I don't care who the hell gets married

[NightWatcher]

As long as you are of legal age to give consent and enter into the marriage of your own free will without force, fear, or other coercion. Other than that, I don't care if you are the same ethnicity, religion, gender as the other person you wish to enter into the marriage with. If you wish to enter into a marriage with multiple people, feel free to do what you all please, as long as all parties are able to give consent as addressed previously in this post.

Please feel free to associate and/or marry anyone that you wish as long as they wish to do so as well.

I do not see how anyone's marriage to anyone else will have an affect or effect anything in my life.

I do not care.





(Note: Unless you happen to be a red head, as we all know that gingers have no soul and should not be allowed to reproduce, congregate together, or walk freely in public)

[hobbit709]

1. I dare you to say that to a certain redhead I know.

I'll come along afterwards to mop up the pieces.

[DashOneBravo]

4. +1

I know two as well!

[Warpy]

2. I don't care who gets married

as long as it's not me.

[wendylaroux]

3. I have a 5'11'' red head daughter,

I'm telling her what you said.You're in big trouble,big big trouble.

[Cracklin Charlie]

29. Same here.

But you'll really want to watch out for my one week old red head granddaughter.

She will make the OP pay for that remark!

[wendylaroux]

39. i also

have a red head grand daughter i love red heads!

[Cracklin Charlie]

63. Congratulations!

I love red heads, too!

But, I must say, I was not prepared for how crazy I was gonna be about this newest red head. Is first time grandparent status supposed to produce a feeling of euphoria?

I seriously cannot stop thinking about her. I may have a problem.

[DirkGently]

5. What's with the conserva-Dem anti-polygamy freak out?

All the same people who usually spend their energy spitting bile about Greenwald / Snowden, let's go third-way! etc. are losing their minds over polygamy all of a sudden, screaming that it's "bigotry" and posting worldwide maps that basically show ... Muslim countries as evidence that polygamy must be killed with fire.

Seriously, was there a Sensible Woodchucks meeting about Polygamy being against free trade agreements or something?

[PowerToThePeople]

6. You see that too?

I also called it out in another thread.

[DirkGently]

9. I don't get it, but I sense bullshit afoot.

Like when they suddenly started swarming decent people over what pronouns they used to talk about Chelsea Manning.

It's not coming from a good place. It's like watching rabid badgers try to lecture people on their table manners.

They're after something else.

[PowerToThePeople]

10. I agree

Maybe it is just an athoritarian thing? More social freedoms equal bad. I do not understand either.

I bet we go back a few years and these same posters were calling marriage equality a pony and not something that was able to happen.

[KittyWampus]

11. people objecting to the rightwing equating gays marrying to polygamy are "rabid badgers".

I really don't think so.

[awoke_in_2003]

61. Some one PMed me

And said Bernie bullies like me picked the wrong dem to fuck with. This because someone noted that they were using a tea party meme and I said "walks like a duck, talks like a duck".

[KittyWampus]

7. so you side with the people using polygamy as a way to attack GLBT. Good to know.

Your post is offensive and insulting on so many levels.

[DirkGently]

12. That premise is ridiculous on its face.

Right wingers comparing gay marriage to marrying animals and furniture is not parallel to the question of plural marriage among humans, unless you think polygamists are comparable to animals and furniture.

You can't destroy a point of view by associating it with people you disagree with for other reasons.

If there are reasons why polygamy is a bad idea -- and there may well be -- it's not because a rightwinger once compared it to gay marriage, and it doesn't magically become an anti-gay viewpoint because you or anyone else makes an irrational leap to connect the two.

[KittyWampus]

13. I've seen most DU'ers pointing out the many reasons polygamy is a bad idea AND

the fact that the rightwing uses the equation of the two in a negative capacity.

And yet, you post an offensive and condescending comment as if that's not the case.

Your insulting commentary speaks for itself.

[DirkGently]

15. It's not "bigotry," is the point.

And we should condescend to the stupidity of conserva-Dems calling people bigots and saying they should be booted from the site for even raising it.

There's simply no defending idiocy like that.

We have an opportunity to talk about what "marriage" really does mean, now that we have wrested it from its religious underpinnings. Making a false analogy to homophobic arguments about people marrying animals or whatever is just goofy and weirdly malicious.

