Who Didn't See This Coming?

[Bill the Cat]

So you think polygamy should be allowed? Because what I'm hearing you say is that you don't think there's any good reasons why it shouldn't be...?

Why should ANY marriage be disallowed based on the criteria given by homosexual marriage proponents?

[seer]

So you think polygamy should be allowed? Because what I'm hearing you say is that you don't think there's any good reasons why it shouldn't be...?

No, I'm saying that after we redefined marriage there is no good legal reason to prevent any type of union.

[Starlight]

No, I'm saying that after we redefined marriage there is no good legal reason to prevent any type of union.

The primary focus in any court case about polygamy would be on the question: Does it cause harm?

The truth of whether polygamous relationships are harmful or not is not something that any gay marriage court case affects one way or the other. There's no inherent connection between the two things. Your notion of 'redefined marriage' isn't a coherent concept. There's no legal precedent of "now that we've redefined marriage once, we can do it again as much as we like and cite gay marriage cases as precedent" - that's simply not a thing.

[Yttrium]

Personally, I plan to fight against the relentless campaign by conservatives such as seer to legalize polygamy.

Well, by "fight" I mean that I'll vote against them. If polygamy comes to a vote where I'm at. Which I doubt will happen. Until then, I'll probably be pretty ambivalent about the subject, as usual. But I'll have that vote ready.

[Mountain Man]

Why should ANY marriage be disallowed based on the criteria given by homosexual marriage proponents?

I can't help but notice that he skipped right past this post and responded to the one that followed.

[Mountain Man]

There's no legal precedent of "now that we've redefined marriage once, we can do it again as much as we like and cite gay marriage cases as precedent" - that's simply not a thing.

Why not? If you don't think sexual deviants of all manner aren't eager to follow the trail being blazed by homosexuals then you're foolishly naive.

[Starlight]

If you don't think sexual deviants of all manner aren't eager to follow the trail being blazed by homosexuals then you're foolishly naive.

It's not a matter of how eager they are, it's a matter of what logic the courts follow in their decisions. Polygamists can be as eager as they like, but the legal requirements for them winning a court case have in no way changed: It would come down to the question of whether the ban exists for any good reason or not.

If you think that the attitudes of the general public towards marriage have changed, such that they would be more likely to vote to allow polygamy, then that is another matter entirely. I would agree with you on that. Attitudes probably have shifted significantly. There seem to be quite a large number of people in this thread alone who simply can't wait to see polygamy legalized so that they can say 'I told you so'.

[Mountain Man]

It's not a matter of how eager they are, it's a matter of what logic the courts follow in their decisions. Polygamists can be as eager as they like, but the legal requirements for them winning a court case have in no way changed: It would come down to the question of whether the ban exists for any good reason or not.

You really don't think legal precedent has any impact on future court cases?

[Joel]

So the bizarre notion that legalizing same sex marriage in the West would lead to or cause the legalization of polygamy here, continues to have absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

In addition to the question of a slippery slope, we could also consider the question of logical consequence.
For example, those who support same-sex marriage licenses on the grounds of "marriage equality" or equal protection of the laws, logically must also support polygamous marriage licenses (and must also support extending the same legal privileges to people who are not married). Otherwise they are being hypocritical, by merely supporting their preferred state of inequality and calling that "equal".

I am not a lawyer, but I have read quite a few of the US same-sex marriage decisions over the past couple of years (more out of curiosity about what kinds of reasoning were being used than anything else). The US legal reasoning that differentiates gay and polygamous people in court cases is the differing extent to which the two groups meet the various legal criteria for what are called 'suspect classes'. eg Black people in the US are a distinct group that has experienced historic discrimination, and the courts protect them accordingly, similarly with gay people. However 'polygamous' is not a recognized sexual orientation - people do not say "I am a polygamous person" in the same way they say "I am Black" or "I am gay" and as a result people who want to engage in polygamous relationships do not meet the legal criteria for identifying distinct groups that have been subjected to prejudice.

I've heard of people coming out as polyamorous persons. Does it come down to a matter of psychology? That seems improper, somehow.
But polyamorous persons can claim that they are subjected to historical prejudice by the existing laws banning polygamy?

Also I'm not sure why equal protection of the law would apply only to suspect classes, and not to everyone equally.

Thus allowing same-sex marriage is a legal change of literally one line in the law that defines who is allowed to get married. Whereas changing the number of people allowed in marriages has the potential to affect a lot of other laws, and is not remotely as simple a legal alteration. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but it may well be necessary to bundle amendments to ~100 different laws into any bill for polygamous marriage.

What if the courts declared them all to be invalid at once, because violating equal protection?

I've realized my above answer to this got sidetracked on a couple of technicalities rather than focusing on the main reason. In the same-sex marriage cases the primary focus has always been on: Are there any good (non-religious) reasons to prohibit same-sex marriage?

