On Marriage and Monogamy

Writing in the Weekly Standard, Stanley Kurtz has an excellent piece entitled “Beyond Gay Marriage – The Road to Polygamy“. Definitely a good read, as Stanley does not so much prophecy the future as present evidence of what is currently being done by polygamists and polyamorists to mainstream their movement on the backs of the gay marriage movement. I particularly enjoyed the following response to Andrew Sullivan, who has more or less insinuated that social-conservatives are playing Chicken Little with the slippery slope argument between gay marriage and polygamous/polyamorous marriage:

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DURING THE 1996 congressional debate on the Defense of Marriage Act, which affirmed the ability of the states and the federal government to withhold recognition from same-sex marriages, gay marriage advocates were put on the defensive by the polygamy question. If gays had a right to marry, why not polygamists? Andrew Sullivan, one of gay marriage’s most intelligent defenders, labeled the question fear-mongering–akin to the discredited belief that interracial marriage would lead to birth defects. “To the best of my knowledge,” said Sullivan, “there is no polygamists’ rights organization poised to exploit same-sex marriage and return the republic to polygamous abandon.” Actually, there are now many such organizations. And their strategy–even their existence–owes much to the movement for gay marriage.

Scoffing at the polygamy prospect as ludicrous has been the strategy of choice for gay marriage advocates. In 2000, following Vermont’s enactment of civil unions, Matt Coles, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project, said, “I think the idea that there is some kind of slippery slope [to polygamy or group marriage] is silly.” As proof, Coles said that America had legalized interracial marriage, while also forcing Utah to ban polygamy before admission to the union. That dichotomy, said Coles, shows that Americans are capable of distinguishing between better and worse proposals for reforming marriage.

Are we? When Tom Green was put on trial in Utah for polygamy in 2001, it played like a dress rehearsal for the coming movement to legalize polygamy. True, Green was convicted for violating what he called Utah’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on polygamy. Pointedly refusing to “hide in the closet,” he touted polygamy on the Sally Jessy Raphael, Queen Latifah, Geraldo Rivera, and Jerry Springer shows, and on “Dateline NBC” and “48 Hours.” But the Green trial was not just a cable spectacle. It brought out a surprising number of mainstream defenses of polygamy. And most of the defenders went to bat for polygamy by drawing direct comparisons to gay marriage.

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On another note, my prediction is that the next attack against marriage and the family in the culture wars will likely come from the legalization of prostitution. Especially in light of the growing pornography industry, and the striking down of anti-sodomy laws, how can the government now hope to regulate a business transaction between two consenting adults? Sooner or later someone is going to point out the discrepancy between legality of pornography and the illegality of prostitution, which are essentially the same thing except that the former is somehow made available for public viewing.