Bountiful Youth Provided Good Education

Contrary to antiequality-based attacks on Bountiful that are getting much press due to the Canadian poly trial, it turns out the education is good there.

But the bigots can’t handle the truth, so they attack the report.

The NDP were quick to seize on the Bountiful result to argue that the ratings, which have long been controversial, are not useful.

``Bountiful Elementary (Secondary) School sharing the top spot in this year's report - a finding that is at odds with information that has recently been provided in the (Supreme Court) - illustrates the problems with the methodology the Institute uses, and with the overall report,'' said a statement from NDP leadership candidate Adrian Dix.

Not true…

Peter Cowley of the Fraser Institute said the report's rankings are based only on the results of children taking the tests.

``This is a reasonable test of the curriculum expectations that the ministry set for these three subject areas in these two grades. You get the measure and let the chips fall where they may,'' said Cowley.

Cowley said Bountiful's position at the elementary grade was based on its academic performance, and not on its popularity.

This was also covered here.

A Good Question

Stefan1991 asked “Why is Incest illegal in the UK?” He cites a mother and father of four children. This couple story of this is well known to people who follow news about consanguineous sex, as they were both jailed for loving each other as they are brother and sister.

Who has the right to say that a consensual relationship is wrong?

Glen_Nichols gave the standard, ignorant reply…

The kids will be mutants.

As has been pointed out many times before, most sex does not result in births, most children born to consanguineous parents are healthy, and, finally, we do not deny people their reproductive rights based on the likelihood of their offspring having birth defects or inherited diseases.

Lewroll had a strong reaction, but was unable to provide a logical argument to keep consanguineous sex criminalized…

Ok, thats it, I've had enough. This has gone too far!!

This attitude of let two consenting adults do whatever they want is fine...up to a point.

Incest is sick, and if it ever becomes legal....just the thought of it makes me want to be sick.

Then don’t do it. Don’t want such a relationship? Don’t have one.

How would you feel if your brother and sister came home one day and told you they had been having sex?

I’m happy for any consenting adults who have found love, or at least a good time, with each other, as long as they aren’t violating existing vows to another.

Stefan1991 returned to the discussion to expose what a weak argument Lewroll was using…

What would you do if your mum came home one day and said she had raunchy sex with your dad. Oh, would you feel sick then too? Better ban parental sex as well.

Exactly. Just because someone is turned off or disgusted does not mean everyone else should have to refrain.

The discussion goes on for many more messages.

What if you couldn't marry the person you love? Think about that.

Freedom to Marry Regardless of Religion

Andrea Johnson cautiously supports the polygamous freedom to marry.

A court in Canada is set to make a decision on whether to declare the laws against polygamy unconstitutional in that country. I think it might be a good idea here too, though it would probably be a tax code and legal nightmare.

It doesn’t have to be.

She then goes into Carolyn Jessop’s book and recent news about some FLDS communities.

Despite her own negative experiences, she favors decriminalizing polygamy because she thinks it will offer women in these situations more legal protection and perhaps prevent some of the all-too-common abuses, such as underage marriages. I think she has a good point there.

So do I.

She then mentions Muslim polygyny, and how homes are broken up when not all of the wives and children are allowed to immigrate with the husband.

I'm not sure how practical it would be to legalize polygamy, but I think an argument could be made that refusal to recognize it or prosecuting people for practicing it is a violation of freedom of religion.

It’s also a violation of the freedom of association and equal treatment. People can want a polygamous marriage without a religious basis, and they should be allowed that. It doesn’t matter if they are basing it on a religion, or what religion, or not. It doesn’t matter if they are the same race or not, the same generation or not, if they are closely related or not, if they are the same gender or not, or there are two, three, four, or more of them. Let them have the freedom to marry. Let’s have full marriage equality.

Elmwood commented…

I have done a little reading about Polygamy and one question I have is how could one man with 20 wives and over 110 children support them?

There’s nothing stopping any man from impregnating 20 consenting women right now. There are many men who have impregnated four or more women in a short time span. We pay some of these men large sums to play in professional sports, for example, but even if a man is unable to pay all of his child support, he is not prevented from impregnating more women. Most people know a woman who has children by three or more men. With marriage equality, at least we’d have more children will be growing with married parents.

Polygamy More Ethical?

Don Lee makes a case that "Polygamy is more Ethical than Monogamy.”

He explains that professing monogamy isn’t always matched with actual monogamy.

In Western culture this is generally referred to as either "family friend" or "serial monogamy", neither of which are true monogamy. While being legally married, approximately 80% of all couples experience a sexual contact outside of marriage, and this remains the 2nd largest cause of classic divorce.

It may be cited as a cause in a certain number of divorces, but in a good chunk of those cases, it is not the cause. It may be a symptom. Yes, there are some divorces in which cheating (a physical, emotional, or financial relationship with someone in violation of the agreement with the spouse) is the cause, but I think it is clear to less biased observers that the cheating is a symptom of the real problem leading to the divorce.

The largest cause of divorce is loss of income, itself a revealing indicator of what Western Marriage is really all about.

Moral monogamy is "marriage until death" in most cultures. Legal monogamy is having only one legitimate spouse. These are in no way similar concepts, and in practice are quite diverse. Legally, you can be "monogamous" about nine or ten times, and some people have been married more than a dozen times.

In general (prostitution and consanguineous sex being generally illegal, and thus excluded) a married person having sex with someone other than his or her spouse is not criminalized in the US, though in a few states it can be subject to a lawsuit in civil court.

My point is not just that "serial monogamy" isn't really monogamy, and it isn't, but that many completely happy 30+ year marriages indulge in "private activities" which involve other people. Apart from the roughly 90 million Americans [almost one in three] who are members of sexually-themed clubs, or swingers, there is the harsh reality of cheating. 8.5 in 10 marriages experience infidelity according to most studies. The number ranges from 6 to 9 in 10 depending no the focal group, however the larger the group - the higher the ratio trends! Meaning, the likelihood that more people "cheat" is found to be more significant when studying larger groups.

As I have said before, actual monogamy is a minority behavior.

The chances of a successful marriage are less than 30% by most calculations, and those are odds I would not play even in Vegas.

This is where I think the writer gets it wrong, depending on how one defines “successful.” I suppose it is possible to say that if you exclude all marriages that end in divorce, separation, estrangement, or otherwise experience significant trouble, no matter how long they lasted or what was accomplished during the marriage, you could arrive at this figure. Mostly, though, when emotionally healthy and mature people marry with no prior marriages or other significant baggage (prior children, large debts, serious criminal record, Anita Bryant record collection), the odds of it lasting until death are high. But you do have these people, especially a lot of these types who tend to be against marriage equality, who marry and divorce three or four times, skewing the odds.

Marriage can help. Marriage can enhance a relationship. Many people who have experienced cohabitation without marriage and then with marriage report a difference. Full marriage equality will bring that to others, too, thus improving life for LGBT people and their family members, poly people, etc.