We're up to about 50 US court decisions on the subject now, and the rulings of the overwhelming majority of them have been that no, there is not a single good reason to prohibit same-sex marriage.

If advocates of polygamy can show in court that there is not a single good reason to prohibit polygamy, then they could get it legalized.

I should think that if a state statute violates the Constitution (e.g. the Equal Protection clause) it should be struck down even if the state has a "good reason" for the statute.

[Bill the Cat]

I've realized my above answer to this got sidetracked on a couple of technicalities rather than focusing on the main reason. In the same-sex marriage cases the primary focus has always been on: Are there any good (non-religious) reasons to prohibit same-sex marriage?.

Actually, no. It has not "always" been about "good" reasons to prohibit homosexual marriage. It was not until recently, with the Lawrence decision that the scrutiny shifted from "fulfilling state's interests" to "denying a right". This is a fundamentally different argument than the past 200 years of SCOTUS decisions on why the state government licenses marriage in the first place. For most of the history of this country, the government only cared about marriage because of the issue of providing the optimal environment for child birth and rearing. It had nothing to do with the right to marry whoever you choose. And TBH, it still doesn't. It is still illegal to marry someone solely for immigration benefits. It is also a courts martial offense if you are in the US Military and marry solely for the BAQ and BAH (see United States v. Strebel - Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals).

[Starlight]

For most of the history of this country, the government only cared about marriage because of the issue of providing the optimal environment for child birth and rearing.

That's simply not true. Hundreds of Federal laws mention marriage in some way, shape, or form: The government's interest in marriage always extended vastly beyond any one concept or single interest.

The same-sex marriage court cases have all dealt with the question of the optimal environment for child rearing, and featured extensive discussion of what hundreds of scientific studies over the last 30 years have told us about the optimal environments for child-rearing.

Scientifically speaking, the things that, on average, affect childhood outcomes positively are: higher education and wealth of parents, minimal moving between different cities / schools, being raised by two (or more) parents rather than one, and an affectionate, loving, and committed relationship between the parents and between the parents and the child. All the major scientific institutions have repeatedly testified to the courts, and had their statements repeatedly accepted and acknowledged by the courts, that the gender and/or sexuality of the parents is not a relevant factor in childhood outcomes and produces no difference.

I suggest anyone interested in this subject have a read of the brief submitted last week to the Supreme Court on the subject by the American Sociological Association on behalf of all US sociologists - once you scroll past the tables of contents the document is very easy-reading.

March 2015, ASA brief to Supreme court

"The clear and consistent social science consensus is that children raised by same-sex parents fare just as well as children raised by different-sex parents."

Many of the court judgments noted that the government is not in the habit of deciding that only people who are likely to make good parents can marry. There is no test of parental education or financial resources before the government 'allows' you to marry and have children. People of asian descent have slightly better outcomes for their children than any other race, but the notion of a racial test for marriage is equally ridiculous.

Even were it the hypothetical case that children being raised by same-sex parents did fare worse (which they don't), then stopping marriages for that reason would be totally arbitrary given that the marriages are not prevented in any of the other instances where there is strong scientific proof that the children will do worse.

Various courts have also noted that a large number of same-sex couples are raising children in a same-sex-headed household, and the denial of marriage to those couples harms the children they are raising. Marriage is known to strengthen relationships, and therefore allowing same-sex couples to commit to one another in marriage will strengthen their relationship and indirectly result in better outcomes for children they are already raising.

The Supreme court in it's Windsor decision was also concerned by the psychological effect on these children that denying marriage to their parents has: "[Denying their parents' marriage] humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. [Making it] more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives." (Windsor 2013)

It had nothing to do with the right to marry whoever you choose.

Very few of the US court cases over the last few years have greatly dwelt on the notion of a right to marry whoever you choose. They have spent a lot more time on issues like child-rearing. Because, as I said, they focused on "is there any good reason behind the bans on same-sex marriage". Nearly all of the ~50 the court cases have concluded that no such good reason exists. A couple of them have also concluded that there is a "fundamental right to marry" that is also being infringed here, but that has not been the dominant argument by any stretch.

[RumTumTugger]

I can't help but notice that he skipped right past this post and responded to the one that followed.

MM how mean of you not to let him hide the fact that he can't deal with what BTC said.

[Bill the Cat]

That's simply not true.

Uh, yes it is. I've debated this topic enough and cited Supreme Court decisions from the first 200 years of this country enough to know that the prevailing argument in favor of licensing marriage was that marriage was between a man and woman to foster the best environment for a child to be born and raised. As stated in Ditson v. Ditson and quoted in Maynard v. Hill:

"marriage, in the sense in which it is dealt with by a decree of divorce, is not a contract, but one of the domestic relations. In strictness, though formed by contract, it signifies the relation of husband and wife, deriving both its rights and duties from a source higher than any contract of which the parties are capable, and as to these uncontrollable by any contract which they can make. When formed, this relation is no more a contract than `fatherhood' or `sonship' is a contract."

