Polygamy?

I know, I know, more marriage-related stuff. What can I say, it's still in the news. =P

I read a very interesting post by Dr. Jillian T. Weiss on The Bilerico Project about someone who is challenging the Utah law against polygamy.

Before getting into that post, allow me to share my views on polygamy. First, some terminology. Polygamy means marrying multiple people. Most examples of polygamy are polygyny (hence the conflation of terms sometimes), having multiple wives. Then there is polyandry, having multiple husbands. Finally, polyamory is, based on its prefix and root, multiple loves (marriage is not necessary for polyamory). Polyamory is often more complicated than that, but that’s a post for another day.
I don’t care for polygamy because I don’t care for marriage. However, if polygamy was a legal option, I would dislike marriage less than I do now. Marriage would be open to a wider range of relationship types, though it would still ignore many living arrangements and not provide many people rights they deserve. In the mainstream, at the moment, the best I can hope for regarding things related to polyamory is polygamy. Ideally, as I said before, civil marriage wouldn’t exist and the rights associated with it would be given more justly. The next-best alternative for me (and what may be more likely—though I won’t give up) is that marriage is opened up to more living and relationship arrangements (I find this much more complicated and sill problematic). I also want to point out that many people who practice polygamy have misogyny issues. Misogyny is not a requirement for polygamy, however.

I think Dr. Weiss gets things right here, morally speaking (I don’t know much about the legal issues she’s talking about). She states “I think Mr. Brown has as much of a right to his relationships, as do his wives, as same-sex couples, or people who have multiple sex partners.” This is a much different tone from many advocates for “marriage equality” who respond to the claim that “same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy” with “NO! Polygamy is bad!” That is a direct affront to many people in polyamorous relationships, many of whom are queer. In this and other ways, I don’t think the current fight for same-sex marriage is doing anything to help (and is in fact hindering) polyamorous people from having their relationships recognized.

I don’t have much more to say on this note, though I do have a few requests. 1) Read the rest of the post. It’s short and Dr. Weiss makes a few more good points. 2) Don’t forget the poly people when fighting for relationship recognition. 3) Don’t respond to the argument that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy with disgust.