Tuesday, July 21, 2015

An Exchange From Religion Dispatches

This is a discussion I've been having at Religion Dispatches, beginning with the article, WHO’S SCARED OF POLYGAMY? A RESTRAINED CASE FOR THE “SLIPPERY SLOPE” ARGUMENT.  I will remind you that I've been using the name "Camera Obscura" in disqus to avoid the idiot who trolls me all over the internet.  I will be choosing another pseudonym for that reason in the future.

Camera Obscura • 3 days ago
1. Polygamy has always been a heterosexual phenomenon, if anything were going to lead to polygamy, it would be straight marriage, not same-sex marriage. 2. The best reason to ban polygamy is that no one person should be given extra opportunities to screw up a marriage or to make more than one person miserable. 3. Elizabeth Cady Stanton had another good reason that it would be a good idea when she told the sexist hog who bragged about his seven sons that no man should be reproduced seven times, polygamy gives such men too much of a chance to reproduce themselves and their view of women, making even more people miserable.

Keep the polygamy talk about yourselves, straight folk, leave me out of it.

Sven  Camera Obscura • a day ago
1) The homosexuals who have multiple partners would disagree with what you have to say.
2) Who are you to get involved the the bedroom of consensual adults?
3) What? So your argument is that some men sleep with multiple women outside of marriage so clearly they shouldn't marry multiple women? I'm confused.

Summation, I think its hilarious that now that you have "rights", you so willingly and eagerly shut out others who seek similar rights.

Camera Obscura  Sven • a day ago
1. The number of GAY men and lesbians who have multiple sex partners, not SPOUSES, are a tiny fraction of the heterosexuals who have both multiple sex partners and who have had polygamy to themselves all theses millenia.

2. I'm me. I can have an opinion about the screwy situation where one man marries a whole hell of a lot of women at once and breeds like a hog. No man should have as many children as polygamy produces.

3. You don't think very clearly so I'm hoping you are going for the nulygamy option.

Just as I am a one-person, one vote person, I'm a one person, one spouse person. Generally, except in the most unusual of circumstances, a person can't screw up too much if they cast a bad vote, they can do a lot more damage if they have a bad marriage so why multiply the chances of that happening?

I have no problem with society limiting the number of spouses to one at a time. Gay folk would be better if they had practiced that as well. To begin by saying that monogamy is not a reasonable expectation is for Gay men (of whom I am one) and lesbians is to define our marriages as inferior, doing to ourselves what the gay bashers would do to us.

OK, I just looked into your comment archive, I want to reiterate #3.

Sven  Camera Obscura • 21 hours ago
Well perhaps you should stop being so bigoted and accept people for who they are. Ever think of that?

Camera Obscura  Sven • 20 hours ago
I don't see any reason to accept selfish, irresponsible people for who they are now but for who they might become. Like all conservatives, you're comfortable with a status quo that benefits you even as it disadvantages others. I'm not a conservative, I'm a liberal, a real one, not a libertarian posing as one.

Sven  Camera Obscura • 16 hours ago
You need to stop being so bigoted. The things you say are the same thing conservatives said about gays and marriage. You are a bigot, you must accept that, its part of your identity. You should start voting Republican, because you've become one ;-)

Camera Obscura  Sven • a few seconds ago
I am a liberal, there are no liberal Republicans. You see, I have the same view of economic justice that I do of all other aspects of equality, which is incompatible with being a Republican. And Republicans have also become the indigenous American criminal class, producing the most dishonest, anti-democratic politicians and judges in current America, I despise the party which any honest person left long, long ago.

brisonc3  Camera Obscura • a day ago
number 1, how do you know the number of gay men with multiple sex partners is tiny? Many homosexual men have spoken out freely saying the opposite. Mogogamy can only be maintained with extra affairs on the side. According to these homosexuals, monogamy is not compatible with the orientation.
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Camera Obscura  brisonc3 • a day ago
Are you gay? I am, I have been for well over half a century. According to this GAY MAN monogamy is as compatible with being a grown-up, honest, responsible gay man as it is with any other gender identity. That is grown-up, honest and responsible. For other people who refuse to grow up, be honest or responsible, I'm sure they find being responsible in sex is as hard as it is for such folks to be responsible, generally .

I'm always so interested in having straight folk tell me all about being gay.

brisonc3  Camera Obscura • 6 hours ago
It isn't straight men saying that, it's gay men saying that and you may well be in the minority. I would say for example that mature teens refrain from sexual activity until they are ready for a permanent relationship and for children, but many don't.

It is the mature and responsible thing not have sex if you don't want children(since intercourse is what makes children), but left wingers poo poo the idea. "It isn't irresponsible to do what you want to do as long as you believe you are doing it safely". However "safe" is doing what is smart and gives the best result if one doesn't want to be pregnant, yet, the shaking of heads.

Yes, there are the responsible ones, but the gay public is not that responsible as we found out when HIV was first being reported and it was fairly discussed that bath houses and places for casual and even anonymous sex should be shut down for health reasons. Battle cries broke out.

Now where was this "responsible and mature gay majority" during that period? Not very vocal or not very large to the point of making a difference.