And from a dissenting opinion on Bostic v. Schaefer, we see that procreation is what the SCOTUS has recognized:

Loving simply held that race, which is completely unrelated to the institution of marriage, could not be the basis of marital restrictions. To stretch Loving’s holding to say that the right to marry is not limited by gender…is to ignore the inextricable, biological link between marriage and procreation that the Supreme Court has always recognized

And even today in Deboer v. Snyder:

What we are left with is this: By creating a status (marriage) and by subsidizing it (e.g., with tax-filing privileges and deductions), the States created an incentive for two people who procreate together to stay together for purposes of rearing offspring. That does not convict the States of irrationality, only of awareness of the biological reality that couples of the same sex do not have children in the same way as couples of opposite sexes and that couples of the same sex do not run the risk of unintended offspring. That explanation, still relevant today, suffices to allow the States to retain authority over an issue they have regulated from the beginning.

Hundreds of Federal laws mention marriage in some way, shape, or form: The government's interest in marriage always extended vastly beyond any one concept or single interest.

All of those laws flow out of the contract of marriage being more than a simple contractual agreement between two people. As cited in the Maynard v. Hill decision,

... marriage was more than a contract; that it was the most elementary and useful of all the social relations, was regulated and controlled by the sovereign power of the state, and could not, like mere contracts, be dissolved by the mutual consent of the contracting parties, but might be abrogated by the sovereign will whenever the public good, or justice to both parties, or either of the parties, would thereby be subserved; that being more than a contract, and depending especially upon the sovereign will, it was not embraced by the constitutional inhibition of legislative acts impairing the obligation of contracts.

It seems you are not understanding what "state interest" means. Just because a law mentions marriage as a corollary does not make that law a "state interest" in marriage.

The same-sex marriage court cases have all dealt with the question of the optimal environment for child rearing, and featured extensive discussion of what hundreds of scientific studies over the last 30 years have told us about the optimal environments for child-rearing.

And most have resoundingly concluded that the optimal environment to birth and raise a child is when the mother and father remain together.

We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.

~ Barack Obama - N.Y. Times - July 15, 2008

Scientifically speaking, the things that, on average, affect childhood outcomes positively are: higher education and wealth of parents, minimal moving between different cities / schools, being raised by two (or more) parents rather than one, and an affectionate, loving, and committed relationship between the parents and between the parents and the child. All the major scientific institutions have repeatedly testified to the courts, and had their statements repeatedly accepted and acknowledged by the courts, that the gender and/or sexuality of the parents is not a relevant factor in childhood outcomes and produces no difference.

We do not think that [the Regnerus study and others] settle the nation's ongoing debate about gay parenting, same-sex marriage, and the welfare of children. In fact, research on same-sex parenting based on nationally representative samples is still in its infancy. But we think that the Regnerus study, which is one of the first to rely on a large, random, and representative sample of children from parents who have experienced same-sex relationships, has helped to inform the ongoing scholarly and public conversation about same-sex families in America.

http://www.baylorisr.org/2012/06/a-s...s-controversy/

This area of social science is in its infancy, so claiming that "gender and/or sexuality of the parents is not a relevant factor in childhood outcomes and produces no difference is improper of the scientific institutions. As an aside though, you will find most of the boards of these same scientific institutions populated with hardline leftists who are hyper-critical of studies that contradict their established mantras. Sociology professor Neil Gross, a self-described liberal, reveals the results of surveys showing this bias in his new book, Why Professors are Liberal and Why do Conservatives Care? Particularly of note is where Gross admits, “…it would be foolish for anyone with truly antifeminist sensibilities to become a sociologist,” due to how liberal that field has become. (http://townhall.com/columnists/rache...6406/page/full)

I suggest anyone interested in this subject have a read of the brief submitted last week to the Supreme Court on the subject by the American Sociological Association on behalf of all US sociologists - once you scroll past the tables of contents the document is very easy-reading.

The handwaving and backpatting in that brief was dizzying. In particular, the brief claims this of the Sullins studies "The two papers fail to account for family stability" which is utter nonsense. The Sullins study SPECIFICALLY states "Bivariate logistic regression models tested the effect of parent psychological distress, family instability, child peer stigmatization and biological parentage, both overall and by opposite-sex family structure".

Many of the court judgments noted that the government is not in the habit of deciding that only people who are likely to make good parents can marry.

Nor is there any argument from the other side claiming that.

There is no test of parental education or financial resources before the government 'allows' you to marry and have children.

Again, no one is claiming otherwise.

People of asian descent have slightly better outcomes for their children than any other race, but the notion of a racial test for marriage is equally ridiculous.

