EACH
TIME
DANI
EYER
attends
a
forum
to
advocate
marriage
rights
for
gay
and
lesbian
couples,
she
knows
the
first
question
to
expect
at
the
end
of
her
speech.
“What
about
polygamy?”
an
audience
member
inevitably
asks
Eyer,
executive
director
of
the
ACLU
of
Utah.
“Will
gay
marriage
lead
to
legalized
group
weddings?”
Each
time,
Eyer
answers
affirmatively.
“The
ACLU
of
Utah
has
traditionally
advocated
that
personal
relationships
between
consenting
adults
are
protected
by
the
Constitution,
and
that
freedom
of
religion
and
freedom
of
expression
are
fundamental
rights,”
Eyer
says,
citing
the
her
ACLU
chapter’s
official
stance
on
polygamy
since
1989.
“Criminal
and
civil
laws
prohibiting
the
advocacy
or
practice
of
plural
marriage
are
constitutionally
defective,”
she
adds.
“Neither
the
polygamists
nor
the
proponents
of
same-sex
marriage
are
wild
about
the
analogy,
but
we
do
see
the
two
as
similar
concepts.”
Mathew
Staver,
president
of
the
conservative
legal
group
Liberty
Counsel,
agrees
that
there
is
“an
easy
transition”
from
allowing
marriage
for
gay
and
lesbian
couples
to
legalized
polygamy.
But
instead
of
considering
them
fundamental
rights,
Staver
says
neither
gay
marriage
nor
polygamy
should
be
recognized
by
states.
“If
you
convert
marriage
to
merely
the
placing
of
a
license
on
consenting
adults
that
are
in
a
committed
relationship,
or
who
love
each
other,
then
there
is
no
logical
line
that
can
be
drawn
between
gay
marriage
and
polygamy,”
Staver
says.
“Gay
marriage
clearly
opens
the
door
to
polygamy.”
But
gay
rights
organizations
have
long
refuted
claims
that
acceptance
of
same-sex
unions
is
a
slippery
slope
toward
marital
anarchy.
“The
right
wing
would
love
nothing
more
than
for
us
to
spend
all
of
our
airtime
discussing
distractions
such
as
polygamy,
bestiality
and
other
—
from
their
point
of
view
—
doomsday
scenarios
rather
than
engage
the
public
about
committed
same-sex
couples
being
discriminated
against,”
says
Evan
Wolfson,
executive
director
of
Freedom
to
Marry,
which
advocates
marriage
rights
for
gay
and
lesbian
couples.
“The
opposition
to
ending
discrimination
in
marriage
for
gay
couples
does
not
turn
on
how
you
feel
about
polygamy,”
Wolfson
continues.
“It’s
just
a
diversion.”
THE
FORM
OF
POLYGAMY
MANY
people
are
familiar
with
is
the
structure
that
at
one
point
was
practiced
in
Judaism,
Christianity,
Islam
and
Mormonism:
polygamy,
when
one
man
marries
multiple
wives.
But
a
more
communal,
egalitarian
form
of
group
love
called
polyamory
—
“many
loves”
—
has
increased
in
visibility
over
the
last
few
decades.
Polyamorous
relationships
can
include
heterosexual,
gay
and
bisexual
individuals
who
believe
it
is
against
their
nature
to
have
only
one
sexual
and
emotional
lover.
They
are
composed
of
many
blends
of
multiple
partners:
a
heterosexual
woman
with
four
bisexual
husbands,
a
trio
of
gay
men
living
as
a
single
unit,
or
pairs
of
married
heterosexual
couples
who
live
as
a
tribe,
just
to
name
a
few
of
the
possibilities.
A
Dutch
polyamorous
relationship
recently
ignited
a
firestorm
among
conservative
pundits
and
religious
organizations
in
the
U.S.,
after
a
married
heterosexual
couple
entered
into
a
“cohabitation
contract”
with
their
bisexual
female
lover.
The
“cohabitation
contract”
does
not
include
all
of
the
benefits
and
responsibilities
that
accompany
Dutch
marriages,
but
the
trio
celebrated
their
union
by
donning
wedding
regalia
and
holding
a
marriage
ceremony.
Stanley
Kurtz,
a
fellow
at
the
Hudson
Institute,
a
Washington
D.C.-based
think
tank,
considers
a
polyamorous
contract
as
“an
unmistakable
step
down
the
road
to
legalized
group
marriage.”
“The
use
of
cohabitation
contracts
was
an
important
step
along
the
road
to
same-sex
marriage
in
the
Netherlands,”
Kurtz
writes
in
the
Dec.
26,
2005
issue
of
The
Weekly
Standard.
“The
popularity
of
cohabitation
contracts
among
Dutch
gays
in
the
1980s
helped
create
laws
in
the
early
1990s
forbidding
employer
discrimination
on
the
basis
of
sexual
orientation
—
including
discrimination
between
married
and
unmarried
couples
in
the
granting
of
benefits.”
Kurtz
argues
that
Dutch
society
is
taking
the
same
“small
step”
approach
toward
polyamorous
nuptials
as
it
did
for
gay
marriage
—offering
symbolic
recognition
and
limited
benefits
(such
as
domestic
partnerships
for
same-sex
couples)
until
the
mainstream
population
is
comfortable
granting
full
marital
rights
to
non-traditional
relationships.
Kurtz’s
treatise
—the
latest
in
a
line
of
articles
linking
gay
marriage
and
polyamory
penned
by
the
conservative
scribe
—
drew
a
rebuttal
from
The
New
Republic’s
Rob
Anderson,
who
wrote
that
opposition
to
gay
marriage
is
based
on
two
variables:
the
“ick”
factor
and
the
“slippery
slope”
to
man-and-monkey
weddings.
“With
the
‘ick’
factor
heading
towards
irrelevancy
[because
of
increased
tolerance],
the
slippery-slope
argument
is
all
[conservatives]
have
left,”
Anderson
writes.
“If
the
right
can
convince
the
public
that
an
acceptance
of
...