The essay goes on to talk about how being intolerant leads to divorce, and makes a case that men are generally on the short ends of the stick with current marriage laws in the West.

Essentially, we have a primitive legal structure based on outdated morality, which continues to exact life-destroying punishments upon those who have harmed nobody.

Boy, is that ever true!

He goes on to make a case that current laws and programs encourage women to raise children outside of legal marriages.

Now we get to the good part…

Ethically, poly marriages are far more stable, rarely dissolve, and provide enormously well for the children. Allowing people to license a group marriage would ensure long term stability, and make divorce very unlikely to cause emotional harm to the children even when it does occur.

The law should not be enjoined to prevent any class of person from getting married, such as gay people, or mixed race, or people from other nations.

If people want to get married, we should get out of their way and let them.

He writes a bit about the difficulties faced by same-sex couples, before returning to the poly topic.

Yet, there is no news flash about a poly family member killing her kids because she was depressed. The chances that any person in a poly marriage would be so isolated that they could develop a problem that dangerous, and that severe, are remote to the point of ridiculousness. In a poly marriage you're never alone, suffering apart from your mate, or without some conversation. Poly structures actually require communication as a part of existence.

You can't be poly without communicating. It does not work.

Therefore, Polygamous marriages are by definition far more stable and successful than monogamous marriages, because polygamy can't even be started without extensive communication, deal brokering, and long negotiations.

He knows what he’s talking about first hand…

I grew up on a farm with a family that practiced legal polygamy, and I was never abused until my mother pulled away from the family and converted to Christianity. Her abuse put me into a foster home, which cost me my birth family, and also all contact with the rest of that family. I never knew them again. I did not rediscover my roots until I was in the military and dated a young Jewish woman. There, again, I saw the warmth, unconditional love, and large prosperous families that I'd remembered.

This is probably one of the worst kept secrets about Western Judaism, and one that many would probably like me to shut the heck up about, but it's truth. Ethically, there's not only nothing wrong with it, Polygamy is in reality a multitude of times more healthy and successful than Monogamy. Despite being demonized in Christian media, persecuted by law thanks to other religions, and widely derided as abusive for more than fifty years, Polygamy continues unabated, safely, without harm to anyone.

After explaining that polygamy isn’t inherently harmful to women, he goes on to get more broadly philosophical.

With as much as I quoted, there’s a lot I didn’t. Go read the whole thing.

If it could be conclusively proven that polygamy was generally better than monogamy, I still wouldn’t discourage monogamy. That’s because I believe in full marriage equality, in which people make their own choices about their marriage, or whether or not they will marry at all, or whether they will stay married. It is too bad more people who tout monogamy can’t extend that kind of respect to poly people.

A Feminist Supports the Freedom to Polygamous Marriage

Over at Finding My Feminism, Not Guilty wrote in regards to the Canadian poly trial and the community of Bountiful…

As I have stated before, I am wholly supportive of adult women making the decision to enter into a polygamous marriage. I believe that making polygamy illegal is simply the government seeking to make decisions for women that men believe women are incapable of making for themselves. There is a case in the British Columbia courts involving the polygamous communities in Bountiful, BC. The case is challenging Canada's polygamy laws as unconstitutional on the basis that they are a Charter violation of religious freedom. While I personally don't enjoy supporting ridiculous religious beliefs, the reality is that a polygamous relationship affects nobody else and it thus none of our damn business.

Very well said. She goes on to write that she is against teenage women marrying much older men, and gives a suggestion for revisions in the law.

She links to an earlier message she wrote that references “Sister Wives.”

My gut reaction to polygamy is that it is wrong and I am glad it is illegal. I also wish it were enforced more strictly. Unfortunately, I never let myself just go off my gut reaction; I always think more deeply about issues.

That’s a good thing. My gut reaction when seeing open-heart surgery is “gross!” but it doesn’t mean it should be illegal. It saves lives.

My reasons for disagreeing with polygamy include the manifestation of the patriarchy since it is always men with multiple wives and never, as far as I know, women with multiple husbands; oppression of women; and the effect on the children.

That isn’t true, of course. There are polyandrous families. I link to some of them on this very blog.

She mulls over how things are for the children in polygynous familes….

Except when you delve a little deeper, this is no different from children raised by same-sex couples. There is no evidence kids are harmed by having same-sex parents and any harm that does befall them is due to prejudices in society. If this is the same with children of polygamous families, I really don't have a leg to stand on. Unless there is clear evidence that these children are somehow damaged by being children of a polygamous family, I don’t feel comfortable declaring polygamy wrong.

The reason my gut reaction is that polygamy is wrong is because I don’t understand it and to an extent, the idea repulses me. But I don’t get to judge the lifestyle of other people just because I disagree with it; that isn’t my right. I despise people who judge LGBT, so I cannot in good conscience, without evidence of harm, judge polygamous families.

Yay for solidarity.

Another Witness Defends Polygyny

This newspaper columnist seems skeptical of Canadian poly trial testimony from a wife living in Bountiful.

How benign, how egalitarian, the polygamous wife from Bountiful makes it all sound.

A place where the wishes of girls and women are respected, their input on desired husbands and time of marriage considered, their views on religious dogma weighed and obedience not strictly required.

To hear “Witness 2’’ tell it, there’s no coercion, no banishment of maturing boys by elder males covetous of nubile females, and only discretionary tithing — a word she refused to accept — such that the community can pay legal bills for associated members who’ve been charged, even convicted, of sexual assault against minors in the United States.

Maybe she’s telling the truth? How exactly would DiManno know differently?

She is in her mid-40s, shares a husband with a “sister-wife” — her biological sister is married to the same man and, as first in on the nuptials, technically his only “legal’’ spouse — and together they mother their combined 19 children. Nine of them were borne by Witness 2 and are aged 7 to 26.

Why is it that anti-equality commentators also seem to be against having more than two children? Which came first, their misanthropic fixation or their fixation on the marriages of other people?

By her own description, Witness 2 is not a typical Bountiful plural wife. She has some post-secondary education, occasionally left her babies in the care of her sister-wife to attend classes outside the secretive community, and has for many years been working as a midwife.

Wait, you mean they aren’t kept chained to beds or stoves?

“My children feel like if they say the wrong thing to a dentist or doctor, their father could go to jail,’’ she states in her affidavit.

It is sad that children can’t speak of their parents’ marriages without fear of police action in response.

Institute full marriage equality. If you see child abuse or domestic violence, prosecute that. Don’t procesute consenting spouses for marrying each other.

When the Surrogate or Donor is Family

An anonymous comment alerted me to this article (thank you) about intrafamilial medically assisted reproduction (IMAR). It discusses a position paper published 20 January 2011 by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). The context framing this is when unrelated spouses use a close relative of one of the spouses to assist in reproduction, but the issues are also relevant to those involved in consanguineous spousal relationships (such as, say, first cousins or a mother and son or a sister and brother) who want to have children.