[geek tragedy]

19. So in your mind allowing gays and lesbians to participate in state-sanctioned

monogamous marriage does call into question whether state sanctioned monogamous marriage should be continued?

And you're acting confused as to why the accusations of bigotry follow such pronouncements?

P.S. Monogamous marriage has jack-shit to do with religion. It's the practice in every secular and religiously pluralistic society on the planet, from the US to China to Israel to India to France to brazil to Japan.

The outlier countries are those that are way behind the rest of the world in how they treat not only women, but gays and lesbians--Iran, Uganda, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia.

[DirkGently]

22. We have established religious tradition has no role

in defining marriage, is the point. That leaves all the possible legal relationships among consenting adult humans on the table.

Bashing Muslim countries doesn't really help your argument that you're taking a stand against bigotry, either.

[geek tragedy]

28. You are still laboring under the delusion that institutionalized monogamous marriage

depends on religious justifications or reasoning. It doesn't. The reason monogamy has been adopted is that polygamy is really fucking awful--it destabilizes society, deprives men of opportunity and dignity, women of freedom and equality, and children of an optimal environment in which they are raised.

And spare me the fake politically correct argument that pointing out the horrendous oppression of women and vile persecution of gays and lesbians in a number of Muslim countries is bigotry.

I do not share your apparent view that Muslim countries are above criticism when it comes to stripping women of their basic human rights and executing gays and lesbians.

I do not believe Muslim women and gays and lesbians should face such persecution. It gives you the vapors to see objections to such practices for some reason, genuine or contrived.

I do not apply one set of standards to Muslim countries and another to the rest of the world. That is actual bigotry.

[DirkGently]

32. No, the point is polygamy isn't homophobic "bigotry."

My posts point out the dishonesty of that argument. Secular arguments about what marriage should be are appropriate, and I believe were the topic of an OP pounced on by all the weirdly wound-up conserva-Dems with this ludicrous "polygamy is bigotry" argument they invented sometime in the past 24 hours.

There is plenty of room to discuss exactly how the state should define marriage, if government is going to continue to do that, on rational, secular grounds. It's true that polygamy has been used in conjunction with sexual slavery and the oppression of women and children.

But of course the same can be said of "traditional" religious marriage, which the Abrahamic religions all say includes women submitting to men, right?

Your OP inviting people to "go fuck themselves" if they were open to discussing polygamous marriage was not the elevation in intellectual tone and content we need here.

[geek tragedy]

34. If you see getting rid of the current legal paradigm of monogamous marriage

as the logical consequence of letting gays benefit from it, that's bigotry.

The policy reasons for monogamy in the US have never depended on religion.

Polygamy was not legal in any Communist country. It is not legal in Cuba or Venezuela.

The religion angle is a red herring advanced by the wingnuts. That was there entire argument--take Jesus out of the debate and anything goes.

[DirkGently]

37. No, discussing polygamy is not "bigotry." It just isn't.

People advocating for discussing it aren't rightwingers or homophobes. Right-wingers draw their authority from tradition, just as you are doing.

Tradition carries no weight when it comes to what legal rights and privileges we decide to extend to people.

You just can't bend logic into all kinds of loopy doughnuts because you disagree with someone. Calling people bigots and telling them to go fuck themselves is just irrational and malicious.

[geek tragedy]

40. There is no polygamy movement.

The only reason it is being discussed is rightwing efforts to disparage same-sex marriage.bbecause they are bigots.

Polygamy is no more in favor or legitimate today than it was 2 weeks ago, or two years ago, or two centuries ago.

[DirkGently]

44. You don't get to decide which opinions are legitimate.

My understanding is that someone posted a long, thoughtful OP recently, exploring their thoughts on the possibilities of secular marriage in the future, and was swarmed by a bunch of heaving dolts calling them an anti-gay "bigot" for bringing it up.

I don't question that OP's sincerity. I question the sincerity of people screaming "bigot" at people based on transparently specious reasoning. Those people aren't making an honest argument -- they are trying to derail discussion and foment discord in a malicious and dishonest way.

It's not working.