But for responsibility, what is irresponsible about more than 2 entering a contract of commitment(marriage) if each is willing to accept all mandates and responsibilities that come with it? That isn't irresponsible. What is irresponsible is to say you will, then don't. Those that want to enter such relationships should be able to do so until it is proven such relationships are dangerous. Until they are allowed to "come out of the shadows" and are given an opportunity to prove they can have successful relationships, don't keep them from the opportunity to try.

However this is exactly what many who now have achieved the cause of "marriage equality" want to do. Rob other models of relationships from having the chance to be and show they can be successful.

No homosexual should be against that since they just finished demanding that chance. "you should be able to marry who you love". For many, "love" is big enough for more than one. They should have that right. It doesn't hurt any 2 member marriage for others to have more than 2.

Camera Obscura  brisonc3 • a few seconds ago
You are lying about the lives of many, many gay men who don't engage in promiscuity, who don't engage in casual sex outside of a mature and mutually supportive and loving relationship. Gay men such as Dan Savage also tell lies like that, gay men who say that monogamy among gay men is impossible or, in the supreme irony of this discussion, "unnatural" are telling the same lies only more stupidly since they are confirming a widespread and false stereotype of gay men in order to promote irresponsible sex among gay men which, during my lifetime, led to the deaths of enormous numbers of gay men. Ironically, Dan Savage and his like share a degraded view of gay men with the very bigots who oppress us. Such sexperts who advocate unfaithful marriages for gay men and lesbians accept an already degraded view of marriage on our behalf. I reject their offer.

So, you are advocating that for straight, married couples who experience a loss of fertility or infertility that they remain entirely chaste, that there be no sex for women and their husbands after menopause or after they have had the number of children they had planned on having. Yeah, let me know how well that goes over. Most people, the vast majority of people, don't take that view of sex. It is a view of sex which is certainly not supported by the Bible. If it were then neither Abraham and Sarah nor Zachary and Anna would have had the children who played such a prominent role in the Biblical narratives they were a part of, Abraham would certainly not have begot the Nation of Israel and, if you take the genealogy of Jesus seriously, his mother would not have been born.

If, as I suspect, you are a Catholic it is especially ironic that you take the view of marriage you do because in Catholicism it is the couple making promises to each other for mutual support and love that makes the marriage, not some outsider approving of it. Marriage is a sacramental act the validity of which hinges on the mature consent to that agreement, it doesn't hinge on the fertility of the couple, entirely infertile couples, couples with no chance of conceiving due to biological impossibility are not barred from marrying or having sex within that marriage. The Catholic Church does not hold that such marriages are null and void, they do marriages in which one of both of the couple didn't make a mature and sincere commitment to the marriage agreement.

Your putting "love" into quotes when it comes to gay men and lesbians betrays your real thinking, which is motivated by hatred and bigotry.

Polygamy is an immature form of marriage which is based on two or more lesser relationships than a marriage involving two people. There is no way in which a polygamous marriage doesn't end up being an unequal relationship in which, in all historical cases, the women suffer in the lesser role of that relationship. I don't see any problem with a society not supporting that situation due to the inherent danger of inequality being a nearly fixed likelihood as being the result anymore than it doesn't support a marriage in which an unequal relations is bound to occur if one of the members of it is too young to make a mature agreement. The age of consent is, in some cases, arbitrary, many people of that age are too unintelligent or immature to give meaningful consent, but the law has to pretend that they can, I would expect that there are people slightly younger than the age of consent who could give the decision the requisite intelligent, mature consideration that it requires. But the law can't be that specific to an individual and uncharacteristic reality, it has deliver equal treatment, based on the most typical of circumstances. I don't have any problem with it taking the more typical outcome of polygamy into account in which one man marries more than one woman and has more children than they can reasonably take care of and support and give enough attention to to raise them to become responsible, mature adults who respect all people equally. While that is possible within a monogamous marriage, it isn't typical of straight monogamous marriage. I also don't think there is anything wrong with society admitting that the likelihood of inequality arising within a polygamous marriage is multiplied. It's bad enough when a father has a favorite among his children, to also give such people who play favorites an ability to have favorites among many wives, no doubt having that contribute to unequal treatment among their children, is nothing that society has any obligation to approve of.

Monogamous marriage among gay men and lesbians is not the same as polygamy for any number of reasons, polygamy is bound to create inequality and unequal treatment, it will, as well result in unequal marriages of the type that gay men and lesbians rejected in the past decade when it was offered. I, actually, favored the state getting out of the marriage business altogether and only granting, everyone, including straight couples a legal recognition of their relationship as a civil union, marriage being a far higher and private aspect of such a relationship, one which the state has no role in consummating, reducing that relationship to a mere contractual and financial arrangement. If you want to see what has damaged straight marriage, it is that reduction of its sacred aspect by straight people, just as the inequality of marriages in earlier times degraded it. Marriage equality elevates the married relationship to what it should be, a human practice of the sacred endowment of equality. God has the capacity to practice such intimate equality to more than one person, people don't share that same capacity.

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