So it seems that Rick Santorum,
At a recent public forum
Made a point he thought was clever, and was booed.
See, his point was to disparage
And belittle same-sex marriage,
But his audience was never in the mood.
He was obviously hoping
To engage in slipp’ry sloping:
“If we legalize gay marriage, what comes next?”
But his motive was transparent
And the people said “you daren’t”
Which he did, and so it left him quite perplexed.
I begin to get the feeling
That Santorum is appealing
To an audience that really isn’t there
And the hatred he’s extolling’s
Going to hurt him in the polling—
In the Granite State, he doesn’t have a prayer.
I guess His Frothiness is more accustomed to speaking in front of homophobic bigots like himself. He genuinely seemed puzzled when faced with a crowd that thought same sex marriage was a perfectly reasonable idea.
“So anyone can marry anyone else?” asked the former Pennsylvania senator, who is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage. He then turned the conversation to polygamy. “So anyone can marry several people?”
He later continued, “Well what about three men? If reason says that if you think it’s okay for two, then you have to differentiate with me as to why it’s not OK for three.”
After several students tried to interject, Santorum said he would end the debate, insisting “I’m going to give people one more chance and then we are going to move on.”
Oddly enough, polygamy is in his bible, and there is no need to posit a slippery Santorum slope between religion and polygamy–just turn on “Sister Wives”, and you can see it.
New Hampshire does have its share of religious conservatives. Indeed, representative Gary Hopper (whose anti-evolution bill I wrote about earlier this week) is a Santorum supporter. But NH tends to have a very different sort of conservative, fiercely protective of rights and liberties. “Live Free Or Die” only works if it applies to everyone.
:)
Why ISN’T it okay for three? Just because it’s not common doesn’t mean it’s not moral.
I’ve been quite annoyed by coverage of the Republican Running of the Raptors, 2012 Edition. It seems that both the field of candidates (declared AND potential) and the reporters covering it have forgotten an important point: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS NOT THE GENERAL ELECTORATE.
They’re voting on candidates based on “can they win the support of the socially conservative evangelical movement?” “Can they win the Tea Party support?”
They don’t seem to realize that if they want to win the Presidency, they need a candidate that can win the support of the middle-of-the-road voter – neither Democrat nor Republican. As a result, they’re supporting candidates that actually turn OFF the political middle, by going for the far-right-wing. It seems to be a massive case of “groupthink”, a belief that everyone else who isn’t a registered Democrat believes in the same things as they do.
Rick Santorum’s statistical tie in Iowa is the best gift the Republicans could ever hand to Obama.
From the article, a quote from Frothy:
I find it very interesting that he freely admits that marriage between a man and a woman is a privilege offered to some and not to others, and it is done specifically because of religious belief. He’s clearly stating that the privileging of heterosexual marriage is a form of religious-based discrimination that can’t possibly be anything but unconstitutional.
Lorax @2 – no doubt. Pleural marriage (or pleural relationships) are perfectly fine, as far as I see it. Particularly if any of the married people have had kids, it provides a stronger, much more stable family unit.
Should a parent be lost to tragic misadventure, for instance, the family (and children) will be far better off if there are still several other parents, as opposed to only one.
Cuttlefish – ‘slippery Santorum slope’ rolled a natural 20 on my saving throw against ewwwww. I salute you, though I won’t say with what.
@Warren, one nitpick…it’s “plural”, not “pleural” ( the pleural cavity is the potential space between the two pleura (visceral and parietal) of the lungs. – from Wikipedia )
Thanks, Cuttlefish. I love this particular rhyme sceme. Do you mind if I read it to the Harold Arlen melody from “If I only Had a Heart?”
The Lorax, 2:
This is the interesting thing about some of Santorum’s statements… he sometimes uses sound reasoning to get to the wrong conclusion, e.g.:
He’s absolutely right–if a marriage of two men is fine, you’d have a damned hard time figuring out why a marriage of three men isn’t also just fine. He hopes that by equating the two situations, he’s shown that homosexual marriage is wrong… but to get there, he’d have to tell us why a marriage of three men is wrong, and he can’t because it isn’t.
Atain @6-
No, no, I intended to suggest marriage taking place in the chest cavity, of course. After all, if you’re going to have multiple spouses, you probably need a lot of guts (or at least some heart). I mean duh.
Sigh. Long bloody week. Thanks for the correction.
Santorum is not intending to engage in a discussion about the appropriateness of plural marriage when he raises that possibility, he’s simply using it to derail conversation. Basically making the argument that unless we’re willing to entertain the possibility of legalizing plural marriage, then we cannot support same sex marriage.
He’s not asking the question honestly, so he doesn’t deserve an honest answer to it, he just deserves a “fuck you, stop dodging and trying to derail the conversation, asshole.”
I also take a bit of umbrage to his attempt to dictate terms of discussion, shut people up and direct the conversation IN HIS FUCKING JOB INTERVIEW.
I would really be interested in the history of the legality of plural marrige in the US, anyway. Was it even noticed prior to the start of Mormonism?
Hell, is Romney going to bring back polygamy if he wins?