[gollygee]

8. What's with all the libertarians?

Opposing libertarianism isn't being a "conservedem"

[DirkGently]

14. It's conserva-Dems flipping out, though.

As for plural marriage, I haven't seen anyone attack it as too "libertarian." I see blue dogs screeching insincerely that it's somehow homophobic "bigotry," which is the stupidest thing in the world.

The basis for all marriage equality arguments is equal treatment for consenting adult humans who want to be married. Polygamy may well be a terrible idea, but you can't argue against it on the basis it's anti-gay somehow.

[geek tragedy]

17. There are no Conservadems here. So, you're already starting your rant off

on a false note.

What is bigoted is to try to claim that ending discrimination against an oppressed class means that the whole institution should get scrapped.

And that is exactly what "legalizing same sex institutionalize monogamous marriage means we should get rid of institutionalized monogamous marriage."

The implication being that once they let gays and lesbian participate in that institution, that means the whole institution is on its way to being replaced.

It's stupid as hell, since it's exactly what the bigots have been arguing. Topped off by the fact some people are so stupid they are actually arguing that one of the most anti-equality practices in human history has become a new civil rights cause.

[DirkGently]

20. Arguing marriage is "an institution" is conservative.

The only way to get to your "monogamous institution" argument is to embrace the religious underpinnings of traditional marriage, allowing only for the inclusion of gay couples.

That ship has sailed though. We really are ridding ourselves of religiously based "institutions" in the law, so tradition is no more an argument against polyamorous people than it was against gay couples.

I think the reason the conservative-Dems are on this "polygamy is homophobic" nutwagon is because they fear the authority of religion as to the definition of marriage overall is threatened.

Too bad. The door IS open to reconsidering what we mean by "marriage" in a secular society. If we're going to condemn polygamy, it's going to be for secular, not traditionalist reasons.

[KittyWampus]

27. WTF? Not only are you insulting. You are not well informed. As a cultural anthropologist

your post just has me shaking me head.

Marriage is a socio-cultural institution.

It is one of many cultural practices or relationships that are organized according to community standards. Be those standards set by state or religion or tribe.

[DirkGently]

33. Community standards evolve outside of religious prejudice.

That was rather the point of the marriage equality discussion we've just been having. Hard to imagine a "cultural anthropologist" not grasping that.

Further, you can't argue that tradition is some kind of immutable wisdom out of one side of your mouth, while applauding the secular victory over the Judeo-Christian definition of marriage from the other.

Religion is either the basis of our laws, or it isn't. Once it's out of the way as it should be, societies make determinations based on principles and laws, which are subject to rational debate.

[KittyWampus]

55. YOUR words- marriage is not an Institution. My recitation of FACT- marriage is an institution.

You started in this thread throwing juvenile insults and attributing arguments to DU'ers that aren't being made on any sort of regular basis.

THEN you post something is demonstrably false.

And yet you keep on….

[DirkGently]

58. Well, it's a set of legal rights. Maybe in religion it's an "institution?"

Point being, legal marriage is precisely whatever we determine it should be. It's not bound by religious tradition, as we've established repeatedly when religion argued against interracial marriage and gay marriage.

So whatever people want to bring up in terms of amending or expanding or changing it is subject only to objections over whether it is a bad idea or good idea, not whether it's part of the traditional definition.

That's what happens as a society separates church and state, and it's a good thing, in my opinion.

[geek tragedy]

31. Ugh. No, you just have no idea what you are talking about.

And by that I mean it is obvious you lack knowledge about every aspect of the current discussion, and are addressing a set of facts that exist in your head and and not the real world.

Marriage is an institution. That is a simple anthropological, sociological, legal fact that has nothing to do with one's religion.

It not conservative to acknowledge that fact, it is ignorant and delusional to deny it.

[DirkGently]

35. Marriage as "an institution" is a rightwing point of view.

The traditional "institution" of marriage has been many things. Just people of the same religion. Or the same race. Or just "one man, one woman."

The "institution" is being re-defined. And that is a good thing. We're not going to just append "and gay people" and call it a day.

The liberal / secular take would be that marriage is a legal relationship that is currently hazily defined. We depended for a long time on religious traditions for what it meant, and that was a problem, because it opened us up to discrimination like excluding gay people.

