Originally posted by: Infohawk
Originally posted by: between
your confusion stems from your poor/dim understanding of the legal argument for gay marriage, which is based on the idea that all citizens should have equal rights before the law. i.e., straight people are able to marry, therefore gay people should be able to do that too. you can't make an equivalent, equality-based legal argument for polygamy, because the rules against polygamous marriage apply to everyone. There are also restrictions relating to age (e.g., people can't marry until they are older than a certain age). these are arbitrary lines in the sand that have been written into law. you can argue against them, but the argument will not be based around equal protection or legal equality.
Your argument doesn't hold water. A homophobe would argue that a law allowing only straight marriage applies to everyone. They would argue that gay people CAN marry, just not people of the same sex and therefore that they had equal rights under the law. The courts that support gay marriage rights are fundamentally saying that gay people should be allowed to marry EACH OTHER. THere is no reason this couldn't be extended to say that polygamists can't marry each other.
This argument is really just grasping at straws; yeah sure, if gays can marry gays then what's next, a woman marrying a flock of penguins? THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS
Seriously, gay marriage and polygamy aren't even close to being the same issue. The slippery slope argument has always been and will always be a poor one.