There is no outrage because polygamy is already against the law and is enforced. It's a non-issue to them. Gay marriage is a threat because it is not illegal and may be allowed. Marriage is stupid. They should give "marriage" to the religious and call everything else civil unions whether it's gay or straight.

Dan ... it's all about the Christian baby factory.

Indeed, nobody is wasting effort to defeat non-existent bills and initiatives around the country to legalize polygamy. Get 10,000 people to sign a petition to legalize group marriages and then you'll see them react.

Two things:
1) Dan loves anus so much! He loves his own, he loves other mens in bathrooms, he loves Terry's. He has loved thousands of anus's over the course of his lifetime of buggering. Anything that offends the "anui" of the world is like watching the holocaust happen in front of him. To Dan, the persecution of anus's is like watching his best friend get gassed by nazis at aushwitz.
2) I love it when arrogant and ignorant city folk encounter something from the more rural part of this country. Not that any of you have actually shot a deer. No. Yet you go the extra step and conclude that someone who does is a serial killer. BRILLIANT!!! You guys sure do know a lot about life! I mean, between preening yourselves for a trip down to the glory hole, laughing at homeless people and finding new and exciting ways to make your hair look like shit, how do you have the time to chortle at the backwards ways of the common folk?
I take solace in the fact that city will turn into virtual slaughterhouses and you assholes will become cannibals when the impending collapse happens. That is, until you die from some ungodly illness picked up because you have no idea why it's important to core out your prey's asshole.

Of course they aren't worried about the FLDS thing. They secretly want that deal. Endless pussy and no back talk? That's their dream. Two guys fucking each other in the ass, on the other hand, is something that needs to be prevented...

You know e.c. if you pulled that giant stick out of your ass (talk about being anal-obsessed!), you'd be able to get rid of that humongous load of crap you carry around with you all the time.

Speaking as one who HAS shot a deer (although I was not allowed to do the blooding and dressing - I would have made a mess of it and spoiled the meat, which would have pretty much defeated the purpose of shooting the deer in the first place), I can laugh all I want at the "backwoods ways of the common folk", seeing as I spent most of my formidable years in their midst - and couldn't wait to get as far away from them as possible at the first opportunity.

And you DO know what they say about people who make ASS-umptions, no?

@1: Polygamy, or any other sexual or domestic arrangement between consenting adults, is legal. It's bigamy (fraudulent entry into more than one state-sanctioned marriage) and statutory rape that are illegal. I generally agree with the sentiment of your other comments but I'm more inclined to have "marriage" be the legal, state-sanctioned concept, broadened to extend the rights-and-responsibilities protections to whatever combinations of consenting adults desire them.

If the religious people want to limit their followers to some subset of that (i.e., one-man-one-woman) and "sanctify" or "bless" such unions within the hallowed walls of their churches/temples, fine. Let them have all the convoluted and restrictive language they want, but take it outside the boundaries of the law. Marriage should be of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Which sounds a whole lot like their friends the pro-lifers, who never think to hold an anti-war rally or oppose capital punishment. (Well, the Pope does, but hardly anyone in US really listens to him these days. No, not even Catholics.)

@7: You're not describing polygamy, but polyamory. Polygamy is just as legal as bigamy. "-gamy" means marriage.

@9: Perhaps he means polygyny?

Wouldn't a more apt comparison for the FLDS thing be a gay man and a man with 100 wives, many of whom are under the age of consent? I think if you still pick the gay man in that scenario, you've got some issues.

i've found that most women who claim to be bigamists in college turn out to actually be monogamists later in life.

@2 wins.

@7 Bigamy is the law and polygamy is the act.

bigamy is marring a person when you are already married to someone else. polygamy is being married to more than one person.

Oh Rye (@1), are you that naive? The arguments against gay marriage has never been about protecting marriage and everything about hating homosexuals.

The "HATRED" of homosexuals. Yeah, you have every right to take it personally. I think it's deeper than that.

Take two sexually frustrated, young and warped teens, have them copulate (uneducated is best), then force them to marry in Christian fellowship ESPECIALLY when baby is involved. Thus a family is born, more miserable and larger is better. They stick togethor for fear of survival ... and the stystem works, and they go to church.

My theory, they don't hate you because you are gay. It's that they never get to have a planned, well thought out, loving family. They don't have satisfying careers. They get the good old fashioned fear of god forced family. And perhaps they are even jelous and resentful that you don't live with that fear.

well, there are bible "heroes" who had multiple wives, but i can't think of one indisputably gay bible hero character. in the text, it's easier to find a repentant murderer than a homosexual believer.

so i think they dislike the homosexual behavior more. that said, gay marriage is a bigger issue right now than polygamy, so that goes a long way to explaining the disproportionate outrage. you don't see much christian action against bestiality or incest marriage equality, either.

