My impression is that Rev. Schade continues mixing together what I term
"ethical" and "nonethical" multi-personal relationships and the arguing
that all of it is dangerous and to be avoided. You did a good job of
calling him on that tactic.
The problem is, how do you legally distinguish the "ethical" from the
"nonethical" multi-partner marriages. You can't say "Polyamorists are
allowed to have multi-partner marriages because they tend to be egalitarian,
but Mormons and others are not allowed to have multi-partner marriages
because they are sexist." The U.S. legal system just won't allow that. So,
once you legalize multi-partner marriages for one group of citizens, you
have to legalize multi-partner marriages for all citizens--including some
people who will behave unethically.
That is why I've been saying the legalization of multi-partner marriage
needs to come with a package of bills that provide protection against
anticipated abuses. It's that package of bills providing protections that
would distinguish "ethical" and "nonethical" relationships.
And it's that package of bills that will help address criticisms like those
you are now seeing on some of these blogs.
The blogs are just a beginning. The closer you actually come to getting
multi-partner marriages legalized, the more your opponents will start to
hire academic and political big guns to help them out. They will be more
well-reasoned in their criticisms, and they definitely point to anticipated
problems as reasons not to legalize it. If you don't address those problems
clearly and concretely, politicians and judges may well be persuaded to
uphold existing laws against multi-partner marriage.