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[Polygamy] Will it legally stand or fall before the charter
Posts
The difference between "inherently causing harm" and "inherently likely to cause harm" is pretty enormous.
Those people either haven't thought their plans through, or haven't arranged another way to get home, or haven't stopped themselves from getting drunk. They have neglected to act. Negligence.
There is no negligence in a non-arranged polygamist relationship. Everyone in the relationship is acting with intent.
Oh, is that the point of the law? Because if it is, the law is a terrible tool for preventing suffering. I was under the impression that laws existed to define acceptable behavior and provide penalties for people who do not conform to said acceptable behavior.
And your refutation is inane because you don't actually address the point. Why does polygamy have to be illegal on top of the other stuff already being illegal? What purpose does it serve?
Hint: it's not because it's inherently harmful.
Holy shit, you still don't fucking get it. It's illegal because even if it's not well enforced, it's still society sending a message that the conditions that foster other illegal behavior will not be tolerated. Maybe you can call it a nanny state or whatever, I don't care, but all your philosophy would do is allow more harm to come to pass. Why is Jaywalking illegal, when Vehicular Manslaughter is just as illegal? It's to prevent people from getting run over in the first place.
I'd still like you to give me that % of harmful polygamist marriages you'd let proceed in the name of protecting the ones that aren't harmful.
Well, to be fair I don't agree with wwtMask's legal ideas, I just don't think polygamy is harmful in and of itself and keeping it illegal to address the harm caused by crazy mormons is completelly ineffective. So you may as well make legal to allow those who want to freely engage in such acts to do so.
I don't see how it is except in those cases where it is egregious (IE Mormon compounds) in which case the existence of a religious compound is probably a better proxy indicator. I mean I could live with multiple women pretty much anywhere in the United States and no community groups would likely raise a finger unless I was flaunting it, but doing so would still leave me bereft of any legal benefits.
Okay fair enough.
Plenty of people can drive with a BAC of .08 no more unsafely than the average driver on the road. But we make that a per se offense because it aids in the prosecution of those that are too intoxicated to drive.
wwtMask, what is your opinion on this?
Unfortunately that brings up some even worse freedom of religion issues.
If polygamy was legalized, you can bet your sweet bippy that providers would start worrying more about how many dozen people were covered under each plan, and passing that cost on to the employers.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
A clever evasion of the question. Your refusal to answer the question is on par with that of a master politician.
You haven't given me any good reason to believe that polygamy is inherently more likely to foster the illegal behavior than any other marital setup. Your arguments have essentially been against offshoot Mormon polygamy sects. You want to beat that horse, have at it. That doesn't make you right when you try to hang the sins of those assholes on the general practice of polygamy.
No more than they 'worry' about people having tons of children and passing that cost on. Sure, some people may have to pay for a small increase in some section of their health care, but that is more or less attributed to the terrible way our health care is set up and not some inherent problem with polygamy. I mean, if I want to have 3 kids and someone else wants to have 8 and we are under the some umbrella policy, then I am paying for their choice. But welp, that is just the way the cookie crumbles. And given that polygamists aren't likely to compose a large percentage of the insurance pool, I doubt the increases would really be egregious.
I didn't say that drunk driving was inherently harmful. I was saying that there's a difference between drunk driving and non-arranged polygamy because drunk driving stems from negligence and you can't enter into a polygamist relationship without the intent of doing so. Unless you get stuck in an arranged marriage, but I don't think anyone here is down with that.
Are you a polygamist yourself? Do you have personal experience with the practices of the polygamist community outside of the offshoot Mormon churches? Is there any community? I certainly don't see them calling their politicians or holding up signs.
That difference is pretty much irrelevant.
The two situations are similar in that, while some people might be able to practice each without harm, the social ills prevented by keeping it illegal outweigh the social benefits of that legalization.
Only because our society maintains backwards and uptight views on divorce.
I say we legalize the divorce of things from cultural context in cases of irreconcilable differences.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
Damn you, Puritans!
