I think this is a good common sense answer -- no good reason not to do it, but no strong force as of yet to propel the legislation. We'll see how it fares in court. What then of incest marriages though? The legal structure is already built for incest marriages to plug into. Is there a compelling reason for the state to continue to forbid such marriages?
it seems the main people arguing polygamous marriage are those still struggling to accept gay marriage. If ya' let the gays in, may as well just get rid of the whole institution. That and purely philosophical pondering....what we used to call stoner talk. If there's a legitimate widespread movement that feels they're being unjustly discriminated against, they'll have to begin presenting their own case. I don't expect there is -- despite this case from a reality TV participant and disgraced former LDS member. And polygamy in the US has a shameful history of being used as a tool of oppression and abuse. Re: incest -- each state is different -- based on relation and age. The parent/child restriction goes to an imbalance of power (plus the yuck factor)...and, again, besides Woody Allen, there doesn't seem to be a legitimate movement pushing for this.
Maybe. I can't account for other people. I think it's relevant now because the gay marriage dialogue broke the hold of the 'traditional' model and we have to go back to basics of what marriage is and what it's used for. Conversely, I think I see a lot of the resistance to polygamy as a hangover from the gay marriage debate. Opposition used polygamous and other undesirable marriages as a fear-mongering rhetorical tool, and gay marriage proponents didn't want to be associated with these other interest groups and denied there was any connection. Now though gay marriage has carried the day, they'll continue to deny it to avoid any accusation or feeling of hypocrisy or misdirection. Now with the ad hominems out of the way.... Why does there have to be a widespread movement though? From a realpolitik point of view, sure of course. But, if we're actually talking about personal liberties, popularity doesn't really fit into it. The whole point of our freedom guarantees is to protect the minority party from the will of the majority. And they are making their case, as the attempt referenced in the OP shows. And there's certainly a case to be made on grounds of freedom of religion. The Mormon church was forced to change its doctrine because of the resistance of the state. There are still LDS denominations that practice polygamy now. And Islam allows polygamy as well. The challenge will be coming.
I guess I simply don't see gay marriage as necessitating a rethinking of what marriage is at its' core. There's been a change in acceptance of what it means to be gay...which led to an inclusion of gay couples in marriage as it exists today. We haven't changed marriage. The talk of removing government from all marriages, of polygamy, of incest, bestiality or what have you were all straw man arguments to discredit gay marriage and characterize it as something different (or abhorrent) from "real" marriages. This article is click bait. No more. In time, gay marriage will no longer be a novelty and will be no more relevant to polygamy than non gay marriage.
Polygamy causes all kinds of issues from a contractual standpoint. If the spouse, who gets the stuff? If one gets divorce, does the spouse get half or a third of the property. Is the spouse obligated to tell the existing spouse of the new spouse?
It did for me. Not in the sense of what marriage is and is for (I mean I did rethink it and I concluded those still stand), I suppose, but in its flexibility of how it can be applied. I'm not trying to make a proxy argument about gay marriage at all. I've accepted it and embraced it as the law of the land. I don't want to go back. But, it opens up what I see as a logical discord. That's sort of the point of the marriage though. The marriage would build the legal framework.
