Is Polygamy Normal? [United States]
By Barbara Falconer Newhall
People who are against same-sex marriage often go out of their way to say, “Marriage is between one man and one woman.”
I noticed that while reporting a story about gay marriage for the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, California, some years ago.
Why “one” man and “one” woman, I wondered? Isn’t it obvious that a marriage is between two people?
I see now that my conservative sources – many were Evangelical Christians – were looking warily at polygamists. Specifically, fundamentalist Mormon polygynists.
Men with more than one wife.
Same sex marriage for those conservative-thinking folks was a slippery slope. If gays could get their marriages legalized, what was to keep all those polygamists from seeking legalization of their status as well?
At the time I thought the anti-gay marriage conservatives were way too sensitive. No way was our society going to sanction polygamy. Polygamy was barbaric. Polygamists were weird. Everybody knew that.
