So I’ve watched a lot of episodes of TCL’s “Sister Wives” on NetFlix tonight because I can’t sleep because my life is agony hey-o, but the agony isn’t the point - the polygamists are.
SO.
the gist of the show is here’s a fairly normal-looking, normal-acting, normal dressing, technology-using 21st century family who happen to practice plural marriage, and not the illegal kind. the dad, whose hair I can’t stand but who seems like a decent man, is married to four women and has 13 biological children and 3 unbiological children (one of his wives had them in a previous marriage). so. there are a ton of people in this family, in other words, but they all seem really happy and healthy and like they love and care for one another unconditionally.
are there bad days? of course. are there rough patches? absolutely. but that’s not unique to polygamy, durr;;
the reason they’ve decided to do a reality show and then to go on the Today Show to “come out” (their phrasing, I swear to God) is because they believe that being open will offer a more fruitful and healthy future for their children than staying in a “closed community.” they’re tired of living in fear, tired of having nightmares about their family being ripped apart, etc. they just want to live as they’ve chosen as the most faithful way to have a family, and they hope other people can understand.
and as I’m hearing these people say things like “coming out” and asking for tolerance, all I could think of was the gays. because, in a way, they have a similar agenda.
now, I don’t know if the old timey-Mormon denomination supports the gays, but knowing what I know about the new-timey Mormons, I’d venture a guess that they probably don’t. idk. it’s a hunch.
anywho.
what the gays and the polygamists are offering are alternative family structures based on the consensual activity between adults within the privacy of their own home that is neither detrimental to their own well being nor the well being of their children.
right?
for the record, even though I myself could never participate in a polygamist relationship for a whole host of reasons, the least of which is that I’m gay, I don’t have a problem with polygamy where all participants are there freely, of legal consensual age, and are taken care of financially/etc. I hope this makes sense. I trust grown ups to be grown ups, in other words, and if they believe that the most faithful way to live is polygamy, then by all means go for it.
now I understand this gets tricky with insurance and governmental assistance and whatnot, but being tricky has never been a legitimate reason to stop anything, amirite. I mean, bobviously WAR is kind of tricky, but we seem to be really into having wars so, yeah. polygamy certainly is easier than that, amirite?
Iamrite.
anyway. just a thought.