We can't go back to defining it by ancient tradition and people's personal aesthetic comfort levels now, even if that upsets conservatives.

[geek tragedy]

47. Ugh. You are projectile vomiting rightwing talking points

and being hypersanctimonious about it.

The "institution" is being re-defined. And that is a good thing. We're not going to just append "and gay people" and call it a day.

This is complete, bigoted, ignorant, stupid, rightwing horseshit directly lifted from the Pat Robertson crowd.

The institution is NOT being redefined.

Allowing interracial couples to benefit from it did not redefine it.

Allowing same-sex couples to benefit from it did not redefine it.

We're not going to just append "and gay people" and call it a day.

Yes, WE are going to do just that. In fact, we just did.

Contrary to what you and Pat Robertson claim.

The liberal / secular take would be that marriage is a legal relationship that is currently hazily defined.

No, that is YOUR take. That is not the liberal/progressive take. It is the glibertarian horseshit take, as shown above.

Same-sex marriage was NOT a step towards ending marriage as we know it. It was a step of reaffirming it by not letting it be administered in a bigoted manner.

You very clearly do not understand this issue enough to understand why you are siding with the bigots.

[LittleBlue]

50. You're causing the sensible woodchucks to race to their panic rooms

Well played, sir. Nothing more needs to be said

[KittyWampus]

54. someone who doesn't acknowledge a BASIC fact that marriage is a cultural institution

shouldn't be applauded.

[geek tragedy]

16. No, those who share the progressive left's views on gender and sexuality have been

calling out the glibertarian clickbait trolls who have been perpetuating the rightwing claim that the logical extension of same-sex marriage is the destruction of the current system of institutional monogamous marriage to be replaced by the Warren Jeffs paradigm.

Typically it's men who think "having two women around to take care of my sexual desires sounds pretty good, so freeeedommmm!"

It is rather foolish to try to turn supporting a practice associated with oppression and fundamentalism into some kind of purity test for the cultural left.

In other words, your post is pretty much completely untrue and egregiously so.

[hobbit709]

18. There are more forms of polyamorous marriage than the Warren Jeffs model.

YOU are the one trying to fit them all into that one mold.

What about polyandry?, What about various other forms of multiple partner marriages? Any relationship setup consenting ADULTS get into shouldn't be the business of government or anyone else.

[geek tragedy]

24. You think all governmental recognition of marriage relationships

should be abolished, including all tax considerations, property interests, child custody rights, inheritance rights, hospital visitation and medical decision rights, and immigration rights.

That is what you propose when you write that personal relationships shouldn't be the government's business:

Any relationship setup consenting ADULTS get into shouldn't be the business of government or anyone else.

That is certainly your right to hold that position--that you want to take away all of the rights that gay and lesbian Americans just fought to achieve. You want to take that away from me and my wife, my parents, etc.

Essentially you want to abolish legal recognition of marriage.

That is your right to believe that, but please do not pretend your desire to see our rights abolished is some kind of fucking civil rights issue. It's just libertarian nonsense on steroids.

And furthermore, when your reaction to same-sex marriage being legal is "get rid of marriage" please don't be surprised when people question your motives. Especially when there's no societal benefit to stripping everyone of those rights.

[DirkGently]

25. They're comparing the polyamorous to animals, basically.

Under all the self-righteous posturing is a demand we lump polyamorous people in with "marrying your cat" comparisons rightwingers made to gay marriage.

Conservatives are always looking for that last group to marginalize and hate. And of course those dirty hippies they can't stand started that whole communal living thing.

[KittyWampus]

30. No matter what form, modern society rightly evolved away from them.

For quite a number of good reasons.

[hobbit709]

64. Must be nice to have that level of moral certitude.

Modern society is still changing. Nothing remains static.

[hunter]

36. It's a well orchestrated Republican rat fuck against both LGBT and polyamorous people...

... designed to divide every group the Republican leadership considers enemies.

Sadly, it's working.

[DirkGently]

38. It certainly features the traditional pot-stirrers.

Same voices calling Snowden and Greenwald traitors and telling us the NSA couldn't possibly be breaking the law.

I don't know that it's a conscious attempt at anything -- some people with deeply conservative impulses believe they are the "real Democrats" now.