The group advises to evaluate each request for IMAR individually, based on four ethical principles in health care: the respect for autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence and justice.

That sounds reasonable.

The Task Force explains that the right for individual autonomy is elementary: any individual should have the principle of choice with whom to reproduce. It is understandable that couples wish to preserve some sort of genetic identity with the child, and hence may wish to choose a donor in the family.

I personally know a lesbian couple who had used sperm from a brother of one of the women. It is fairly common for same-sex couples or heterosexual couples experiencing infertility to involve a close relative in some way, whether as a surrogate mother, sperm donor, egg donor, or embryo donor.

In some countries IMAR is illegal and the relevant laws against incest and consanguinity apply to protect the offspring from genetic risks and to avoid possible social disruptions and conflicts.

Ridiculous. How about using genetic testing to avoid risks?

According to the principle of justice, doctors should treat similar cases in the same way. So if sister-to-sister oocyte donation is accepted so should brother-to-brother sperm donation.

This is fair.

The paper gives special attention to (rare) cases of consanguineous IMAR, involving the mixing of gametes of persons that are genetically closely related. "The Task Force considers consanguineous IMAR between up to third degree relatives as acceptable in principle, subject to additional counseling and risk-reduction," says Professor Guido de Wert, coordinator of the ESHRE Task Force. "Here, genetic counseling is appropriate to assess the increased risk of conceiving a child affected by a serious recessive disease."

With genetic counseling, there shouldn’t be any restriction on degree.

First-degree intergenerational IMAR needs special scrutiny, also in view of the increased risk of undermining autonomous choice. First- and second degree consanguineous IMAR is at odds with the spirit of anti-consanguinity and anti-incest legislation in most countries and should not be offered.

The laws should be changed.

In any general population the risk of having a child with a handicap or a major disease is 3%. In third degree consanguinity [such as between cousins], the risk is estimated to be around 5-6%. If the applicant and the intended collaborator carry the same disease, there is a 25% risk of conceiving a child affected with that particular condition.

I encourage anyone, even if they don’t believe they are closely related, to get tested before making children, and that would include testing any donated sperm or egg. Isn’t it good to know the risks ahead of time so that an informed decision can be made? Close relatives can and have had healthy babies together, but it is good to know the possibilities? You don’t have to get tested as a pair. You can get individual tests.

A Hypothetical About Consanguineous Sex

The Stig Mommy asked “What Would You Do?” Here’s the situation.

You meet your DH [Dear Husband], date for years, are madly in love and get married. You have four beautiful, smart, and healthy children. Your marriage is still strong after 15 years.

15 Years into your marriage you somehow discover that your DH’s father (who has passed away) had an affair and a love child from a disclosure by your MIL [Mother-In-Law]. The name of the other woman strikes a chord with you but you cannot remember where from. Weeks later it is still bugging you so you go digging. Turns out this woman is listed as your birth mother on your adoption papers. She too has passed away before you ever got a chance to meet her. You match the timelines up and it turns out YOU are that love child. Surprised

WWYD??

Tell your husband that you are actually brother and sister? Would you get a divorce? Stay together? What would you tell the kids? Or would you keep the whole thing a secret and sweep it under the rug? Please explain your reasoning.

So what would you do, dear reader?

I’m a male and not gay, so if I was a husband who had discovered this truth about my wife (that we were half-siblings) I would tell her only if I thought it would make her happier or have no effect. I would not tell her somethng like this if it would upset her, seeing that she could not do anything about it. But I wouldn’t be married to a woman who is grossed out by the very idea of consanguineous sex, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want to be married to me. So most likely, I would tell her. Nobody else necessarily needs to know. Notice that the children in this hypothetical are healthy.

What if you had to live with it as an open secret? As in everyone know that you are brother and sister and decided to stay married.

The problem there would be bigotry. But I would challenge the gossips to explain exactly what the problem is. It would provide many teachable moments, showing that such marriages can be lasting and happy.

Most respondents, by far, chose “Stay married but tell only DH the truth”.

There were a lot of comments.

Grinberga…

I would throw up..for weeks.

I understand that some people are turned off by certain things. For example, most heterosexual men do not care to think at all about male-on-male sex, and may even be grossed out by the idea. I understand that some people have that reaction when it comes to consanguineous sex. But wouldn’t the life and happiness built together mitigate that?

Amy1352…

You know, I would honestly tell my husband and then we'd probably sweep it under the rug. I don't think I would tell my kids at all.

Then I'd go into therapy.

Therapy? Why? To get over new negative feelings? Certainly not to get over having a great marriage.

MetaIMama…

I would divorce but remain friends, no reason to not have ANY relationship. I just couldn't live with the fact that I was married to my own brother.

Sad.

Skipper13…

I would keep it a secret, but I also would probably get a divorce. We can stay friends and parent the children, but I do not know that I could be comfortable being romantic with him ever again, that kind of ruins it for me.

Why? Think of it as finding out that something happened your husband when he was so young that he didn’t remember it. You find this thing to be a turn off. Would you really break up a good marriage over it?

The Stig Mommy checks back in…

DH says its way to gross and he would divorce.

That’s sad. She’d still be the same person he married.

emilysmom110405...

I actually know of a similar thing happening IRL. In this case, they were young adults (early 20s) and were not married, but were dating and the girl got pregnant. Her father passed away soon after she discovered her pregnancy. That's when all the family secrets came out. The boyfriend was either the son of her father or her father's father (could have been either as his mother was sleeping with both of them).

Interesting.

Buttercup+4…

The horse is already out of the barn. The four kids are born, and they are fine. . So there is no issue. .

I wouldn't care if I found out my husband was my fraternal twin and we were separated at birth.

There is true love.

Mommy_Pix…

After 15 yrs and four children, you have pretty much run the gamut, the only thing left is the empty nest/retirement. Why throw that away because of something you've found out AFTER all of that?

Yes.

How about you, dear reader? What would YOU do?

An Advantage of the Polygamous Over Monogamous

From a study that appears in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, we find out some interesting news out of the Centre for Evolutionary Biology, University of Western Australia.

The team discovered that sperm from polygamous mice are better competitors in the race for fertilisation.

As always, this may or may not be applicable to human beings.

Dr Renee Firman and her team attempted to show that sperm from rival males compete to fertilise females and that, over several generations, polygamy can select for mice who produce more sperm, with stronger motility, than monogamous males.

The study found that while 53 per cent of the litters had mixed paternity, 33 per cent of litters were fathered by the polygamous males compared to 14 per cent by monogamous males.

And whether they were mated first or second, polygamous males retained this advantage, showing that the increased fitness applies to both offensive and defensive competition.

Depending on the causation, if someone wants children they may be better off practicing polygamy, and someone who doesn’t want children may find an advantage in monogamy instead of polygamy. Or maybe the more fertile are more likely to practice polygamy? As a reminder, I am not against monogamy. I am a firm believer that each person should be free to pursue celibacy, monogamy, polyamory, or polygamy (in whatever form).

