Wait, so that polygamist ranch raid might have been based on a false police report?

[A Black Falcon]

ABF, this ranch is clearly a terrible situation. However, consider a polygamy situation where it isn't the "harem" scenario. Consider that all of them actually love each other and it's basically one big marriage. Granted this is a rare scenario, and to be honest it's hard enough to develop a balanced relationship between TWO people without the nightmare arguments that could develop with three, but there are those willing to go that far, and well, let 'em.

That's the problem, really, though. Such cases are so rare... and make it legal and you leave it wide open for groups like the FLDS to exploit it. I understand the point, and if there were a way to separate the two I'd consider it (skeptically), but is there really such a way?

And besides, as I said, even if it is mutual, I have trouble seeing how there isn't core inequality there unless they're all bisexual or something.

It's tied to sexism, yeah, but so are dom/sub relationships. Should dom/sub relationships be outlawed? And if so, what other types of consensual, sexually deviant relationships would you find to be unsuitable for society?

That's not marriage, though. The core of the issue here (beyond the sexism) is the marriage aspect, because marriage has significant legal meaning. This is why the gay marraige issue isn't just semantic... it legally means a lot.

(Also, of course, something like that kind of relationship (dom/sub) wouldn't be something generally publicly known, so it's not like the government could easily ban it even if they wanted to...)

Still, yeah... people should be allowed to do what they want, within the limits of law. The issue really is how bad a situation people should be allowed to willingly put themselves in...

But really, the issue, in America, is the "polygamy" here almost always means fundamentalist, anti-female Mormonism. Not anything equal in any sense of the term. That's why it was originally banned, and that's still the focus of the effort, because that's where the problem is. And what they're doing is just so bad...