Re: [UUPoly-L] Poly reality

[polyfi@comcast.net]

Bill wrote:>>{snip first part} I'll concede, if the wives (or husbands) don't want to be equal, I wouldn't 
force them to be. But I don't think these are "totally different topics". The 
question is, how do people decide what can or can't be imposed, while respecting 
religious and philosophical freedom and differences?
 Bill<<

First, allow me to digress:  My own daughter got married in a fundamentalist Christian Church, her husband is a "promise keeper".   She doesnt believe in equality in marriage.  Her husband is king, and the marriage ceremony she took 11 years ago said "love, honor and OBEY, until death do you part."  My mother even noticed that, and said:  "Do they still say that?" 
 Well, I have to support my daughter, even when I disagree.  It's hard to avoid arguments with her and her husband, but for sake of family unity, that is the REALITY of modern life.  We should learn this lesson, in reaching  out to others "like us", but then NOT like us.  To avoid arguments, I haven't told my daughter than I am polyamous, although she may know this, as I've had 4 marriages, lol.

In looking at other people's values, IMO, there are no blacks and whites, only grays when it comes to comparing to our own values.   My daughter once said, "If Al Gore had been elected President in 2000, then the terrorists would have taken over America".  We did get in a big argument over that one, but then, all is forgiven now, it has to be, because WE are not like  "terrorists" with values set in stone.  

IMO, In a so-called "free" society, individuals and smaller groups decide what is acceptable, and what is not acceptable.  Yet, even within small family groups, not everyone will agree, as my example above shows, but we allow these differences, and keep our unity for sake of survival.
IF order and "standards" are a high priority, and we want  the WHOLE society to decide, then  DO  we impose it from above, or let it be decided by natural groupings? ( such as families, clans, and in our society the States.)
 Our federal system set up a Federal Constitution, and allowed separation of powers to prevent abuses to liberties of both individuals and states. We express the public will through voting, and the electorate.   I like our "federal" system, whereby local communities retain much of the power to set the standards for those who live there.  I also know that we've seen losses of that freedom over the past 40 years or so, and more great loss after 9/11 and Bush's abuse of liberties for sake of a little more security.

If we can keep  "home rule", it  works like this:  If we want tighter gun controls, let either cities or states set them, not the federal government.  Then people can naturally move, leave those places that are just "too bad, or too strict for them.  Another example:  If we let states set the marriage standards, and whether gays and lesbians may marry if they choose (not just civil unions), then gays may move to those states that allow them to marry, and avoid those that do not.   How about smoking bans?   People can go to places that allow smoking, and avoid those places that ban smoking.  Or what about eating meat?  Same thing, let local groups, organizations, and communities set standards.  

Now, back to reality of polyamory.  Old LDS/Mormons fled to Utah, to escape  persecution. (Home Rule at work)  There they set up their own "heavenly" (for them) community.  Then the federal military invaded them and forced "monogamy only" on them, as conditions to being admitted into the Union as a State.  There was also a Supreme Court decision in the late 1890's, as I recall, that called polygamy "hateful" and also "Moslem in character", and said "western culture" has always  condemed it.  Yet, the Christian Bible has many stories of Jewish Kings having multiple wifes, mistresses, and concubines.  These were not Moslems.  
And, today, since we allow Moslems in our own USA today, so THEY may have religious freedom, what about them?   Perhaps part of why the 19 terrorists attacked us on 9/11, was due to their  "hatred" of western values, and our military bases in Saudi Arabia.  A part of that "hate" may have originated because Moslems living/working in the USA had written back to relatives in the Middle East how "we" hate them, and won't allow them to  have up to 4 wives, sacred in their scriptures?  Who knows, I've never seen that investigated, about all the key reasons many Moslems feel WE are the devils.

So, Bill and others, it's not always a question of deciding what can or cannot be opposed, but what can be allowed, or tolerated.   I believe Chief Justice Holmes, set the standard for that.   He said something like this:
"I can wave my hand and arm around in circles all I want to, as long as it does not hit the nose of another person and cause injury."  Yet, he and also others knew of prize fighters  in the ring that hit each other in the nose to win a contest.  They do this consentually.  Holmes suggested that the guy whose nose was hit, did not consent.  

 Now, since  our laws in many states allow "under age" juveniles to marry "with consent of parents", then how can anyone throwup and get sick over the fact that 12-13 yr old women get married legally in some Mormon circles?   They do the same under monogamy.  Wasn't the Blessed Virgin who mothered Jesus, also about age 13?  Throwup then!! (lol)
IMO, it all depends on community standards. But, then again, my own PERSONAL choices are not the same as others.  Thus, all that can be done now, is to practice toleration,  vote in all elections, and express my small voice in public forums too, to sort of MOVE people slowly.  Slow evolution works best in making changes, rather than faster mutations, IMO.   I look to nature for direction in what can be done.  Best reference I have.
Sorry for this long "essay", but I had alot of time today to think.
Dave (of K.C. Mo.)