Prison Sentence in West Virginia Incest Case

Most news sources hide the identity of sex crime victims. Most news sources hide the identity of minor victims. We're never given the age of the supposed victim in this case. Overall, I find this coverage of the story to be deficient.

A father got his daughter pregnant, and she had the baby.

Larry Darby was sentenced to 15 to 35 years in jail for incest and sexual assault by a parent.

He was sentenced for "incest and sexual assault." Was the victim underage? Or was she an adult who consented. If she was an adult, the sexual assault charge would indicate she did not consent. Either the incest charge was superfluous, or there were consensual encounters that were incestuous, but did not fall under the sexual assault category. I wish we had clarification.

"I don't ever want to lie to my child," Aleena Jones said. "I'm scared to tell him the truth because I don't want him to hate me for what happened."

If she was coerced, she had nothing for which to apologize.

This is where we get some indication that there is more to this than consensual sex between adults (which should not be a crime at all):

The family says this isn't the first time he has had sexual contact with young girls.

"He was glaring at me the whole time I was up on the stand," Jones said. "It just made me feel even nastier."

The family says he's fondled another victim and has served time for it.

"My second daughter was involved in all of this, too, and he tried to do stuff to her, too," Kimberly Jones said.

"Young girls" would indicate minors to me. But we're never given ages for any of the girls.

Now, Darby will spend more than a decade in a cell, but with the possibility of parole.

"I'm not willing to take a chance on these types of people who engage in these types of crimes," Prosecutor Mark Plants said.

If Darby gets out, he will have to spend the next 50 years on supervised release.

It is bad enough the law isn't more precise when it comes to consenting adults vs. an adult preying on a minor, lumping both together as "incest." But the media does this as well. There should be more clarity in reporting. If this woman is a victim, her name should not have been published.

Woman's Incest Conviction Upheld in Canada

A mother, known as "B.D.", lost her appeal of her conviction on incest and other charges. The case developed after it was discovered that a child who died was the offspring of her and her 21-year-old son, who was also her husband. They have two other children together as well. The other criminal offenses included trying to forge birth certificates.

An autopsy revealed the girl who was brought to Cambridge Memorial Hospital one June morning in 2001 had died of natural causes. However, the glands on top of her kidneys were very thin.

It’s a condition that can result from incestuous conception.

Police grew suspicious and asked Ontario’s Centre of Forensic Sciences to set aside a sample of the girl’s blood for possible DNA testing.

The appeal was based on whether or not the police should have been allowed to do that.

The 21-year-old man who brought the child to hospital had identified himself as her brother.

But the girl’s mother, then 47, claimed he was her husband.

As it turns out, both were right.

Until the laws change, it would be good to avoid self-incrimination.

On Thursday, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld her convictions for incest in a case Justice Robert Blair described as giving “new meaning to the word bizarre.”

People used to think interracial and same-sex marriage were "bizarre" too. But we've overcome such bigotry.

The Benefits of Polygamy

On Health Answers, I found “13 Reasons Why Polygamy Would Be Beneficial To Human Society.” It appears to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I wanted to take a look at it.

There would be much lower numbers of single, frustrated and lonely men and women in society : Women sharing the husband and men having to not compete over women anymore.

I do believe that there would be at least some reduction in the number of frustrated/lonely singles and some reduction in the rates of cheating and in the rates of divorce. “Much lower” might not be the right description, because it hinges on people agreeing to be polygamous, and for a lot of people, that is not something they’ve been conditioned to consciously choose.

No more parent less homes : More and more households would have a father and mother in the home with the children.

Again, there would be some reduction, but there would still be some homes with just one parent.

Wealth and Value increase exponentially : If you have a household with 3 or 4 adults all making some money. They could
A. Bring in more income
B. Displace all their debts/liabilties and
C. Save extra money for supplies, vacations, savings etc.

Yes.

Peoples mentality changes for the better : People generally will become more mature, more giving, more caring and more responsible.

Some poly people report this effect.

There were some responses.

NobodyAn…

Ok, here’s the biggest question. Why? Why would a woman, or women, choose to be with a man who has to share his time, income, everything, with other women?

Some women do prefer “sharing” a certain kind of husband over monogamy with another kind, or being unmarried. Let them have this choice.

One person wrote…

I have no problem with a man having multiple wives, but a woman having multiple husbands is IMMORAL and WRONG!

You can hold that belief, but both men and women should have the same freedom to marry.

There were the typical bigoted objections that assume women are incapable of making choices and any man who doesn’t have a wife all too himself will turn genocidal. Astounding.

Yet Another Pespective on Consanguineous Sex Restrictions

At the Atheist Experience, Matt D. ponders laws and bigotry towards consanguineous sex. Atheism isn’t invoked in the argument. Rather, the venue meant that nobody invoked a religious restriction on sexuality or marriage.

While I personally find the concept of marrying a sibling, etc. rather "icky", there are lots of things that I find "icky" that aren't necessarily immoral and that society has no business restricting. My aversion is something that most of us experience and it's known as the "Westermarck effect" but that's not the case for everyone.

There are certainly biological reasons to avoid inbreeding, but marriage isn't necessarily about procreation. There are also psychological issues that surround taboo relationships (both contributing psychological issues and psychological issues that result from such unions) but we have to be very careful to distinguish between issues caused by societal disdain for something (as was/is the case with inter-racial marriages) and psychological harm that is intrinsic to the relationship (a daughter raised segregated from societal influence in order to 'brainwash' an incestuous spouse).

So far, so good.

I think there's a compelling argument that we should generally discourage incestuous marriage in order to minimize the risk of birth defects and psychological trauma, but that we are probably not justified in prohibiting those unions as a matter of law.

It is good that he recognizes the lack of justification for laws against consanguineous sex. It is too bad he seems here (see below) to express support for discouraging people who have found love in this way.

He continues, pleading a lack of enough information to make a move either way.

Until such time as we have compelling evidence (and not just a visceral aversion), I'm not sure that I can support laws against such marriages - but I'm in favor of discouraging it by education and investigating such relationships to ensure that we have true, informed consent.

Not exactly support, but at least it isn’t another knee-jerk condemnation and spewing of hate.

He does cut some slack for people who were unaware of their close biological relation when they fell in love, who are people who most likely are experiencing Genetic Sexual Attraction.

I'm of the opinion that it would be more immoral to prevent their marriage that to allow it...and that colors the entire spectrum of possible incestuous relationships...especially when you consider that some people get married, lead happy lives and find out about their kinship years later.

He ends with…

As a matter of personal freedom, unless someone can demonstrate clear harm, I don't see a compelling reason to disallow it.

Then comes back with an amendment…

Re-reading that, it looked like I was in favor of discouraging a loving relationship between people who happened to be related and that's not the case. The education comment was intended to address the real risks and not be a pronouncement about whom you should/shouldn't love or marry.

So it looks like we have another ally. Thank you, Matt D.

