UUPA Compares and Contrasts Polyamory and Polygamy

I am a member of the Board of Trustees of Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, and in preparation for this week's annual UU General Assembly in Salt Lake City, trustee Jasmine Walston and others drafted the following language for a brochure to be used to answer anticipated questions at UUPA's booth in the exhibit hall and elsewhere regarding the differences between polygamy and polyamory. It is exceedingly well done and provides a lot of food for thought. I share it with you here.

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS FOR POLYAMORY AWARENESS

Polygamy and Polyamory

Q: Polygamy and Polyamory – Are they really the same thing?

Polyamory and polygamy can look similar on the surface. Deeper examination reveals this question to be complicated by factors such as community, language, religion, gender equity, sexual orientation, abuse concerns, and experience.

Community

The polyamory community and the polygamous community in the United States are separate groups that know very little about each other. Furthermore, neither group is one cohesive community. Both the “polyamory community” and the “polygamy community” in reality consist of a variety of diverse communities and independent families. To further complicate matters, some independent families practice polygamy or polyamory without any connection to either community.

Language

The term “polygamy” is marriage based, historically and sociologically. The term includes both polygyny, a husband with more than one wife, and polyandry, a wife with more than one husband. Throughout human history and across cultures, both polygamous and monogamous marriages have occurred, with polygamous marriages acceptable in the majority of cultures. Both types have at times included marriages arranged for political, economic, religious and/or familial benefit.

In the U.S., the general public associates polygamy with fundamentalist Mormonism. These families prefer the term “plural marriage.” However, polygamy can20also be found in other types of communities. An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 Muslim immigrants living in the U.S are polygamous (NPR, May 2008). Information about immigrant polygamists of other religions is difficult to find. Another example is Christian polygamy, neither fundamentalist Mormonism nor immigrants. The idea that polygamy is limited to fundamentalist Mormons is deeply rooted in the American imagination, but it is inaccurate.

The term “polyamory” is relationship based, but it is not necessarily tied to marriage. It is a new term with a short history, just beginning to make its way into sociological literature. The term covers a variety of multi-partner relationship styles, that might or might not involve one or more marriages;=2 0and each of those marriages, if any, might involve two or more individuals. Polyamorous relationship structures might include open marriage, open relationships, group marriage, intimate networks, or combinations of the above.

Religion

The most well-known polygamous communities are associated with a religious doctrine that supports it. Muslims practicing polygyny refer to the ve rse in the Quran (4:3) which states that a man may take up to four wives. Fundamentalist Mormons describe plural marriage as commanded by God and necessary to receive specific blessings in the afterlife, including eternal marriage (Mary Batchelor et. al.; Voices in Harmony). Christian polygamists, claiming to come from conservative churches, quote Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and cite Biblical patriarchs to support their understanding of polygyny as “clearly only a matter of believing the Scriptures, believing what the Scriptures actually say and have always actually said.” (The Christian polygamy "Movement").

Within polygamous communities, religious doctrines shared with other individuals provide support and encouragement. Neighbors, co-workers, and sometimes extended family members within the group are likely to be supportive. At the same time, societal hostility dictates caution about visibility outside the polygamous community.

Polyamory is associated with no religious doctrine, no commandments from God or prophets, no promises about the afterlife. Polyamory is a personal issue that each person, couple, or multi-partner family must sort out for themselves. No shared doctrines are availabl e to provide support or encouragement. Rather, quite the opposite is the case. Mainstream religions in the U.S. declare that monogamy is the only acceptable relationship form. Extended family, congregation members, neighbors, or co-workers might provide condemnation rather than support. People in polyamorous relationships often stay “in the closet” about their family structure to the people they spend the most time with. Alternatively, a few people in polyamorous relationships “come out” completely.

Religion still matters immensely for some people in polyamorous relationships. Despite mainstream hostility toward multi-partner relationships, individuals of faith in these families may feel a need to reconcile these two parts of themselves and understand their relationships and their faith in terms of each other.

Gender Equity

Polygamy can include practices in which a woman may have more than one partner, but the U.S. has no known examples of any such polyandrous communities. Christian and Muslim polygamy and Mormon plural marriage are polygynous by doctrine, restricting the privilege of multiple spouses to the man.
By contrast, the polyamory community insists on gender equity. Individuals of any gender are permitted multi-partner relationships within the negotiated agreements of their partnerships.

Sexual Orientation

The lang uage of polygamy is geared toward heterosexuality. In polygyny, a man marries two or more wives; in polyandry, two or more men marry one wife. Same sex relationships do not easily fit with this language. The response of the diverse polygamous communities to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender people in their groups is not well known.

The language of polyamory maintains neutrality toward sexual orientation, and the polyamory community generally is welcoming toward bisexual, gay, lesbian, and/or transgender people. For example: If one man and two women have a “vee” relationship (where one person has two partners), the general public will typically assume that it is the man who has two partners. However, the person with two partners might very well be one of the women instead of the man. Similarly, if two men and one woman have a vee relationship, the person with t wo partners might be one of the men instead of the woman. Polyamorous same sex relationships occur as well. The polyamory community welcomes same gender multi-partner families.