But that's no reason to let them throw these silly poo bombs around all day. When you tell a couple of people thoughtfully posting their thoughts on the possibilities for secular-based marriage in the future that they are homophobic bigots that should "fuck off" or be thrown off the site, you've crossed a line.

A line of idiocy.

Besides, it's raining here. I have time.

[Mojorabbit]

51. Well said! nt

[Le Taz Hot]

43. "Sensible Woodchucks"

[DirkGently]

45. Seriously. How do those pieces fit together?

Is it something where conservatives see calling people "bigots" as just a big nuclear weapon liberals use, so they think they can just apply it to anything? It's like a hat they try on, but it comes down over their eyes and they just blunder into walls and things.

That argument is the weirdest freakin' platypus of cobbled together crap I've ever seen here.

It's hilarious, but in a gross way.

/

[KittyWampus]

56. you are laughing at someone who doesn't think marriage is a cultural institution.

[LittleBlue]

46. +100000

Well said

You are soloing this thread

[Fumesucker]

49. Pulling the ladder up after they climb it

My group is deserving but those other creeps over there are disgusting.

If more than two humans can marry then soon humans will be marrying their toasters or something.

[KittyWampus]

57. That would be a straw man argument. But your apparent sense of superiority as exhibited

in your postings is noted.

[Fumesucker]

59. I'm sharing my opinion on a discussion board like all the other posters on DU

And we are all the hero in the story we tell ourselves, no?

[philosslayer]

21. Siblings? Father and Daughter? Mother and Son?

No objections at all?

[NightWatcher]

23. No incest. I knew I'd forget something

Thanks for the reminder.

Barring any more edits I think I'm good.

[Cleita]

26. You should put a sarcasm emoticon on your note:

There are those here who will take it literally and alert on you,

[NightWatcher]

41. Damn the torpedoes (and sarcasm emoticons) Full speed ahead

Anyone who really knew me would attest that I used to be ruled by red heads...and I loved every minute of it.

There's a quote that goes something like, "you can sleep with a blonde or a brunette, but with a red head, ain't nobody getting no sleep" (or words to that effect).

[Le Taz Hot]

42. You get an "Amen" from me.

However, I did marry a redhead. Love him to pieces.

[madinmaryland]

48. Ordering up an asskicking for NightWatcher from Skittles. Yes Indeed!!

[TNNurse]

52. I personally think marriage

should just include two people at a time. It seems simpler to get in and out of with just two people involved. Actually I believe the jerks who do not believe in same sex marriage use polygamy and idiotic arguments about animals and inanimate objects to make their case and it just clouds the picture.

The number of people who have been forced to live without the legal benefits of marriage because they are of the same sex is enormous compared to those who wish a multi-partner union.

But again, that is just what I think.

[Omaha Steve]

53. K&R!

[Hydra]

60. It IS really interesting to see the usual suspects being so riled up about this

Especially since I don't think many of them were solid supporters of LBGT rights, on the grounds that it was not a worthwhile battle to have (cuz those people don't matter) and the President didn't approve.

Being poly myself, I support it, and I'm more than a little amused/horrified to see the same RW arguments against equal rights for LBGTs being used against Polys, right up to equating it to child abuse/Warren Jeffs stuff.

In the words of Keith Olbermann: "Have you no shame, Sir?!"

[DirkGently]

65. An impulse to preserve the religious model, maybe?

Bits of religion continue to survive under the inevitable (let's hope) progress of secular law by changing and evolving as reason requires. And then pretending it was always that way, because religion is supposed to be eternal or what have you.

So maybe what we're seeing is a frantic attempt to continue to say that people marry under the auspices of religious belief, even though religious belief has been a barrier to equality and just basic decency time and time again. They slipped "and obey" out of the marriage vows and pretended it was never there. Argued for racial segregation on religious grounds, then quietly forgot about it. And their heads continue to explode that same sex couples are no longer excluded.

Religion is like the black knight in that Monty Python film. Cut off its arms and legs and it's still there lying there on the ground, flailing at you; claiming victory and threatening to bite your ankles off.

[Skittles]

62. I only care if I have to buy them a gift

yes INDEED