Re: [UUPoly-L] Open Marriage--Polyamory

["Catherine Deville" <catdeville@cox.net>]

Joani said: 

<<I don't know anyone, on or off this list, who is promoting the 
legalization of group marriage. >>

yes, actually you do - you probably just either don't know it or you're
choosing to ignore it. 

I believe that if marriage is a legal contract, that group marriages should
also be allowed as a legal contract.  Like Bill and Desmond I believe that
marriage contracts would be possible, indeed I believe that current
partnership law and existing "prenuptial agreements" can be modeled to allow
people the freedom to define their own relationships & the legalities that
accompany them.  

Will it be easy - no.  Obviously not.  Our society has for so long favored
the civil structure of marriage and so many laws (many of which are simply
intrusive) have been created that it will obviously be complex to revise the
laws.  Will it happen overnight - again, obviously not.  But the fact that
something is difficult, complex or will take time is no reason, IMO, to
abandon the quest for social justice.

And IMO this *is* a social justice issue and all of the arguments about how
things are going to be hard to change are as moot to me as those same
arguments (along with the arguments that it would destroy our economy) were
to the abolitionists. Or the suffragettes.  All social change is drastic and
difficult - and necessary if we're to move ever towards a just society.