I'm not evading anything, I'm saying that your question is flawed in conception and was clearly designed to be a trap, and failed at it. Are you saying that polygamy necessarily leads to forced marriages? Because I have evidence that this is not true. All I'm asking is that you address the actual problems you cite and stop conflating polygamy with them. Your logic is more an argument against fundamentalist Mormonism than it is against polygamy.
Except polygamy would be ripe for abuse. You and your twelve friends need health insurance? Get married. In order to abuse the number of kids covered, you sort of need to squeeze out more kids.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
It's too bad, then, that we can't outlaw Fundamentalist Mormonism. So we do the next best thing.
People are continuing to argue in a civil manner. Nobody's being a dick. I think wwt's positions is all kinds of special, but if he wants to keep arguing it with people, I'mma let him. It's not like there's some awesome discussion of polygamy that's being buried by stupidity, or anything.
Maddie: "I am not!"
Riley: "You're a marsupial!"
Maddie: "I am a placental mammal!"
But then I won't find out who all these polyamorists are on the forums that Saammiel was talking about!
Dude, read the fucking thread. I've already answered a question similar to this that Medopine asked. My personal marital situation has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but I'm not ashamed to say that I have one wife and have zero desire to have a second one. But I don't begrudge someone who'd prefer to have more than one wife.
This is a dangerous and utterly retarded view. "We don't like your religious views, so we're going to make up a reason to punish you for it." Get the fuck out of here with that crap.
My example works.
Should slavery be legal just because certain couples find it helpful to their relationship?
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
It's not like I'm going to wake up one day and polygamy will be legal. I won't deny you the fun of your self-righteousness.
Isn't slavery forced servitude against the consent of the enslaved party? Oh hey, that sounds like harm, we should probably make that illegal.
Are there anymore false equivalencies that I ought to be shooting down?
I'm not under the illusion that polygamy will ever be legal in my lifetime, thanks in large part to cultural traditions left over from a long time ago. And I don't really care so much about it that I'd advocate for it. The things I've been saying have been in defense of what I think is the logical approach to the issue.
But I'll say this, if polygamy became legal tomorrow, I doubt very much that your life would change noticeably.
there (i think) are legal ways to declare someone you are not related to but are living with as your dependent so theres the tax reasons.
health insurance maybe? but im pretty sure if it was legal they would just change the family coverage to only one spouse and offer a special polygamist insurance that would cost more anyway....
theres nothing wrong with being polyamorous but whats the benefit of being a polygimist?
Jeffe is a strong supporter of a forum's right to choose.
actually, even better:
the idea of banning a form of marriage because "well, they'll just use it to abuse various benefits" is appalling, to me.
What's so special about marriage that gays want to marry? It';s just what some people want, for others it's about equality.
I see where Plutonium is coming from exactly. He's made his point clear.
I think he's being a little overly critical on wwtMask, though.
Mask's opinion is just as valid, in that because someone can lead to abuse doesn't mean it has to be illegal to prevent suffering.
Like, why not ban cigarette's? Or how about marriages entirely? Surely that would eliminate domestic abuse.
A point brought up earlier is that people don't want to legalize polygamy because it will lead to abuse. But abuse is happening already, and it's illegal.
OK, so we must think that legalizing it will lead to more abuse. But... where is the precedent for that belief? Who here can honestly say that if it were legal they'd certainly shack up some wives and start beating them? Or know anyone who would?
people are really attached to stereotypes and glazed doghnuts as well....
if the only reason someone who is polyamorous wants to be a polygimist is so that the world can know, then im fine with not letting that happen. there are better ways to tell the world.
edit: the difference here is that people can be married but just not all 3 of them. gays can't be married at all.
The difference is that 1+1 marriage only allows for you to claim one "fraudulent" dependent.
With legal polygamy, the potential for abuse approaches infinity.
Not that this alone is an argument in favor of keeping it illegal, more just rebutting your specific point.
well, actually given various states domestic abuse laws, it wouldn't necessarily. Virginia, for example, just requires you to live together for a certain period of time
I'm still reading the rest of the thread, but wondering: has anyone broached the topic of, say, a simple bisexual polyamorous marriage? That is, a person is bisexual and has a boyfriend and girlfriend and wishes to marry both of them?