Off-Topic

If you are against gay marriage, you agree with Craig James. That should be enough for anyone.

What does that even mean? Of course they are "relataed". They are individuals who want to get married. Seems pretty related to me.

If you wont explain why its dumb...then explain why its "not related"

you didnt explain anything. Explain why they arent related. The are groups of people who want to get married.

Its certainly no argument to say well....two straight people getting married isnt "related" to two gay people wanting to get married. Thats certainly no defense.

Explain why you would make a policy distinction. Why arent they "related" so as to justify one and not the other.

The rational basis test would apply to any decision by the government to not permit marriage between three or more people; I've yet to see any argument that heightened or strict scrutiny would apply.

There are many rational bases that the government could cite. For example, upon the death of one spouse, property passes to the other spouse without going through probate. But when there are multiple spouses, this doesn't work. The government doesn't get its cut of the estate through estate taxes. You'll also get lawsuits when Spouses B, C and D don't agree on how to dispose of the assets of Spouse A. The government has a rational basis for seeking to prevent such consequences.

You could also have major issues with child custody upon any death or divorce, that don't exist now. In a poly marriage, where nobody is quite sure which of the male spouses is the father of the children but they have each raised the kids in a joint relationship, what do you do? Paternity testing? How do you apply the best interests of the child standard when each of his three moms and two dads are separating? How the hell do you manage visitation? There's a rational basis for trying to avoid this.

Throughout history, societies which have high rates of polygyny are far less stable. It leads to situations where high-status men monopolize women of childbearing age, leaving lower-class men without any prospects for passing on their genes. This has been linked to increased rates of rape, theft, murder, and substance abuse. Again, a rational basis for keeping the number of spouses to two.

Personally, I have no issue with plural marriage. Do whatever makes you happy. But the government certainly has a far more rational basis to prohibit it than it does to prohibit gay marriage.

Not very straight forward at all.

You started off fine. The last part gets lost. You are, in short, making the "number 2" argument. Its ok because "two is the number"

Its not valid to defend straight marriage by arguing...any adult male can marry any adult female....regardless of age [so long as adult] religion, race, ethnic background. So...its all good.

It just presumes that two has some special legal significance. It arguable doesnt any more than man/woman.

2 is just as arbitrary as man/woman. it based on religion and Judeo-christian tradition. Plenty of societies and cultures in the past of recognizes multiple marriages.

/ End of thread from a legal perspective.

As I stated above, the government can pretty easily argue a rational basis for having laws against polygamy.

No tax benefit. reality...is there is for most people a marriage penalty in income tax.

Holy spelling mistakes Batman.

Anyway, I'm not even sure strict scrutiny is needed to decide gay marriage issues. We've had a federal judge in Mass. hold, for example, that DOMA is unconstitutional even under a rational basis review.

And there are many courts that have held that DOMA....and hetro only marriage has a rationale basis.

1. How does the government get its cut? A, B, C, and D are married. A dies. B, C, and D marry E, who is younger. B and C die. D and E marry F and G. etc. The government never gets its cut.

2. Sure, we have lawsuits in probate when the decedent dies intestate. But when decedent is married, the estate doesn't even go to probate. Allowing plural marriage will require changes in additional laws about what estates go to probate upon death, with an intestate decedent. But we can't only have plural-married estates go to probate, and not dual-married estates, as that would also discriminate. And no estate taxes are taken out of the plural-married estates with which to fund the probate system. See # 1, supra.

3. Best interests of the child is the standard, but there's a rational basis for the government to limit the number of persons presumed to be the parents of a child in order to avoid the administrative headaches as well as the harm to children when such relationships end. I don't think it's a great rationale, but it passes the (very low) rational basis test.

4. The societal argument doesn't work for gay marriage, as there is no credible scientific or sociological evidence whatsoever that demonstrates that gay marriage is bad for society. There was even a full trial on this in CA, and gay marriage opponents got completely shredded on their lack of evidence. Meanwhile, there are literally dozens of peer-reviewed studies on how polygyny is bad for society. Huge difference.

Finally, there's no reason to apply strict scrutiny to polygamists. There's simply no way they consist of a suspect class worthy of heightened protection; most obviously because polygamists are not a group with "obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics."

1) Im not sure who thats different in two person marriage. surivving spouse can keep marrying a "new" spouse who is younger. I dont think we are going to see a rush of people entering into plural marriage as a estate planning scheme. Even if it becomes a problem.,the simple answer is to put a cap as it applies to marriage. Just like the cap otherwise exists.

2) the limits in many states mean the majority of non married estates dont have to go through a drawn out probate because of size. Even if you do in a plural marriage...the existing laws would handle who got what just like intestate laws do as I dscribed. As I said, if its a problem from a tax avoidance/estate planning scheme [which I seriously doubt[...its an easy "fix" (there are many.

3) as I said later....I dont think rationale basis applies to anyone because argubly marriage is a fundamental right and strict scrunity applies. In practical terms however, its not the big a deal. parents die all the the time (together....or as a single parent). No will...and the Court has to sort out custody, vistation issues between multiple grandparents or multiple aunts/uncles.

4) the Cal. trial wasnt the only word on this. There certainly have been cases that have attempted to argue otherwise. I think the society arguments fail for both reasons. I dont think gay marriage weakens families. People arent going to become gay because they can now marry...or because the state is now viewed as sanctioning homosexual lifestyle. I think the same is 100% true for ploy relatioships. [Id also argue that its far from clear cut that poly marriages ruin societies. Lots of societies endured for centuries with poly marriages being allowed.

As I said above....I would think the "right" answer (and one gay marriage advocates have advanced) is that marriage is a fundamental right. As such, strict scrunity must be applied to any laws regarding impediments to marriage. Im not sure prohibitions based on the reasons you listed - or ones like them -would survive strict scrunity review. just my opinion.

If polygamy were legal there would be a shitload of sham marriages based purely on expanding health care to friends, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The financial ramifications of legalizing polygamy would be stupendous, that it would be pretty easy for the government to argue that it was against the interests of public policy.