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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Many people will scoff at this...and call it bigotry...but with the passing of laws regarding same sex marriage polygamy is next.[/quote]
Fine with me. My main issue with the current state of polygamous marriages is that they often involved young women who are coerced. I don't care what consenting adults do. [/quote]

This is the main reason it's still illegal and why it will probably remain illegal.  This is a HUGE issue in the majority of polygamous sects in the United States and making polygamy legal is a good way to green light the guys who run those sects to take on even more brides who are young enough to be their granddaughters.  I don't have a problem with polygamy between consenting adults, FTR, but I do have a problem with polygamy that involves coercion of young girls into (often incestuous) marriages with older men, polygamy in sects where child and spousal abuse run rampant, polygamy where government abuse is something to be proud of because it's all about "bleeding the beast", polygamy where young men are forced to leave the compounds because they're viewed as competition by the older men who rule with iron fists, etc.  Tapestry of Polygamy and The Lost Boys of Polygamy are excellent resources for this topic.  [/quote]

You should know that those books don't tell the whole story. If I had to write a book and I needed it to sell, I would find the most extreme situations to sensationalize my work. No one is advocating marriage to minors. That is illegal and probably always will be. [/quote]

PP here. What part of the story do you think those books are leaving out? I know plenty about what goes on in the foothills of Utah, unfortunately.    No one is advocating marriage to minors, but plenty of people in those states are already looking the other way when it's going on.  [/quote]

The books are leaving out the marriages that work well and the fact that not all of the men are abusive. [/quote]

PP again.  No one is saying a polygamous marriage can't work well or that some of the men who engage in polygamy are nice, non-abusive guys who treat their wives and children well.  Cody Brown seems like a huge attention whore but I doubt he's ever laid a hand on any of his wives or children.  And no one is suggesting that the issues of child and spousal abuse, runaway children, rape, forced marriage, incest, welfare fraud, etc are in any way unique to polygamy.  However, it is well-established that polygamous sects on the whole have MAJOR problems with all of the above, way higher than what you'd find in the general population (someone upthread brought up Amish and certain Orthodox Jewish communities--I can't speak to those as i'm not familiar with their rates).  Joseph Smith, the original founder of Mormon polygamy, successfully sold the love story between him and his "first" wife Emma to millions of faithful LDS followers, despite the well-documented fact that he was nothing more than a pedophile who was having sex with dozens of minor girls on the side.  The Mormon Church just acknowledged this in 2014 and it predictably didn't go over very well with a lot of LDS women who had been told otherwise all their lives.

Like I said, I couldn't care less about polygamy amongst consenting adults.  I'm all for legalizing that (and gay marriage).  I just worry it would lead to even less cracking down on assholes like Warren Jeffs who are already doing horrible things in the name of religion in states where there's already very, very little concern for these kind of activities.[/quote]

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