Religious Right Reporting on Media "Pushing" Poly

At least the article wasn't dripping with sarcasm, it just had the usual hand-wringing paranoia. Actually Jennifer LeClaire is helping the poly movement, going by the "any press is good press" philosophy. Anyone who reads her article is going to get an earful about a practice they may have never heard of before. Now, far from stirring up outrage, she may have them curious to learn more.

It's encouraging to me that poly is becoming well enough known that even its enemies feel compelled to acknowledge its existence. It's no surprise if they do so in a hostile way of course.
 
The hand-wringing is mostly an after-thought. The mention of Sodom and Gammhora seems to be an almost ironic, tongue-in-cheek slap that only the most paranoid fire-and-brimstone people would take seriously.

At least this writer is attempting to write in an honest way. I've seen a few writers try and conflate polyamory with incest and bestiality. But you know, here in the south, it's still legal to marry your cousin in many states!

Anyways I have a few thoughts about this that I don't want to post in the comments on that site:

1) Why are they all posting scripture to justify their disapproval? Polyamory is a personal choice. If they don't like it, they don't have to engage in it.

2) Legal marriage is a state institution, not a religious one. If they don't like it, they don't have to engage in it.
 
Yeah, those were some sick polys, weren't they. :rolleyes:

Ironic title for the article, considering the saying, "Don't drink the Kool-Aid," originated from a wacko religious cult that got its members to kill themselves. I guess they're saying, "Well, so what, we only killed the body, whereas you sick polys want to kill the soul." [shrug] I'm pretty sure polyamory is going to gain more and more traction in society, regardless.
 
At least this writer is attempting to write in an honest way. I've seen a few writers try and conflate polyamory with incest and bestiality. But you know, here in the south, it's still legal to marry your cousin in many states!

Marrying your cousin is legal in many states in the US, as well as all of Canada, and I believe all of Europe (at least all of Western Europe). It's usually not considered incest, your genes differ enough at that point that it makes no difference compared to marrying anyone else who was also born in that country (someone from a completely different part of the world would make a difference, though).

Remember that DNA testing doesn't allow us to tell if someone is someone else's grandparent unless you have the middle person's DNA as well. People in the US always seem to overemphasize it, to the point that someone who is related through you in the most complicated way becomes "incest" to them. Most definitions of incest require you to be directly related, or with only one in-between. That is, your sibling, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, aunt/uncle, nephew/niece are all closely related to you enough for it to qualify as incest, but your cousin is not.

Kind of unrelated to the rest of the discussion but since I see that kind of thing all the time I figured I would clarify. Although I talked a lot about genes but incest isn't a taboo due to genes (homosexual incest is still a taboo, adoptive ties are still considered incest) but due to being raised by each other or together, which most cousins are not. In that prospect, childhood friends marrying is closer to incest that cousins who were raised apart marrying, in my personal opinion. (Still, neither of the two actually is incest).
 
Complicated topic, but I suppose I would be in favor of cousins marrying.
 
Honestly, what personally bugs me is when one person has clear power over another. Parents and children for instance (especially when they are still children and unable to consent). At that point it seems less a relationship and more a case of one person forcing another. Ultimately, from a moral standpoint, I would have no problem with siblings being in a relationship for instance. I think the genetic aspect is blown out of the water and used as an excuse, as people aren't fine with sterile or same-sex incest either.

But I wasn't trying to move the subject to whether people are okay with incest or not. I realise it's a very strong and difficult subject, probably because the first thing peopel think of usually involves children and manipulation. Then again, people have gut feelings about polyamory for similar reasons (forced marriages of young girls) so I think it's important to go past gut feelings.

I think the main issue the general public has with polyamory or polygamy is their wrong perception of it. So I agree that any exposure can be good, for two reasons:

- It makes it seem less rare, unique, and as a result less of a thing only crazy weirdos do
- Any exposure to consensual multi-partnered relationship lets people know that it exists, and more exposure can show that not only it exists but it's the majority of cases.

The more that can be shown, the more people can realise that being against polyamory because they are against forced marriage of children is like being against marriage in general for the same reason.
 
Heh, brother-sister marriages should easily be okay as long as the couple agrees not to have children. Perhaps one of the two would be required to get themselves fixed?

Polygamy is a problem where some/all of the participants have been brainwashed into doing it. When that happens, then one person (the brainwasher) has clear power over another (the brainwashed). It's obviously the case with a child bride, but one could argue that an adult woman could also be acting in the grips of brainwashing. So the issue becomes more complicated.

Finally, polyamory may be largely perceived in the same way. "No one would agree to that unless they had been psyched into it." It is hard to prove that any given person is not acting under some sort of mind control, but exposure to interviews with poly people may help other people to realize that a lot of (or most) poly situations truly are consensual.
 
Yes, I think it's the same with BDSM for instance where a lot of people think "there is no way this person is actually fine with this! They must have been coerced and/or brainwashed into thinking they're ok with it!"

In the end, it's really about people being unable to conceive that others may think or work differently. I'm not into being a 24/7 sub but I realise that some people are. When it's consensual it's fine. When it's forced it's horrible. Same with a lot of things, including sex itself, really.
 
Long before I heard about polyamory, I realized that true morality is all about consent. Sounds so simple, and maybe it should be simple, but in reality people struggle to identify what consent looks like.
 
Long before I heard about polyamory, I realized that true morality is all about consent. Sounds so simple, and maybe it should be simple, but in reality people struggle to identify what consent looks like.

This is so accurate.
 
And there's debates about what "hurts" somebody else. A lot of people think same-sex marriage would hurt them and their family (by eroding the society they live in, to put it succinctly). A less-charged example would be if I decided I wanted to paint my house orange and purple, and my neighbor argued that it would hurt him first of all because his eyes would be hurt, and secondly because it would affect property values.

So a line has to be drawn where you say, "Sorry buddy, but that's not enough so-called 'hurt' to give you special rights over another person's freedom."
 
And there's debates about what "hurts" somebody else. A lot of people think same-sex marriage would hurt them and their family (by eroding the society they live in, to put it succinctly). A less-charged example would be if I decided I wanted to paint my house orange and purple, and my neighbor argued that it would hurt him first of all because his eyes would be hurt, and secondly because it would affect property values.

So a line has to be drawn where you say, "Sorry buddy, but that's not enough so-called 'hurt' to give you special rights over another person's freedom."

I see some of those arguments as status quo arguments. Bullies will often justify the suffering they cause, but anything which erodes their ability to cause suffering - or worse, things which make them have to endure suffering - is suddenly the biggest, worst thing in the world!

I see the same thing going on here. People who would like to continue to mock, harm, and deride homosexuality want to defend their privilege to do so. When homosexuality is validated by law, that further erodes their legitimacy when they attack homosexuality.

People did the same thing with racial issues. When equality and other ideas entered the mainstream consciousness it suddenly became unpopular to use derogatory terms against black Americans.

Yet there are people who still exist today who harbor a simmering resentment against black people and those who champion equality.
 
Indeed. It's a problem that never quite seems to go away. I stubbornly hold to an optimism that future generations will see fewer bullies and bigots, but I also think it'll be a slow process, with perhaps no point where every bully and bigot has disappeared entirely from the social landscape. The large number of living people leaves quite a little bit of room for those occasional nutjobs. So it's all relative, if you take my meaning. "Racism has greatly diminished, but still exists in pockets here and there." That's something that some future generation might be able to say.
 
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