Most of the comments expressed general support for this freedom to love, sex, and marriage (and to poly people, too), though there was a disapproval of procreation.

Weedwhacker showed a lack of solidarity...

This "argument" is nothing but a distraction tactic to make same-sex marriage sound illicit and immoral.

Actually, we are just trying to fight for the rights of all consenting adults to love, sex, and marriage with the person or person(s) of their own choosing. You don’t have to like the idea of consanguineous sex to see that there is a larger set of rights that covers having sex with someone of the same sex and having sex with someone who is a close relative. The right to free speech not only covers, say, unpopular books about Roman Catholicism, but also paintings of ugly dogs, and movies critical of Richard Nixon. Are those all the same things? No, they aren’t, but are all protected by the right to free speech, even if only a few people want to make paintings of ugly dogs.

Dawn evaluated the genetics…

I don't have the exact numbers at my fingertips (got rid of my genetics books about 6 years ago) but if I recall correctly, the "unknown" risk of birth defects due to familial marriage (sibling, parent/child) is about 10% (and I may be recalling incorrectly and it might be 10% greater than the usual risk of about 3% in the general public marriages).

Of course, that is an increase of risk. But so is the marriage of 2 persons with sickle cell trait. We don't demand those people not marry. We don't say Ashkenazi (sp?) Jews not marry within the group, although they have a higher risk of birth defects. We don't require anyone get genetic testing. So why keep incestuous marriage illegal?

Thanks, Dawn.

If someone does practice a religion and that is the basis for some of their personal restrictions when it comes to sex or marriage, they should certainly be free to live that way themselves. But they should not be able to force anyone else to adopt the same restictions.

Changes Proposed to Laws in Ireland

Ireland may lower the age of consent, but bring the sentencing against women who commit “incest” up to the level that applies to men. I wish “incest” would be defined in the article, even if not in the law. As I have consitently maintained, there is a big difference between child abuse and sex between consenting adults.

THE GOVERNMENT will publish new proposals to lower the age of consent to 16 years, down from the current age of 17, early in the new year.

I neither support nor oppose this. Generally, I support the age of consent being no higher than 18. I do not think lowering the age of consent under 16 is a good idea. I also don’t think teenagers who are close in age to one another should be prosecuted for consensual sex.

It also proposes raising the maximum sentence for women who commit incest to life, up from the current seven-year maximum sentence, which was recently imposed on a mother of six.

The sentencing standards for convictions of child molestation or child rape or statutory rape should be the same regardless of genders. Consensual sex between adults should not be a crime.

The Incest News blog also picked up this story.

The Legal Nitty Gritty of Polygamy

A very helpful person commenting on a previous entry provided and essay on two different possible models for legalizing polygamous or polyamorous marriages. I have previously expressed support for what the essay calls an “all-with-all” model, in which everyone in the marriage is legally considered a spouse of anyone else in the marriage. As such, if two married people wanted to add a third person, it would legally re-form the marriage instead of adding a second marriage to one of the current spouses. Practically, while a Muslim man who practices polygyny would consider up to four women his wives, those wives may or may not (more likely, wouldn’t) consider any of the other wives their spouse. While the man would have four spouses, each of his spouses would only have one; him. Legally, however, “all-with-all” would consider them all spouses of each other.

The essay below favors another model, a “dyadic network” model, in which our hypothetical polygynous man may see two of his multiple wives also marry each other, and later divorce each other while both staying married to him. This does have a certain appeal, because if all three spouses are able to consent to go from a “triangle” to a “V” socially and financially in a peaceful, then isn’t that a good thing that should be supported legally?

My concern, though, is this. Existing marriage laws, at least in the US, create what amounts to a corporation with the two spouses having an equal financial share unless otherwise specified. The default is that should one of the spouses die, the other spouse retains the corporation’s assets. This would have to be changed under the “dyadic network” model, otherwise we’d have what amounts to multiple corporations with equal claims to the very same assets. To use a business model, if a corporation owns a plot of land, how can one of the shareholders create another corporation that has then has ownership of the same plot of land at the same time? The original partner shareholder is not likely to be happy with that. With the “all-with-all” model, shareholders are added to the existing corporation. Given our current laws and legal system, I would think the “all-with-all” model would be easier to legalize.

I am not a lawyer. If a court or legislative body was considering increasing the freedom to marry by adopting the “dyadic network” model, I would support that. My chief concern with this blog is full marriage equality, which includes, among other things, the freedom to polygamous marriage. That may involve a man and multiple women (polygyny), a woman and multiple men (polyandry), or the grouping of multiple men and women. Consent of all involved is essential. This consent not only includes the freedom to marry, but the freedom to divorce.

Under the “all-with-all” model, if one or more spouses wants to bring an additional person into the marriage and one or more of the other current participants is resistant, the person(s) seeking to change the marriage can either 1) give up on the idea, 2) convince those resistant so that they will sign the paperwork, or 3) accept that to add the new person(s), someone else is going to leave. The resistant can either decide to leave or decide that the change will be worth it to stay in the marriage that includes the current spouse(s). The paperwork burden is on those who want to bring in new spouses.

If one or more spouses want to leave, the remaining spouses can decide to stay together in the instantly re-formed marriage, or not, but they can’t stop anyone from leaving.

Under the “dyadic network” model, if one or more spouses want to bring an additional person into the marriage and one or more of the other current participants are resistant, the paperwork burden is on those who want to leave. They must take action, while in the “all-with-all” model, all the resistant have to do is say “no” when someone else wants to add someone else, and it will be up to the person seeking change to either drop the proposed change or leave the existing marriage to create a new one.

The essay describing the dyadic network model is below. More information can be found here.

Proposed models of polyamorous marriage include an all-with-all approach to marriage (whereby three or more persons are all joined together at the same time within a single marriage) and dyadic networks (whereby existing laws against bigamy are revised such that people are perfectly free to be concurrently married to multiple other persons, provided that each such new marriage is preceded by a legal notification regarding the pending new marriage to all those to whom one is already married; failure to provide that legal notification would then constitute the updated crime of bigamy).

Anthropologists consider humans to be a pair-bonding species.

This does not make it necessary for our marriage laws to be based on pair-bonding. What (some, majority, “all?”) anthropologists believe need not translate into law. Social dynamics don’t necessarily need to be the basis of the law. Marriage laws are mostly about property, taxes, and other financial considerations, next-of-kin rights, and recognition. This is something to keep in mind as we look at the rest of the essay.

The “all-with-all” approach attempts to replace human pair-bonding with triad-bonding, quad-bonding, etc. Dyadic network theory says that human pair-bonding is our fundamental method of relating, and that polyamorous relationships arise from overlapping pair-bonds.

Dyadic networks would result in what might be thought of as a "molecular" family structure - one which might be best represented by the molecular diagrams commonly used in chemistry. In this way, marriage would remain a dyadic relationship (i.e., a relationship between two persons), thus minimizing any changes to the existing system of legal marriage, but the introduction of concurrency would provide access to legal marriage for polyamorous families.