The Samaritans are the homos

duh

The point made is off of the mantra "ONE man, ONE woman." All I am asking for is consistency. But I won't get consistency, will I? Just double talk. And @2, you're impassioned arguments that completely ignore the topic do nothing to prove whatever point you may be trying to make.

ecce homo @ 4

Wow. That is probably the single most hateful post I've ever seen on slog. Your mother must be so proud.

@21 - It's a carbon copy of a comment ecce homo made in Dan's Deer Ass Remover post yesterday. I've never seen a comment from ecce homo that isn't hateful.

ecce that was poignant and beautifully written. now BUTT OUT

@18, consistency and logic are irrelevent when you aquire more CHRISTIAN FAITHFUL.

Why have gay sex for pleasure when you can guilt someone into having a forced family and make more babies ...

Pro-choice, what an abomination ... every child born has the potential to be a faithful Christian. Even a hypocritical christian is still a christian.

@24, see, i don't agree with that. coming from a christian background i was indoctrinated with that certain way of thinking. you can understand them, but it might take understanding the frame of reference they are coming from.

for instance, there probably is some truth to the adage that christians just don't want anyone to have any fun. if they can't have fun, they certainly don't want other people to have fun. but in reality, one of the reasons is often that many of them actually believe that god will bless or curse america based on the behavior of the people and the laws we pass. they also believe every child is a blessing, that you can only find true fulfillment in christ, etc... even the hypocrites usually believe it, and they happen to believe they are failures as well.

so how do you deal with that? here are some examples:

do you debate with them on their terms completely: argue which is more important, free will or a legalistic code of laws? the problem with this is that you really have to understand christianity to pull it off. what may seem illogical may have been explained a certain way to a christian all their life. this is often seen when people cite examples from the old testament. christians mostly only follow the laws that were reiterated in the new testament. it's quite simple, but i keep seeing the tattoo verse or the shellfish verse brought up on slog.

do you debate with them on their turf but with different definitions: for instance, insist jesus was gay and that they have an incomplete and poorly translated text. this fails usually because to have this debate you would first have to discuss which texts to use, and why they are or are not valid. without doing that, the discussion will not connect. if you do that, you are no longer on the subject at hand.

do you insult them with the truth: you beliefs are like the FSM and we love sin! there isn't a hell, but we'd rather go there then talk any longer with you! this feels the best, and it quick and easy. plus, it gets to the point you were probably going to end up at anyways.

do you move the discussion's turf: here you would talk about democracy, and freedom of religion. ask what rights someone who is gay should have. or what rights should a american citizen who is a muslim have? what about alcohol? you might get to their truth -- which is neither inconsistent nor illogical -- that they want a theocracy. and then go from there.

there are probably as many illogical and inconsistent christians as there are illogical and inconsistent environmentalists, peace activists, democrats, etc...

infrequent ... I grew up in a VERY forced catholic family, which fell apart when I was 12. The thing that held that family togethor for those 12 years was fear of the big scary hard world if that family should fall apart.

... then here is something you can debate for HOURS about at your Univerity. What is the point of religion? I personally don't believe it has ANYTHING to do with salvation of peoples souls. Because real people USUALLY don't make decissions based on their souls. They make decissions by how they are percieved by their community, by their peers. Evidence of this? All of the brain washed youths coming out of the FLDS camps, who feel lost without their families, no matter how rotten they are. Humans are social creatures and we don't usually deal with issolation and abandonment well.

Until relatively recent, the core of the community has been the family unit. People got married, had children, and usually went to some kind of church. The church latches on to the family unit and reinforces.

Gay marriage threatens this for banal reasons, gay couples can't "naturaly" produce offspring. Encouraging gay couples could potentially disrupt the process of marriage and creating more Christian fellowship.

by the way, in talking to many a christian about gay marriage equality, i've asked just a few questions to get them thinking. i tried to get them to wonder why being gay as a sin was treated differently from other sins. you know most of them: why wasn't it such a big deal when no-fault divorce was passed? why is it legal to get drunk? etc... rarely do it get an unreasonable person. but maybe that's just been my experience.

@27 ... because MOST people aren't unreasonable. They just, well when you are in your own community and no one is there to call them on their BS, it just kind of gets accepted as gospel.

Hell, most men will reluctantly admit they spent a good deal of their middle and early high school years as total homophobes until they started meeting people and having friends who are gay.

Personally, I think the next FLDS president/"prophet" should be a gay man, who will expect all his male followers to dress in pastel Laura Ingalls drag (reinstating floral prints, etc.) and marry HIM. Just a fantasy of mine.

I figure, eventually what goes around comes around, even for the FLDS. Karma happens. I hear that younger women who leave the sect sometimes go hog-wild, doing drugs, dressing like punk rockers, having wild sex five nights out of six, etc. etc. So, perhaps there's hope for the rest as well. Meanwhile, where's Phoolan Devi when you need her...?!