CONFESSIONS OF A LIBERTARIAN POLYGAMIST: Anonymous

[I linked this months and months ago, but it stuck in my head; so, as with the Gabriel Rosenberg posts I'm about to link, I figured I'd refresh your memories. --Eve]

...Reason published a piece by Ms. Young that did a lot of hand wringing about gay marriage being expanded to polygamy. A lot of what she said about polygamy sounds lifted straight out of the mainstream, Bible-belt news, not libertarian at all. Then she brought out the Cato Institute big gun, David Boaz, who said, "Two people seems like a good number for a marriage." Well, thanks for your tolerance David, and minding your own business!

To see supposed libertarians saying that polygamy is bad and, well, just too much freedom, is disappointing. Watching all the news over that Fresno guy is sickening, because that's all people see, that's all they think of, when they think of polygamy. It isn't all like that. Not even close.

I know because I'm part of a polygamous family. Actually, because none of us is married in the legal sense (no church or state papers, just our own personal ceremonies), we use the term polyamory, which means "many loves." My family is a triad, one woman and two men. None of us is gay, so its really more like she has two husbands, but we're all very good friends. We also have some kids. (Yes, we all know which man is the dad of which kid.)

Our family looks a lot like any family you'd like to have as your neighbors. We're quiet, decent people, and we mind our own business. We don't party, our kids are all well behaved, and even if you tried, you wouldn't catch either of us so much as holding our wife's hand outside. We're not wild sex swingers and we're not horny kids. Our sex lives are private -- even from each other as much as we can. In the town where we live we look as dull and normal as much as possible. My libertarian stuff is all on-line, under a different name than the one my neighbors know. The only difference between our family and others is that we have an "Uncle Steve" that lives with us.

Yes, one of us pretends to be our wife's brother so that we can all live together and be left alone. Some of the kids pretend that their dad is really "Uncle Steve" when they're out in public. This isn't all that important because we all raise the children equally, and treat them all like they are our own kids. Because they are -- all of us are one family.

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posted by Eve at 6:27 PM | link

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