Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Polyphobic Religious Extremist News Sides with Gays Against Polyamory

I am a bit agog this morning, though probably shouldn't be. I came across the following (very poorly written) statement at Values Voter News, in their "Merry Christmas" piece - of course! Message: "Nuttin' but love from we Christians to some of you out there, but definitely not all of you!" So bloody Christian of this writer - and so typical. I hope there are Christians somewhere with the ethics to cringe at this.

Most homosexual activists believe (or at least when confronted with the concern that homosexual marriages would lead to polygamist and polyamory marriages they do) that boundary should exclude polygamists and polyamory. Traditional Marriage activist believe marriage should be limited to one man and one woman. Both put limits on marriage for non-discriminatory reasons or non bigotted reasons. Homosexual activists are no more discriminatory of polygamist as traditional marriage advocates are discriminatory of homosexuals. There are many other reason why the two have set boundaries to marriage then discrimination and bigotry.


I'll bet marriage equality leader and spokesman Evan Wolfson is so proud. He's said publicly pretty much what this columnist says before. The marriage equality movement's strategy of marginalizing polyamorists and exploiting the polyphobia of their enemies against polyamory has had the desired effect, in that even the religious extremists, who generally hate all of us, use that message to validate their own polyphobia. The stupid thing about this is that there is very little support amongst polyamorists for a poly right-to-marry effort. It's all about activism strategy, and it really sucks. As I've said before, polyamory and religious polygamy are being exploited in this fight and used as a political football. Yeah, guys, kick us some more why dontcha.

And yes, there, I said it, I used the word. Polyphobia. It obviously exists and is indeed alive and well. Even my own Unitarian Universalist national leadership has (unofficially) asked we polyamorists to moderate our words and visibility within UU community until the marriage equality fight is won. Not all my UU poly friends agree that this is discriminatory, but it sure feels like betrayal to me. Oh well, at least there's SOMETHING marriage equality proponents and opponents can agree on.

Sheesh.

I do wish the religious nuts would get off that "only we have values" crap, though it's not bloody likely since it's their delusional PR strategy - see this post for more on that issue.

Once again, I'm given the opportunity to use this graphic - I'm sure it won't be the last.



Rant over.

3 comments:

Queers United said...

many of us in the LGBT community are pro poly marriage as well.

Anita Wagner Illig said...

I am aware that there are many GLBT exceptions and appreciate your taking the time to write and the intellectual honesty you and those who share your view bring to this question.

Anonymous said...

I am a gay Unitarian Universalist, and I hope that most other Unitarian Universalists are at least open to consider the idea of polyamory. I don't really know if polyamory is for me, but I am not bigoted enough to tell someone else who they can and cannot love, nor am I biased enough to think that monogamy is the only way our relationships can be structured. There has been a great degree of diversity in family structure across cultures and time.

Peace be with you, and well wishes.