Dyadic networks can correctly represent any situation associated with the "all-with-all" paradigm, as well as many situations that the "all-with-all" paradigm cannot deal with. A "complete" dyadic network would take the form of a complete graph, in which every person is (pairwise) married to every other person, thus correctly representing any situation associated with the "all-with-all" paradigm. A dyadic network may also represent situations in which some persons are (pairwise) married to some members of the dyadic network but not to all of them ("V" and "N" geometries, for example) — these are situations that the "all-with-all" marriage paradigm is unable to accurately represent.

Under the current restrictive “monogamy only” laws, two people can be considered married under the law even if they haven’t done anything with each other in years except share an address. They could be having sex with others and carrying on almost entirely separate lives. In that sense, the situation is not “accurately represented” by the law. There is no reason that legal recognition of polyamory (or the polygamous freedom to marry) would have to correspond to the social dynamics of the relationship. In other words, not all of the spouses need to actually be lovers with each of the other spouses.

The "all-with-all" marriage paradigm assumes that everyone is equally involved with everyone else in the group — one global marriage agreement has to fit every participant at the same time. But dyadic network marriages separately define the terms of each specific 2-person relationship, and these dyadic marriages do not typically happen at the same time (A marries B, B marries C ("V" structure), C marries D ("N" structure), etc. — thus, the shape of the dyadic network dynamically changes over time). Participants in a dyadic network need not even be aware of the specific terms of marriage agreements existing elsewhere within the same dyadic network.

Someone with the ability to refuse consent should be aware. That means either the registering government or the other spouse(s). Why? Let’s say person A marries person B with the agreement that B will be the income earner while person A will maintain the home. The agreement is that should they divorce, person A is entitled to 50% of the material acquisitions ("community property") during the marriage. Now, let’s say B subsequently marries C, with the same agreement between B and C. If either connection ends in divorce, the agreements will be discovered to be in conflict. That is why all spouses should have to consent and be aware and file a valid marital agreement (such as with an “all-with-all”). For example, A, B, and C would all have to agree that that anyone leaving would be entitled to 33% of the community property, or if they all agree that B should get 40% and A would get 30% and C would get the remaining 30%, then that is fine if they’ve all agreed to that. A and C wouldn’t have to be having sex with each other or even share meals for them to be part of the same marriage.

Under the "all-with-all" marriage paradigm, when irreconcilable differences arise there can be no alternative to a complete separation — one person cannot divorce another without ending the entire marriage agreement for everyone involved.

It would mean that those who want to remain married would instantly have a re-formed marriage. Instead of three people, it would be two people, with the person who left taking whatever their marital agreement provided or what the default divorce laws provide. It would be up to the person who has irreconcilable differences with one or more of the other spouses to decide if those differences matter enough to either want to leave the marriage alone, or convince the spouse or spouses with whom he or she would still like to be with to “leave” with him or her.

But dyadic networks can function in much the same way as watertight compartmentalization functions in naval vessels, i.e., to limit and contain damage. An intense disagreement between two persons takes place within the context of their marriage, and need not greatly involve (or threaten) the relationships between other participants. Within a well-connected dyadic network, a divorce between two persons need not result in a complete separation of the network — for example, a dyadic network with triangle geometry would simply turn into a dyadic network with "V" geometry.

An "all-with-all" marriage can only exist or cease to exist. In contrast, the shape of a dyadic network can dynamically change over time. Divorces subtract connections, and marriages add connections. The dyadic network itself either changes shape, separates into two dyadic networks, or merges into another dyadic network, depending on the precise nature of the newly added or subtracted connection.

The maximum size of an "all-with-all" marriage is limited by the fact that every participant must be aware of the existence of every other participant (otherwise the global marriage contract would be invalid, because it could not satisfy the legal condition known as a "meeting of the minds"). But since a dyadic network relies only upon every participant's local knowledge of his or her own direct partners, its size is theoretically unlimited. The dyadic network paradigm is so powerful that it is theoretically capable of managing a situation in which every adult on earth is legally joined together in a single enormous dyadic network. Thus, with the dyadic network model, the idea of "many loves" is directly translated into a practical reality, and the "infinity" symbol (representing love without limits) is directly matched by a marriage model capable of handling an infinitely large number of participants.

The Dyadic Networks model of polyamorous marriage raises important questions related to marital commitment. With a single dyad, the situation is simple; each spouse commits to support and protect the other, and the logic of conventional monogamous marriage applies. However, when multiple dyads intersect in a dyadic network, how exactly does the commitment process work?

To understand this, let us consider the parent-child relationship. In the parent-child situation, the support commitment exists only in one direction - from parent to child. When there is a single parent, the child has a single source of commitment, and all protection must come from that source. However, when there are two parents, they are jointly responsible for meeting the child's needs. The precise arrangement is worked out somehow, and provided that the child's needs are being met the law has no need to intervene. If the child's needs are not being met, then debt collection methods such as garnishing wages, seizing assets, etc. can and do occur in order to ensure that child support takes place. These actions are typically proportional to income and/or wealth, so the wealthier parent will pay more. Where a parent has commitments to multiple children, the parent must faithfully carry out his or her responsibilities to each and every child. Although it may sometimes seem that the needs of children are unlimited, this is not actually the case, and once a child's needs are satisfied (a certain amount of food, shelter, medical care, etc.), all parents of that child may regard their commitments as being satisfied with respect to each need for which adequate provision has been made, regardless of which parent(s) actually did the work of satisfying that need.

Turning now to commitment in the dyadic network model, this can be understood as a bidirectional version of the parent-child model. Each dyad represents a commitment of each spouse to the other. Thus, in a V configuration, the two partners at the ends of the V each rely upon commitments from the single partner at the center of the V (the "pivot") - each of them has one spouse. The "pivot" partner can rely upon two commitments, one from each of the two partners at the two ends of the V - the pivot partner has two spouses. If the pivot partner is incapacitated, he or she is in a position comparable to that of a child with two parents - two people are committed to assist him or her and must do so up to the point at which the pivot partner's needs are satisfied. If one of the partners at the end of the V is incapacitated, he or she has only one spouse to rely upon - the pivot partner, who is fully responsible for meeting the incapacitated partner's needs up to the point at which that partner's needs are satisfied. If both partners at the end of the V are incapacitated, then the pivot partner is in a position comparable to that of a single parent with two sick children - he or she must meet the needs of both.

Again, this is why consent is required by all. If A and B are married, and B wants to marry C as well, A must consent. Maybe C is engaged in risky behaviors that make it more likely that C will become incapacitated, and A, who has been counting on full access to the financial and emotional resources of B, must now consider if this new risk is acceptable.