Abuse Concerns

Although most of the general public associates polygamy with non-consent and child abuse, abuse occurs in every community, including monogamous and polyamorous ones. UUs have learned from social justice work that painting all people in any community with the same brush is simplistic and unjust.

UUs have also learned that closets and isolation allow abuse to flourish, leaving people too afraid to re port abuse directed at themselves or their neighbors. Abused immigrant women in Italy in polygamous marriages were afraid to seek help because the law in Italy does not protect polygamous wives in the manner that the law protected them in their country of origin (“Italy grapples with polygamy”.

The Attorneys General of Utah and Arizona have recognized this reality. They spearheaded the creation of the Safety Net Committee, which helps people20in polygamous situations have access to social services, whether they leave or stay. Representatives of the plural marriage community serve on this Safety Net Committee and participate fully in creating and maintaining safe avenues for reporting abuse “Funding approved for polygamous 'Safety Net'".

Abuse must be dealt with separately from family structure. As in monogamous families, only sensational abuse makes the headlines. Polygamous families don't want to be defined by the offenders in their communities any more than the rest of us do.

Experience

From the standpoint of behavior alone, certain types of polyamory and certain types of polygamy appear identical. A multi-partner, loving marriage of adults, entered into with the consent of all, meets the behavioral description of both polygamy and polyamory.

From the standpoint of culture, considerable differences exist. Two similarly configured families, one=2 0belonging to each community , will likely have tremendously different responses from their extended family, faith community, and neighbors. The polygamous family might put a much different emphasis on “marriage” and the importance of restricting intimacy to the marriage relationship. The polyamorous family might or might not consider their family group a marriage, and might allow intimate relationships outside the group.

The stereotype has often been voiced that a polyamorous family and a polygamous family are interchangeable. This idea is mistaken. Two similarly configured families, one belonging to each community, will develop an identification with their respective communities. Supposing their personal experiences to be largely identical, their communities of identification will still vary significantly in myriad ways. Each family would likely feel like a fish out of water if they suddenly found themselves transported to the other community…which brings us full circle back to community as a distinguishing characteristic.

Speaking Out

In the past decade, some fundamentalist Mormon plural wives have stepped out of their hundred-year isolation, obtaining a seat at the table with state government and a voice in determining their own destiny. Muslim polygamists and Christian polygamists have yet to be heard from to the same extent. In this same decade, polyamorists have stepped out of their closets, seeking to raise awareness and acceptance of polyamory. Polygamous and polyamorous communities provide=2 0informational resources for themselves and the general public.

Considerable differences exist between polygamy and polyamory. The desire to live their lives openly, confidently, without hiding in fear is common to both communities.

The Jim David Adkissons of the World are Listening

I grew up in east Tennessee near Knoxville. Though I was raised a Southern Baptist, I was never drawn to that affiliation as an adult. When I was introduced to polyamory and got to know more and more polyamorists, I encountered many UU polys with whom I felt a real affinity - our values were very similar, so when Tim and I got together and he was looking for a new UU church, he and I happily signed the membership book together at Paint Branch UU, where today we are very active members.

When my mother was dying a couple of years ago, Tim and I visited the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. It was an oasis of tolerance, welcome and kindness during a very difficult time, and I was very grateful that there was a UU church in the area where we could spend a couple of hours in comfort with such an open and accepting group of people.

Imagine our shock and sorrow to hear the news from Knoxville that Jim David Adkisson, a man who says he hates liberals and gays, brought a shotgun in a guitar case into TVUUC on Sunday and killed an usher, Greg McKendry and a woman, Linda Kraeger and wounded seven others, five of whom remain in serious condition, before he was wrestled to the ground by members of the congregation. Had these heroes not acted quickly, many more would have died. Adkisson had almost 80 shotgun shells in the fanny pack he wore, and the letter he left in his truck parked outside said he intended to keep shooting until the police arrived and killed him. He is a troubled, out of work man filled with hate for liberals and gays who believes both are destroying our country.

Greg McKendry is the biggest hero of all - many of the witnesses saw him step right into the line of fire and take the first shot rather than have it kill several others nearby. Two more shots were fired before Adkisson was subdued and police arrived.

Sunday's service was a children's service where a production of an adaptation of Annie was just under way. Thankfully no children were hurt physically. All throughout the UU world we are mourning for all involved, but especially for the children who witnessed this horrible crime. We also mourn for the families of the dead and wounded, and for the TVUUC congregation as it tries to make sense of this and find its way back to worship and social action in their beautiful church, even knowing the horrors that just took place there.

I am grateful to all of the Knoxville congregations - Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim - who have rallied to TVUUC's side and denounced this violation of the sanctity we all cherish, no matter what our faith. Some of my very own east Tennessee family members have used hate speech in my presence, and I'm hoping this incident will persuade them to think again and monitor their words. The Jim David Adkissons of the world are listening.

