in powdered wigs who wrote the state constitutions of Vermont and Massachusetts never thought explicitly to prohibit same-sex nuptials any more than they thought to decree that the sun was only permitted to shine during daylight hours. So various activist judges have insisted that forbidding a man from marrying a man is "unconstitutional".

In Britain, on the other hand, redefining marriage is, like abortion law, much more pragmatic. According to Nicholas Hellen in this weekend's Sunday Times, "The Inland Revenue is considering recognising polygamy for some religious groups for tax purposes. Officials have agreed to examine `family friendly' representations from Muslims who take up to four wives under sharia, the laws derived from the Koran. Existing rules allow only one wife for inheritance tax purposes. The Revenue has been asked to relax this so that a husband's estate can be divided tax-free between several wives."

This wasn't news to me, because I'd spotted an item six months back in that invaluable publication Pensions News. Contracting marriage with more than one spouse simultaneously is a crime in the United Kingdom. However, if a polygamous marriage is entered into abroad in a jurisdiction permitting polygamy, that marriage is regarded as valid under English law. Hence, the interest of Pensions News: trustees of pensions funds were concerned that, under new anti-discrimination regulations which came into effect in Britain last year, they'd be obligated to pay out to more than one widow, thus doubling, trebling or quadrupling their liability.

But you see how easy it is to start talking about polygamy in a nuts-and-bolts, incremental, legal-harmonisation, partners'-benefits, insurance-agent kind of a way. Just tidying up a bit of the fine print, old boy. Nothing to worry about. But, once a polygamous union is recognised as such by the Inland Revenue for the purposes of avoiding 40 per cent death duties, how long can the broader British state withhold recognition? No lack of taxation without representation!

When I mentioned the Pensions News item in a North American column on same-sex marriage, I was besieged by e-mails from huffy gays indignant at being compared with some up-country Nigerian wives-beater. "It's not the same thing at all," they insisted. But why? If the gender of the participants is no longer relevant, why should the number be? "Don't be ridiculous," they huffed back. "There's no demand for it." Au contraire, recent investigations into de facto polygamy in Muslim communities in France and Ontario suggest that even in Western jurisdictions there'll be many more takers for polygamy than for gay nuptials.

And why should only practising Muslims be entitled to its tax benefits? If you're a travelling salesman with a wife in Solihull and a mistress in Stockport, why shouldn't your better halves enjoy the same equality of treatment from the Revenue as Mullah Omar's get? Polygamy could solve an awful lot of problems, not least among my colleagues at The Spectator.

Logically, one can be either opposed to both (as I am) or in favour of both, but activists who maintain that homosexual marriage is fine but multi-sexual marriage isn't sound awfully like those couples who build their dream home in the country and then want to stop anybody else from moving in.

The YouGov poll on Britons' lack of religious faith, reported in yesterday's Telegraph, confirms that this country is well advanced in its post-Christian condition. Whereas 44 per cent of Britons believe in God and 44 per cent don't, in recent American polls the number who believe is 92 97 per cent and the number who don't is around three per cent. Three quarters of Americans believe in Hell, which is more than the bishops' bench in the House of Lords can say. Most Britons, for good or ill, are content in their post-Christian state. The danger is in assuming it's permanent, rather than an intermediate phase.

Last year, I was strolling down the boulevard de Maisonneuve in Montreal and saw across the street a Muslim woman, covered from head to toe in black, struggling home with her groceries past a "condom boutique" whose front window was advertising massive discounts on a, er, item of useful gay-sex paraphernalia. I wish I'd had a digital camera: there, in a single image, were the internal contradictions of the multicultural society. It seems highly improbable to me that gay hedonism and creeping sharia can co-exist for long. As yesterday's dispirited poll results implied, the modern multicultural state is really a nullity, a vacuum. The question is what's likely to fill it.

Read the above article in The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/12/28/do2802.xml

This is the left's idea of social "progress?"  No thank you. 

And most on the left, who support gay marriage, oppose polygamy.  Wake up in smell the hypocrisy, how can you say allow marriages for all consenting adults, and say no to polygamy.  How can you say we can redefine marriage for a small minority, but now for another small minority?

