Re: [UUPoly-L] UU minister blogger's comments on IAs and UUPA

[bear@pagansexcult.org]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2007, Anita Wagner wrote:

> Kelly Cookson <kc62301@hotmail.com> wrote:

>   Yet, some people use poly marriage as an excuse to scare people away from
> same-sex marriage. The right wing argues that, if you legalize same-sex
> marriage, you'll have to legalize poly marriage as well. True or not, the
> right sees this argument as a way to motivate their base into action and as
> a way to make centrists second-guess their support for same-sex marriage.
> It's not a well-reasoned argument. It doesn't have to be. It just has to be
> effective in making it harder to legalize same-sex marriage.


In the long run, I think that they're subverting their own
position.  If they hadn't brought up plural marriage as an
equivalent or extension to same-sex marriage, then it would
have zero mindshare when same-sex marriage finally gets
passed.  As matters stand, a generation of people will have
heard about it, and at least a quarter of them will have
thought about it.  Half of those will have noticed that the
"so what?" argument suffices.  It may turn out that plural
marriage becomes legal 20 years earlier (in, say, 20 years
instead of 40, optimistically) specifically because the
opponents of gay marriage brought it up.

                       Bear