Posts by Euan Mason
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Emma Hart,
What we’d be talking about with legalising polyamorous marriages is legal recognition for relationships that already exist, and to characterise those relationships as overwhelmingly sexist patriarchal one-man-many-women constructs is inaccurate and unfair, particularly to the poly people who are part of the PAS community.
Point taken, and I didn't intend to characterise them in that way. If polygamy was legal, then I would expect that we would see an increase in polyamorous homes and that the demographics of such relationships would change to reflect the power relations that already exist in our society. Is that what we want?
-
Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
So can people please take the time to refer to Bob McCoskrie?
Sorry, Graeme, I thought the K was the correct spelling. I would never wish to denigrate people in that way.
-
Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Max Rose,
but among the people I know who are or have been in long-term polyamorous relationships, more often than not it’s the woman* who has a secondary partner or has more adventures outside of the marriage or primary relationship
You are right that we need data. Among cultures that allow more than two in a marriage, I can think of several that allow polygamy but I can't think of any that allow polyandry. No doubt they do or at least have existed? It would be interesting to know what power relationships existed in any that allowed both.
-
Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to BenWilson,
If there was no such thing as marriage, there could be no same-sex marriage. So it did definitely make it easier.
I disagree that marriage between men and women made same sex marriage easier to implement. In principle there could be a concept of marriage between same sex couples without any example from hetero ones. This is clearly so, because marriage between men and women was invented without any alternative examples. It's obvious that there had to be a concept of marriage for it to be considered, but that's as far as the argument goes.
-
Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to BenWilson,
I don’t think anyone here is particularly horrified by polygamy
I am not horrified by it, but I have no wish for it to be part of our culture. In my view it tends to be associated with patriarchy and yes, I agree that in some utopia it might be only consenting adults with just as many multiple husband marriages as multiple wife ones, but I don't think that's very likely in our current male dominated society.
-
Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
If someone is really firmly opposed to state recognition of polygamy, and one also believes that allowing same-sex marriage will make the argument against polygamy harder to win when we finally get to it, then it is perfectly logical to oppose same-sex marriage.
Logical, but with a false premise. The premise that legal same sex marriage will make legalising polygamy easier is false. One might just as well argue that legalising marriage between a man and a woman is a bad idea because it might make legalising same sex marriage easier.
Someone might oppose McKroskie on the same sex marriage question, but agree with him about polygamy, which of course is what he's counting on when he uses this red herring. If he is logical, then he is also duplicitous. This becomes clearer when you substitute "marriage between a person and a sheep" or "marriage between an adult and a child" for "polygamy" in his argument.
-
Through this bill we are widening our society's official sanction of types of relationships, and I am in favour of widening it to same-sex marriage. However, at some point people will draw a line, maybe at polygamy, beyond which they are uncomfortable. The debate will be interesting, but it is important to argue about the matter at hand. It doesn't make sense to turn the debate about same sex marriage into one about polygamy (which is what McKroskie is try to do). Notice the lack of any reference to a "slippery slope argument" in this statement. "Strawman" or "red herring" might be better terms to use.
-
<sigh>
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/06/the_
risk_from_guns.html -
Hmm, the link didn't fully post. I'll try again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/06/the_risk
_from_guns.html -
Dave Cormac said, "Without having much knowledge, it seems awfully difficult to pin a reason down for the seemingly frequent recurrence of school shootings. Is it the access to guns? Probably not, because in Israel it's easier to get a gun but their rate of civilian shootings seems low (yeah yeah I know). Are they particularly violent in the States? Possibly. Is it racist tensions? Is it education? Who knows. It could be a combination of all."
Israel is top of the list for civilian shootings according to this article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/06/the_risk_from_guns.html