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: MaxwellSmart on 12/28/04 at 3:01 am

When do I get mine?  I wanna marry that parking meter outside my favorite cafe.  That way, she'll always be mine, and never charge me a dime!
;D

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: Mona on 12/28/04 at 5:52 am


When do I get mine?  I wanna marry that parking meter outside my favorite cafe.  That way, she'll always be mine, and never charge me a dime!
;D

;D Don't be too sure.  You know wives have a way of making you pay one way or another. And how are you going to feel when another man (or a woman) tries to use her?  And, just out of curiosity, how do you go about determining the gender of a parking meter?

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: MaxwellSmart on 12/28/04 at 12:08 pm


;D Don't be too sure.  You know wives have a way of making you pay one way or another. And how are you going to feel when another man (or a woman) tries to use her?  And, just out of curiosity, how do you go about determining the gender of a parking meter?

Yeah, I'd have to worry about her being tempted by some playboy in a Lexus.  Parking meter gender?  Oh it's a question of slots and knobs...
:-X
Shouldn't matter anyway, right?  I oughta be able to marry a male OR female parking meter, or both at once!

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in Engla

Written By: MooRocca on 12/28/04 at 1:27 pm



And most on the left, who support gay marriage, oppose polygamy.

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: McDonald on 12/28/04 at 2:51 pm

There is more to consider with polygamy when it comes to family building.. like the frequency of spousal and child abuse. While I wouldn't have a problem with intelligent polygamy, I don't see the need for it to be a legal matter. If Muslims want to live in Western nations, then they have to accept our laws. If Islamic law permitted the beating of wives and children when "necessary" (and I'm not saying that it does) would the governments of the West be obliged to concede those rights to them? I don't think so. For the few people who want to engage in polygamy, so be it... but you better choose a favourite wife, because you only get one certificate at a time. The laws which are in place now do not infringe upon their religious practises. The fact that Islamic law allows polygamy, doesn't make it a religious practise... just an acceptable practise in the Islamic culture.

And this author is an idiot. What exactly gives him the foresight to suggest that Canadian multiculturalism will fail? Just because he saw a sharia walk in front of a gay sex-shoppe? Retention of culture, and acceptance of Canadian law are not counter-reactive. They can live togather, speak their language, practise their religion, etc... But their kids are going to have to go to school (and that includes the girls) and unless they want to pay for a private school, then they'll have to choose whether or not they want their kids to be educated in English, French, or both. They're going to have to refrain from family violence, and they will have to make due with one marriage certificate. This isn't too much to ask of you if you're able to live in one of the best countries on Earth in return. At least, I don't think so.

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: MaxwellSmart on 12/28/04 at 3:33 pm


There is more to consider with polygamy when it comes to family building.. like the frequency of spousal and child abuse. While I wouldn't have a problem with intelligent polygamy, I don't see the need for it to be a legal matter. If Muslims want to live in Western nations, then they have to accept our laws. If Islamic law permitted the beating of wives and children when "necessary" (and I'm not saying that it does) would the governments of the West be obliged to concede those rights to them? I don't think so. For the few people who want to engage in polygamy, so be it... but you better choose a favourite wife, because you only get one certificate at a time. The laws which are in place now do not infringe upon their religious practises. The fact that Islamic law allows polygamy, doesn't make it a religious practise... just an acceptable practise in the Islamic culture.

And this author is an idiot. What exactly gives him the foresight to suggest that Canadian multiculturalism will fail? Just because he saw a sharia walk in front of a gay sex-shoppe? Retention of culture, and acceptance of Canadian law are not counter-reactive. They can live togather, speak their language, practise their religion, etc... But their kids are going to have to go to school (and that includes the girls) and unless they want to pay for a private school, then they'll have to choose whether or not they want their kids to be educated in English, French, or both. They're going to have to refrain from family violence, and they will have to make due with one marriage certificate. This isn't too much to ask of you if you're able to live in one of the best countries on Earth in return. At least, I don't think so.

Another astute and cogent post from our friend McD!
:)

The other problem with polygamy is a question of how one supports ten wives and fifty children. Tom Green (no, not that Tom Green, I mean the scuzzbucket bigamist from Utah) had a compound of trailers and his wives collectively had about 20 different public dole accounts. 
There is also a history of incest, child-brides, and clannish dysfunctionality, at least when it comes polygamy in America.  Polygamy prohibition then becomes a matter of safety and public health.
Then there is the question of social insurance and life benefits.  If gay marriage complicates that issue, polygamy creates an intractable mess.

