Re: [UUPoly-L] Poly reality

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

Amanda said:
<<It feels to me that the tone may be becoming unnecessarily 
confrontational. >>

I apologize if my wording has relayed a confrontational position, as that
wasn't my intent.  I've actually removed myself from another part of the
conversation because I feel that I can't have a conversation with certain
individuals without it becoming confrontational because we are both coming
from passionate positions and I feel that those individuals are unable to
entertain the position of others and not only maintain tones which are
"unnecessarily confrontational" but come very close to becoming ad hominim
in there tone, so I can appreciate how you feel, but that was not my intent.

<<It is definitely possible that, as you say, I am 
"missing the context in which the conversation was originally framed". 
However, since I was explaining my own thoughts, I can confidently say 
that I was NOT attempting to convey the idea that I wanted to impede 
free exercise of religion via consenting Mormon polygyny. >>

I appreciate the clarification - the latter is exactly what I was hearing.
And I would like to point out that I said "what that says to me is..."  

You see, to me, when we speak of supporting the legal rights of
Fundamentalist Mormons to plural marriage, we are speaking specifically of
supporting their right to free exercise of religion.  And if you then say,
especially after we've clarified that we believe that support can be framed
so that it is specific only supportive of retaining our current definitions
of "consensual" and "age of consent", that you cannot support their rights
because some practitioners are abusive, then what I hear is that you're
willing to abridge the rights of those who are not abusive because of those
who are abusive.

<< What I *was* saying is that want to support that free exercise in a way
other than by presenting myself as an ally of the fundamentalist Mormon
church because I'm don't see good evidence that the church is really
dedicated to consent.>>

And, again, I appreciate the clarification.  It's pretty simply to do that,
really.  While fundamentalist Mormon polygyny tends to be the version of
polygamy in the public view, and what people are generally familiar with are
the abusive cases which come to light, if you frame your support as support
for individuals to marry in whatever configurations are determined by their
religious and ethical beliefs, while *not altering* the existing legal
requirements that all such unions be both consensual and enacted by
individuals at a legal age of consent, you actually manage to support
ethical Fundamentalist Mormons while *not* allying yourself with unethical
Fundamentalist Mormons.  

The way that the Church of All Worlds puts it (and we're in the process of
codifying this in our Canons) is "Members of the Church of All Worlds affirm
and support the broadest diversity of intimate and familial expression
consistent with a sustainable and ethical life. Church of All Worlds
ministers and clergy sanctify unions (whether called marriage, handfasting
or some other term) for families of diverse configurations of both number
and gender."  Then, when the question comes up of whether or not your
support for such families of "diverse configurations of both number and
gender" applies to fundamentalist Mormons you state, "as long as such unions
are consensual and all parties are of an appropriate age of consent."  That
way you're not standing on the outside trying to stand in judgment over what
the "fundamentalist Mormon church" is or isn't dedicated to - but rather are
supporting the rights of individuals to freedom of religion and freedom of
association. 

According to the statistics that I've seen, "most" Fundamentalist Mormons
aren't involved in non-consensual marriage or marriage of underage children,
it's only a few specific sects who permit that behavior, it just so happens
that they're the ones who get all the publicity.  So, to use your BDSM
analogy, what I hear a lot of people saying here is that that they won't
"support" the right to consensual practitioners of BDSM because what they
see in the news are just those psychopaths out there who are non-consensual
sadists, therefore their perception of BDSM is that it is by it's very
nature "sick" and non-consensual.

<<That's all I was trying to convey.   Maybe someone could refresh me on 
the context so I understand how my (mis?)understanding of what was 
meant by supporting their legal rights differs from what was originally 
intended.>>

I'll be happy to do that.  The original post started like this: 
<< While it's sometimes fun to discuss different understandings and/or
definitions, there is a polyamory reality, and THAT is that it is illegal in
the USA for three or more consenting adults to marry.  They have to lie,
cheat, or otherwise be underground about long term, serious, loving
relationships, except sharing those secrets with others in the same "poly"
situation/relationships.

I hope that the upcominhg uupa.org, and UU GA's in Portland, will AT THE
LEAST, express their support for polygamists in Utah.>>
...
<< But, the struggle in Utah, is also "our struggle", because if they do not
win civil rights, then we will never win them, not even under the UU
umbrella.
Here is an old link about current news in the polygamist struggle in Utah:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660214924,00.html>>

It might also help to actually read the article he linked to, rather than
jumping in with preconceptions of what you feel the "fundamentalist Mormon
church" is or isn't doing (there's isn't, just btw, only one fundamentalist
Mormon sect - there are several of them.  The article referenced focuses
primarily on one group, but since the excommunication of all polygamists
from the LDS, there is no central authority.)

Some of the points made in the article are that "the battle" that Dave
refers to includes a lot of ethical polygamists attempting to debunk the
stereotype that all people in plural marriage are in abusive marriages.
Another of the "battles" that they are fighting is for legitimization of
plural marriage *separate* from the issues of child abuse and rape, so that
those issues can be handled more appropriately (and by "more appropriately"
I mean by prosecuting those who are actually guilty of child abuse and rape,
rather than by the whole sale rounding up of entire communities of people,
some of whom are almost certainly innocent of such criminal behavior.)  

One of the major issues in this "battle" is that keeping polygamy
(regardless of consent or age issues) illegal forces those who are in
ethical, consensual and healthy polygamous relationships to be as
"underground" as those who are in truly criminal relationships, therefore
making it harder to locate and prosecute those who are actually abusers.

So, the context, as I see it, and as Dave presented it, was never framed to
include supporting the "rights" of abusers to non-consensual relationships
or to provide them free license for child abuse.  Only the support of the
rights to consensual adult to plural marriage. 

And, as I see it, I agree with Dave - if we do not support that right, we,
by extension, deny the right of every polyamorous person to a legally valid
as well as ethically and morally valid relationship in many states, we deny
the right of any polyamorous person to a legally valid polyamorous marital
union, and perhaps most importantly of all, we continue to leave the door
open to the perception that plural relationships are by their very nature
"sick" and problematic, which supports the right of every bigoted and small
minded judge out there to decide that being in a plural relationship is
inherently harmful to our children without looking further than the number
of people involved in the relationship.  

Until we separate the number of people involved in a marriage from the
abuses occurring due to other factors (including issues of consent and age
of consent), we conflate unrelated factors and deny legal rights to
deserving and ethical individuals based on the criminal actions of a few.

NT,
Cat