I don't usually post here about non-poly-related events, and this may seem like one of the rare exceptions, but in a way it is consistent with the activism work I've been doing for many years now. I do my best to bring an attitude of tolerance and compassion to the most offensive online remarks made about polyamory, and certainly my UU values support me in that effort.

Fortunately the Unitarian Universalist Association has a very skilled trauma team. It along with UUA president Bill Sinkford headed to Knoxville immediately and are providing valuable services to the members of TVUUC and their loved ones. Now UU churches around the world, but especially in the US, are worrying about copycat killers and how to protect their congregations while remaining the open, welcoming and tolerant "sanctuary" they are. Our innocence has been stolen from us by hate, but we will respond with love and compassion. It is the UU way.

By the way, I am a candidate running unopposed for election to the Board of Trustees of Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness and will devote some of my activism time to increasing awareness of polyamory within the Unitarian Universalist Association. You might think that polyamory would be accepted as a matter of course in UU congregations, but some are uncomfortable being openly welcoming of polyamorists due to memories of how many relationships were disrupted or destroyed by the free love/human potential movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Back then people were indeed pretty much doing their thing without any skills to know how to make it work. Our job is to help them understand the differences between polyamory and free love in terms of knowledge and skills that preserve existing relationships - polyamory being Free Love 2.0, if you will.

Monogamous Privilege

Sunday I was sitting in my local Unitarian Universalist church listening to our co-minister's excellent sermon entitled, "Solidarity - A Compelling Quandry", during which he spoke at some length on the concept of privilege and how it prevents solidarity. He defined privilege as "unearned and often unconscious advantage that can lead to a sense of entitlement" and added that "some groups benefit from unearned advantages in our cultural system, meaning that their members acquire what’s been called 'an invisible package of assets' [P. McIntosh] without doing anything, per se, to deserve it. These groups might include those with male privilege, white privilege, heterosexual privilege, wealth or class privilege, Christian privilege, ablebodied privilege, etc."

To this list I would add monogamous, or "mono", privilege.

So how does mono privilege impact polyamorists? Alas, contradictory as it may seem to other UUs, I need look no further than my own UU church. Though my primary partner and I have had preliminary discussions with our co-ministers about the subject of polyamory and our desire to feel that our relationship orientation, if you will, is welcomed and supported by our church congregation, there is a lot of work to do in order to educate church leaders and help them overcome their discomfort with the subject. (Fortunately we do have support and help from Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness.)

Considering Unitarian Universalism's strong commitment to social justice, one would think that gaining acceptance and support for polyamorists would be relatively easy. Not so, or usually not so, despite that numerous "show of hands" polls at polyamory conferences have revealed that about one third of polyamorists identify as UU. Yet we are not assured that, like all the mono folks in attendance, we can sit in church with more than one significant other and hold hands without fear of notice. Mono couples, be they opposite sex, same sex, or interracial couples, can do this - but not we polyfolk.

One Sunday during the "sharing of joys and concerns" segment of the service, a married member of our congregation shared the following as her concern. One of her church friends has revealed that they are polyamorous. She finds this to be so troubling that it warranted her sharing it with the entire congregation.

I don't mean to attack Unitarian Universalism but instead mean to use my experience there as an example of just how widespread mono privilege really is. Throughout our larger society, examples of mono privilege are so numerous as to boggle the mind, but here are the big ones:

• Child custody - very risky for poly parents who are at the mercy of family law judges and child welfare agencies who assume without proof that poly families are poor environments for raising children; the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) reports that in one 12 month period it fielded calls for assistance from 600 poly parents facing child custody challenges. Mono couples face no such challenges;
• Marriage laws - For all the same reasons that same-sex couples are also discriminated against, only in this instance polyfolk in relationship with two or more partners are condemned by those who embrace same-sex monogamy;
• Job security - Polyfolk who are out at work have reported, again according to NCSF, having been terminated or denied promotions purely on the grounds of their relationship orientation. No such problem for monofolk.
• Acceptance by friends and family - Polyfolk and their loved ones often meet with condemnation and rejection when coming out as poly to friends and family, while mono couples are congratulated and celebrated upon their engagement, marriage, etc.
• Public displays of affection - polyfolk are often hesitant to exhibit PDAs even when in public with only one partner for fear that someone they know will see them and assume they are cheating on another partner. Monofolk have no such concerns, assuming they are not cheating.
• Zoning laws - Poly families can encounter difficulty in finding housing that permits more than two adults to occupy the same dwelling. No problem for monofolk.

I've certainly enjoyed mono privilege at times in my life - when I was married and before I became a practicing polyamorist. Though now avowedly polyamorous, I sometimes still do benefit from it owing to the form of poly relationship I prefer, i.e. an open primary dyad, (or couple). Evenso, I am committed to working to eliminate mono privilege and every other kind of discimination against polyamorous persons, largely via NCSF, UUPA, and the Institute for 21st Century Relationships (ITCR).