Anyway, the whole problem starts with heterosexual marriage.  Sheesh, you let straights marry and sooner or later gays demand the same rights.  Isn't the logical thing to do, then, to ban straight marriage?
:D ???

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in Engla

Written By: danootaandme on 12/28/04 at 4:40 pm

I've always thought that heaven would be a hard working man to bring home the money, a good looking
man for going out , a man with good genes(hopefully) to father my children, and a man with that "je ne sais quoi"    ::)to keep me warm at night.  Polygamy?  hey, I'd give it a shot ;)

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in Engla

Written By: MaxwellSmart on 12/28/04 at 7:04 pm


I've always thought that heaven would be a hard working man to bring home the money, a good looking
man for going out , a man with good genes(hopefully) to father my children, and a man with that "je ne sais quoi"    ::)to keep me warm at night.  Polygamy?  hey, I'd give it a shot ;)

Yeah, why spend half your life trying to find all four qualities rolled into one man?  Some people are getting married four and five times, why not just do all the weddings at once and get it over with?
;)

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: philbo on 12/28/04 at 7:08 pm

Worth a look: On Sharing.  Or, why polygamy isn't a great idea

But polygamy's always going to be such a minority sport, WGAF whether the Revenue think it's a fair tax break?

It's none of my business what someone else decides to do

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in Engla

Written By: MooRocca on 12/29/04 at 9:54 am


The other problem with polygamy is a question of how one supports ten wives and fifty children.


Maybe they could pass a law allowing wives to have jobs... or, dare I say it... careers! 

(For shame, Maxwell... I was shocked to see that such a sexist comment had come from you.)    ;D

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: Mona on 12/29/04 at 10:19 am


Yeah, I'd have to worry about her being tempted by some playboy in a Lexus.  Parking meter gender?  Oh it's a question of slots and knobs...
:-X
Shouldn't matter anyway, right?  I oughta be able to marry a male OR female parking meter, or both at once!
:D ;D

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: MaxwellSmart on 12/29/04 at 2:19 pm


Maybe they could pass a law allowing wives to have jobs... or, dare I say it... careers! 

(For shame, Maxwell... I was shocked to see that such a sexist comment had come from you.)

We cannot assume that only men would have multiple spouses or that all polygamous relationships would consist of one unstable, controlling male with ten slave-wives and fifty starving children.  They don't, now.  Yes, we've all seen those nutjobs on the news -- they do exist.  I'm not saying they don't.


Sorry if I sounded sexist.  I was talking about what polygamy has been, not what it might be.  Tom Green was the most recent high-profile polygamy case. 
I don't know of any career-oriented independent-minded women who want to marry the same dude as nine other women, nor do I know of any who would want to marry nine other men.  That doesn't mean there aren't any...actually, I'll bet there are!
::)

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in England.

Written By: McDonald on 12/29/04 at 3:44 pm


Maybe they could pass a law allowing wives to have jobs... or, dare I say it... careers! 


    Think of the tax problems this could pose. We'd have to reformat our entire tax system to accomodate a relative few polygamist families IF polygamy were legalised. If it remained a non-legal issue... as in, people living in polyamourous relationships, claiming financial independence with only one of the parents claiming the children each fiscal year or whatever they want to work out. Whatever that may be, it can be done within the laws that are already in place. Then there are divorce and custody laws, who gets visitation rights, which assets go to which parter... the complications are so vast.  I'm not saying that we can't change the laws to fit polygamy, but it simply is not practical and the demand for it is so small.

     Same-sex marriage is a different issue because same-sex partners are being denied the same rights as traditional partners have, whereas nobody is allowed simultaneous marriages.


There are already many existing polyamorous relationships in the U.S., of varying gender/relationship configurations and many of these relationships consist of successful, employed adults who lead normal, productive lives, who don't pump out babies like machines (if at all,) who don't "mess around" outside the relationship or try to find others to bring into it, who treat one another well and who are just too boring and ordinary for the news.


This is why I have said before that I have no issue with intelligent polygamy, but I still don't think there is law reform necessary. Intelligent polygamy would be versatile enough to work within the existing framework. I have no moral objection to the practise itself at all.

Subject: Re: Remember how we talked about gay marriage, well here comes polygamy in Engla

Written By: MooRocca on 12/29/04 at 5:11 pm


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