What Frothy and his patriarchal religioid buddies don’t get is that the issue is CONSENT! He shows it too when he says incredulously “So anyone can marry several people?” No, Senator Slime, but why shouldn’t several people be able to marry EACH OTHER if they’re all consenting adults? I admit I haven’t a clue how plural relationships work, but I can’t see why they should be illegal as long as all parties are consenting adults. I don’t see how it affects anyone else!
I think the problem with the slippery slope is this — plural marriage is besides the point and an effort to shift the discussion away from the actual one: the right of all people to marry the person they choose and why that statement highlights a current inequality.
The argument is that if some people can marry the person they want, then all people should be able to. Plural marriage isn’t an issue in this regard. Currently no one has the right to marry multiple people at the same time, so while it may or may not be morally correct, it is at least fair.
With same-sex marriage, there ARE people that can marry who they choose, but there are also some people who can’t. Either we allow it or not. If same sex can’t marry, then no one should be able to marry. If opposite sex can marry, then all can marry.
It’s about equality.
Why ISN’T it okay for three?
Because marriage is a reciprocal legal agreement allowing two people each to act as default representative of the other in certain circumstances (in cases, for example, where one is incapacitated and consent is needed for medical treatment.) Allowing a third would raise the question as to which is the reciprocal for the one on the operating table. Which, in the case of a disagreement, would be the deciding vote?
(I have no problem with either plural or pleural marriage–but I DO see it as raising legal problems not raised by same-sex marriage. Maybe some sort of corporation structure might work, or a senior/junior partnership. But if same-sex marriage raises the specter of polygamy, then so does straight marriage. The place to stop a slippery slope is at the TOP, by preventing ALL marriage if you’re worried.)
Randomfactor @14 –
‘Allowing a third would raise the question as to which is the reciprocal for the one on the operating table. Which, in the case of a disagreement, would be the deciding vote?’
How is the same question decided when there are two adults in a marriage, making a similar decision about a child on the operating table?
I think you may be overengineering this a bit.
Randomfactor is correct, the biggest reason plural marriage isn’t going anywhere is that it becomes exponentially more complicated legally (unless you’re talking about strictly patriarchal polygamy where women have few rights, which is usually the case in places where it’s legal). Moreover, there isn’t any kind of equal rights justification to allow it. While there may not be one against it either, no one is discriminated against by disallowing plural marriage.
The only exceptions are people who claim their religion requires it, which is no better an argument than those who claim their religion requires smoking pot or performing human sacrifice (actually a lot less, since you can be religiously married to multiple partners without breaking any laws, as long as you don’t claim them on your tax forms).
As a European looking on at the US election with a mixture of puzzlement and face-slapping, I couldn’t help but notice how patronising and condescending Santorum was to the students and questioners.
Midnight Rambler @16 –
This seems a little off to me somehow:
‘[T]here isn’t any kind of equal rights justification to allow [plural marriage]. While there may not be one against it either, no one is discriminated against by disallowing plural marriage.’
Equal rights under the law is just one aspect of the purpose behind legislation that prevents discrimination. It seems to me that anyone who wants to be in a plural marriage is being discriminated against by laws disallowing it. Confining the discussion of discrimination to cases where there is a kind of social equivalence (gay marriage should be legal because straight marriage is) strikes me as too myopic a focus.
There doesn’t need to be any particular reason, as I understand it, for any ‘exponential’ legal complications, either. If a binary marriage is a partnership, why would a plural marriage be less so? If in a binary marriage one partner has the legal capacity to make decisions on behalf of the other partner, how is it complicated that multiple individuals can do the same – that is, three people being able to make decisions on behalf of a fourth partner? (To reiterate my earlier question, how is it different from two parents deciding on behalf of a child?)
Businesses, city and county government boards, and entire nations run on similar principles. Unilateral decisionmaking is not permitted except under certain (ideally) well-defined circumstances – as in a case of emergency – while other less urgent decisions are decided by, in essence, majority vote.
This only becomes a problem when there are adversarial relationships in the play, and you would think (well, I would think) that such adversarial forces would be minimized or possibly even eliminated within a married group (as opposed to a cluster of ideologically antagonistic elected representatives). Family dynamics are not the same as governmental ones, and particularly in the case of a marriage, that family has been formed by choice, not by legislative fiat.
Perhaps I’m being idealistic here, but I still believe that these legalistic objections are essentially a form of misdirection. Marriage – binary or plural – is only as complicated as we choose to make it, and it seems to me that plural marriage is being deliberately overcomplicated in these discussions.
In other words, creating a theoretical complication, then pointing to that created complication as an argument against plural marriage, does not constitute proof – nor even evidence, necessarily – that plural marriages should not be permitted.
What a slate of candidates for NHvoters – a congenital liar, a religious mega-whacko and a mhole…….NH could be very good for Jon Huntsman this year.
Almost makes me miss Governor Mel….sometimes
Hey, at least one High School Caucus went for Huntsman–it would be nice to see someone win who isn’t pandering to flat-earth creationists. On the other hand, Governor Mel? Not a chance, Sailor!
Yo CFish I wrote “almost” – who would ever really miss him? But there are still the license plates…..
Santorum had a shocking showing in Iowa (shocking from where he was just 6 weeks ago). It doesn’t sound like he has the funding to continue the momentum though. Time will tell.