Let us now consider whether the commitment relationship is "transitive" - if A is committed to B, and B is committed to C, does this mean that A is committed to C? No, this is not the case. C can legally rely only upon the commitment of B and has no legal basis to expect or receive a commitment from A. Nor can A rely upon the commitment of C - that could happen only when and if A directly married (mutually committed to) C. However, suppose that C's needs are so large that B is thereby driven into bankruptcy and becomes destitute. Then B can rely upon A's commitment to provide B with a certain minimal level of support (food, shelter, medical care, etc.). Thus C's needs can have an effect on B that causes A to provide more support to B than would have been the case had C not needed to draw heavily upon B's commitment.

Hence, under the dyadic networks model, positive effects arise as a result of multiple commitments. When there is only a single dyad, there is a substantial risk that the size of the commitment will exceed the capacity of the committed. However, when each person is linked to multiple other partners in a dyadic network, this has the effect of bringing in additional capacity to meet any needs that may arise. Three or four spouses may be easily able to carry a commitment load that would have quickly driven a single spouse into bankruptcy.

The analogy to parent-child relationships carries over into other situations as well. Just as it would be improper to discriminate against a parent for having too many children (or too few children), so it would be improper to discriminate against a person for having too many or too few spouses. But with each additional child comes an additional commitment, and the same is true of an additional spouse. Adding another child to one's health insurance coverage will usually result in an increased monthly charge for the insurance, thus adding another spouse would probably have a comparable effect. But a child, or a spouse, only needs to be covered once, regardless of how many parents, or spouses, are available to provide that coverage. Also, a spouse may be economically self-supporting and thus able to pay for his or her own health insurance, so in this respect the total support cost for an additional spouse would then be zero.

Having drawn lessons from the parent-child relationship and applied them to dyadic networks, let us now draw a lesson from dyadic networks and apply it to the parent-child relationship. Just as there is no inherent reason why a person should not have more than one spouse, so there is no inherent reason why a child should not have more than two parents. When the law of marriage is updated to legally support dyadic networks, the existing adoption mechanism can be used as a means by which additional commitments to children can be created. For example, a single dyad may have already produced two children when each member of the dyad marries a third partner, thus creating a triangle. The newest member of this dyadic network can then execute two adoptions to become the third parent of each of the dyad's two children. Hence, in this situation, each of the three adults now has two spouses and two children. To the extent that any legal barriers might hinder the use of adoption in this manner, such legal barriers would also need to be direct targets of polyamory's legal activism (in addition, of course, to updating the law of marriage to support dyadic networks).

This N-parent situation has already been raised in the New York Times (When 3 Really Is A Crowd, July 16 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/16/opinion/16marquardt.html): “On April 30, a state Superior Court panel ruled that a child can have three legal parents. […] Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, observed, 'I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously, three adults who are financially obligated to the child’s support and are also entitled to visitation.' […] As one advocate of polygamy argued in Newsweek, 'If Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy.' If more children are granted three legal parents, what is our rationale for denying these families the rights and protections of marriage?” Our firm answer: there cannot be any legitimate rationale for the unconstitutional denial of this legal protection to polyamorous families.

The New York Times op-ed raises a question: “Conflicts will undoubtedly arise when three parents confront the sticky, conflict-ridden reality of child-raising, often leading to a nasty, three-way custody battle. Even if they part amicably, they may still want to live in three different homes. In that case, how many homes should children travel between to satisfy the parenting needs of many adults?” The legal answer has been provided by New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Leonard (Pennsylvania Court Finds Three Adults Can Have Parental Rights, May 01, 2007, http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leonardlink/2007/05/pennsylvania_co.html): “[...] the court gave Jennifer primary custody of the one nephew who was living with her, and partial custody (visitation rights) with the other three children; Jodilynn got primary custody of the three children and partial custody (visitation) with the one nephew, and Carl was awarded partial custody (visitation) of one weekend a month with his two children.” In the event of divorce, family law judges will calculate child support obligations and distribute visitation rights in accordance with the best interests of the child(ren).

Again, I would support the Dyadic Networks model as opposed to no gain in the freedom to marry, but I'm not yet convinced it is better than the all-with-all model. With either model, I would strongly recommend there be a written agreements over what would happen if any one of the participants decides to leave.

What About the Children?

Abdullah asked a very common question…

How likely is it that brother-sister incest will produce a healthy child?

Taking the question exactly as it is written, a very small percentage of sexual encounters result in a live birth. Only sexual encounters that result in a healthy sperm entering a healthy egg and fertilizing it, followed by successful implantation in the uterus, followed by gestation until viability will produce a healthy child. (This is leaving aside reproductive technologies, donors, and surrugotes.)

But I suspect that the question the person was really asking is that if a brother and sister have a pregnancy that comes to term and is successfully delivered, what are the chances of the child being healthy?

Most likely, with any given brother and sister, the child will be healthy. With any birth, there is a chance of the child having a birth defect or genetic problem. All it takes is for a genetic problem of one or both parents being passed along, or a the embryo developing one on her own. If two people have the same genetic problem, as siblings may, there is an increase in the chance that their child will have the same problem in comparison to the general population. However, that increase in chance will still mean that the overall chance is a minority chance.

Anyone concerned about these things should have genetic testing and counseling. People who are not close relatives can pass along health problems.

We do not deny people the freedom to marry based on their lack of ability to birth healthy children or lack of intention to birth children. We do not make criminals out of them based on those things, either.

More Polyamory Can Make the World Better

PsychologyToday.com continues to feature adapted content from Polyamory in the 21st Century by Deborah Anapol, Ph.D. In this entry, we find “The Upside of Polyamory.”

Polyamorous relationships offer many means of accelerating personal growth. All intimate relationships at their best are a path to higher consciousness and greater self-knowledge, largely because of the valuable feedback-or mirroring effect-one receives from a beloved. Having more than one partner at a time not only increases the available quantity of feedback but also makes it harder to blame your partner for the problems you might be creating in the relationship

But what about the children, if there are any?

One of the most common concerns about polyamory is that it's harmful to children, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Multiple-adult families and committed intimate networks have the potential of providing dependent children with additional nurturing adults who can meet their material, intellectual, and emotional needs. While parents may end up focusing less attention on their children, children may gain new aunts, uncles, and adopted parents.

More adults sharing parenting can mean less stress and less burnout without losing any of the rewards. In a larger group of men and women, it's more likely that one or two adults will be willing and able to stay home and care for the family or that each could be available one or two days a week. If one parent dies or becomes disabled, other family members can fill the gap. It's possible for children to have more role models, more playmates, and more love in a group environment.

It can also be good for the environment…

Polyamory can mean a higher standard of living while consuming fewer resources. Sexualoving partners are more likely than friends or neighbors to feel comfortable sharing housing, transportation, appliances, and other resources. Even if partners don't live communally, they frequently share meals, help each other with household repairs and projects, and vacation together. This kind of cooperation helps provide a higher quality of life while reducing individual consumption as well as keeping people too busy to overconsume.

Read the whole thing. Or go buy the book. We should not be discouraging responsible polyamory.