Because race is completely unrelated to the institution of marriage, and could not be the basis of marital restrictions.

Even were it the hypothetical case that children being raised by same-sex parents did fare worse (which they don't), then stopping marriages for that reason would be totally arbitrary given that the marriages are not prevented in any of the other instances where there is strong scientific proof that the children will do worse.

There simply is no dispute that marriage plays a fundamental role in society by encouraging men and women to commit permanently and exclusively to each other and to take responsibility for their own children. Homosexuals simply can not reproduce together, and therefore, there is no reason for the state to take an interest in assuring that a conducive environment exists for them to take such responsibility.

Various courts have also noted that a large number of same-sex couples are raising children in a same-sex-headed household, and the denial of marriage to those couples harms the children they are raising. Marriage is known to strengthen relationships, and therefore allowing same-sex couples to commit to one another in marriage will strengthen their relationship and indirectly result in better outcomes for children they are already raising.

Which is odd, considering "marriage" is not listed in your statement above. Let me recite what you said:

Scientifically speaking, the things that, on average, affect childhood outcomes positively are: higher education and wealth of parents, minimal moving between different cities / schools, being raised by two (or more) parents rather than one, and an affectionate, loving, and committed relationship between the parents and between the parents and the child.

So, are you saying that one NEEDS a piece of paper from the government in order to have an "affectionate, loving, and committed relationship"? Because marriage is not required in your earlier list, then this entire "it damages the children" argument flies right in its face.

The Supreme court in it's Windsor decision was also concerned by the psychological effect on these children that denying marriage to their parents has: "[Denying their parents' marriage] humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. [Making it] more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives." (Windsor 2013)

Which flies in the face of the ASA brief you positively cited earlier:

Social science studies also confirm that children of same-sex parents are just as psychologically healthy as children of different-sex parents. According to a nationally representative study, adolescents raised by
same-sex and different-sex parents report similar levels of self-esteem and depression.

So, are there similar psychological effects or are they different?

Very few of the US court cases over the last few years have greatly dwelt on the notion of a right to marry whoever you choose.

Not true at all. Judge Walker's decision specifically says marriage "has been historically and remains the right to choose a spouse..."

And you can not deny that this is exactly what the populous saw and interpreted the decisions to mean.

They have spent a lot more time on issues like child-rearing. Because, as I said, they focused on "is there any good reason behind the bans on same-sex marriage". Nearly all of the ~50 the court cases have concluded that no such good reason exists. A couple of them have also concluded that there is a "fundamental right to marry" that is also being infringed here, but that has not been the dominant argument by any stretch.

Most of the decisions that followed Perry list the "fundamental right to marry". Again, nothing you provided refuted my claim. For most of the history of this country, the government only cared about marriage because of the issue of providing the optimal environment for child birth and rearing.

[Joel]

Scientifically speaking, the things that, on average, affect childhood outcomes positively are: ....

I'm curious how the scientific studies in question measured "positive outcomes" or "fare well" or "wellbeing".
Different people may rank differently the various factors of wellbeing. For example, many people would say that, by far, the most important factors are things like: godliness, wisdom, and virtue. Do the studies measure those things?

(I'm not making any claim here. I'm just asking a question I think is relevant.)

[Starlight]

I'm curious how the scientific studies in question measured "positive outcomes" or "fare well" or "wellbeing".

Any given study will typically pick one or two dozen outcome indicators to study, which commonly measure things like mental health, physical health, behavioral problems, graduation rates, social adjustment, gender identity, sexual behavior, etc. Here's an example list from one particular meta-study that summarizes the various indicators surveyed in the set of studies it analyzed: "self-esteem, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, performance in social arenas (sports, school and friendships), use of psychological counseling, mothers’ and teachers’ reports of children’s hyperactivity, unsociability, emotional difficulty, or conduct difficulty."

Some of these things can be subjective, and researchers sometimes survey the children themselves (usually once they've reached adulthood), or their parents (usually while the children are still young), or both, or simply focus on the objective evidence - eg graduation rates etc.

Different people may rank differently the various factors of wellbeing. For example, many people would say that, by far, the most important factors are things like: godliness, wisdom, and virtue.

Hmm... I've read studies about what people worldwide think about what constitutes "wellbeing" in general, and it's not the things you list.

I think that one of the studies on same-sex parenting might have included measures of moral character in the study, but I can't remember which one. Those sort of things are pretty hard to measure, and typically most studies prefer to stick to more objectively measurable things. I suspect that any sort of morality analysis you tried to do would simply show you that LGBT people tend to be less religious than average because the church has been nasty to them and forced them out, so you would want to compare children raised by LGBT people to children raised by atheists to be sure you were comparing apples with apples.

I assume you are speculating that there might be some kind of 'damage to the morality of the children' by being raised by 'parents in an immoral relationship' or somesuch... which I find quite hilarious.