Still Waiting For A Good Reason to Deny Marriage Equality

This guy tries to explain why only some adults should have the freedom to marry the person they love.

Essentially, I believe that whatever involves just consenting adults, and does not do violence to others or society as a whole, should be tolerated. And, when it involves the notion of legal equality, it should be accepted.

Sounds great.

Gay marriage: Sure. Fine. Whatever. "I think it's gross" is NOT sufficient legal justification for banning it.

Thanks for supporting this freedom to marry.

Incest: No, no, a thousand times no.

Why not? He struggles to justify his opposition to this freedom to marry.

In some cases, it involves minors -- so there goes the "consenting adults."

By starting out with this, he’s trying to equate fun, romance, and love between consenting adults with child abuse. It’s like making a case against adults working for a living because of child-slave labor. I, like most people who want marriage equality, condemn child abuse.

In others, it raises the likelihood of inbreeding -- so there goes the "harm to others."

We’ve dealt with this one so many times before. There is no law against people having children despite and increased risk that the child will inherit a disease or birth defect, so unless you want to deny reproductive rights and force everyone to take genetic tests and bar carriers and the congenitally disabled and women over 35 from having children, then equal protection prevents this from being a justification to bar this freedom of association and freedom to marry. Still, most children born to consanguineous parents are fine. Furthermore, there are people marry who have no intention of reproducing, and most sex does not result in a live birth, nor is it intended to. So give this one a rest.

In some, involving parents, squicky issues of power and authority and inequality are raised.

This objection also fails. Next?

But even in those cases where those pitfalls are avoided, the introduction of the sexual dynamic entirely within the family structure causes violence to society as a whole.

What does this mean, and where is the proof? One might as well say that it kills ancient redwood trees. Spell out the harm. The sexual dynamic often brings people closes together. If you’ve found otherwise, maybe you’re doing it wrong.

Bigamy: Too many legal nightmares.

That’s what the bigots said about same-sex marriage and the Americans With Disabilities Act and just about any civil rights laws. Of course it is easier for those who already have what they want to keep things as they are. But what about all of the people who are denied their rights?

Let's take the case of Adam, Eve, and Eden. Adam marries Eve, and then the two marry Eden. Then Adam wants out. What does that mean to the legal relationship between Eve and Eden? Are they still married, even if they don't want to be? Are they divorced from each other, even if they don't want to be?

Use some thinking. It is very simple. If Adam leaves, Eve and Eden have the option of either continuing in a reformed marriage or entirely dissolving the marriage. It’s called freedom of association. When one person leaves a polygamous marriage, the others can too. Or, they can stay. It is their choice, not anyone else's concern.

And what about children?

What about children from one night stands, donated sperm, surrogate mothers, affairs, brief flings, or supposedly monogamous marriage that's ending? What about children born to a woman whose husband wasn’t the man who impregnated her? All of these situations are entirely legal. A court decides custody disputes that aren’t resolved amicably.

Marriage is a straight line (pardon the expression), defined by two points.

In his limited imagination. Others are living in marriages that are different.

It can be made and broken relatively simply (geometrically speaking). Introducing more points, making it into triangles, squares (with corners also connected), and whatnot just gets messy. No just say no to bigamy.

Got that? You can’t have your freedom to marry because someone else finds it “messy.” I mean really, why does one person care if someone else’s relationship is more complicated than he would like for himself? Don't want a poly marriage? Don't have one.

It’s past time to stop this. Just let people marry the person(s) they want to marry. Stop persecuting and prosecuting people for the sex they have with other consenting adults.

The Kids Are Alright

The Las Vegas Sun had a column from high school student Jordan Orris, reporting on the 54th annual Sun Youth Forum. It was held on November 23 with about 1,000 students from high schools throughout Southern Nevada participating.

She says…

With regard to the role of marriage in contemporary America, two questions were posed: (1) Should polygamy be made legal? (2) Should gay couples be allowed to adopt children?

It is good that it wasn’t questioned if same-sex marriage should be legal. The students appear to assume it should be and will be legal nationwide.

We examined the benefits of marriage under the status quo, including emotional, spiritual, physical, cultural and financial incentives.

Interestingly, there were quite a few yeas for polygamy, whose arguments included that polygamy is an institution of Muslim society and should be legalized for religious rights purposes, and the catch-22 of prosecution for cheating in a relationship being no different from prosecution for marrying many.

Actually, cheating has been almost entirely decriminalized. Most, if not all, of the few cases in which cheating makes it to court and is relevant to a case is in civil court. Marrying more than one person when all involved consent is a far different thing than cheating, even if the marriage isn’t legally recognized. And such marriages should be legally recognized, not only for religious freedom but as a basic human right. It does not make sense that in some places in this country, someone can get into legal trouble for ceremonially marrying more than one person and caring for that person as a spouse, but has no risk of legal trouble for cheating with a series of affairs or one night stands. Polygamy should not be a crime. Why discourage anyone from loving and caring for another consenting adult?

Those in disagreement argued the legal entanglements caused by situations of divorce, child custody and child support.

I don’t see how it would be much different than with supposedly monogamous marriages. You know, requiring accommodations for the disabled meant far many more changes than it would take to accommodate this freedom to marry, and yet that was voted into law twenty years ago.

The dissenters also argued that polygamy was not relevant in America.

Of course it is relevant. There are American citizens who want this freedom to marry.

Others simply stated that the government should not intrude on the lives of people or their marriages.

Support full marriage equality and let the people decide for themselves. The younger generations are supportive, so it is only a matter of time before hate no longer has enough power to deny marriage equality.

Joseph Compton Gets to Be a Father to His Children

There's an update on the case of Joseph Compton, who wants to be a father to his children and is fighting prejudice against poly relationships. I wrote about this case before.

A judge has reversed a custody order barring a Juab County man from talking to his children about his religious belief in plural marriage and taking his children to the largely polygamous community he lives in.

“The court received no evidence that any of the petitioner’s children, adult or minor, have suffered real harm or will suffer substantiated potential harm as a result of his belief in the practice, even though the practice is criminal,” 4th District Judge James Brady wrote in a Wednesday decision.

The practice shouldn't be criminal in the first place.

“To restrict parent time based on illegal conduct may be appropriate, but the illegality [of polygamy] on its own is not sufficient to warrant restriction,” Brady wrote. His decision gives Kathleen Compton custody of their four minor children but allows their father unrestricted visitation.

The decision reverses an October 2009 temporary custody order issued by 4th District Judge Donald J. Eyre, who said exposure to polygamy would entail “unnecessary and harmful conflict” with the children’s monogamous upbringing.

Even the ex-wife can't cite any real potential for harm...

“I am not afraid he is going to hurt them physically. I’m afraid they’re going to join the group or marry someone in the group,” Kathleen Compton said. “As their mother I will do anything to protect them.”

She's the mother, but he's the father, and he cares about them, too. Otherwise he wouldn't be going through this trouble.

Plural Wife also covers this story.