Time To Stamp Out Ugly Polyphobia

OK, now that we know that same-sex marriage is just such a wonderful thing which will not cause any problems at all, then I guess we can all move on to bigger and better things. Now that we all know that marriage can mean whatever you want it to, then it is time to fight all unjust discrimination and bigotry.

After all, it seems that at the end of the day it’s all about love. Nothing else really matters. As long as there is love – whatever that means – then anything goes. And we all know that the more love, the better. Thus we need to open up love and marriage to their full logical outcome.

Not only should we demolish the idea that gender matters in marriage, but also we should overthrow the oppressive and archaic notion of number as well. Why limit love to two people only? Why be so bigoted and narrow-minded to claim that marriage should be restricted to just two people?

This is the twenty-first century after all. We are no longer back in the Stone Age. We all now know that marriage is about love only, not gender, or number, or even object. Love is whatever you want it to be, so let’s go for the whole hog here.

Indeed, many homosexual activists have long championed such a complete liberationist view of marriage. For example, back in 1972 the US-based National Coalition of Gay Organizations issued its Gay Rights Platform. It offered, in part, this list of demands:

“7. Repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent.

8. Repeal of all legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of persons entering into a marriage unit; and the extension of legal benefits to all persons who cohabit, regardless of sex or numbers.”

There you have it folks. The sky’s the limit. They have been arguing this for decades now. Yet whenever our side mentions the obvious slippery slope from same-sex marriage to group marriage, the other side spits chips and claims we are fear mongering and making all this up.

The truth is, the one follows on perfectly from the other. The arguments for one are exactly identical to the arguments for the other. This sexual anarchy is all of a piece. Once you decide that marriage must be dismantled, then anything goes. Everything is now up for grabs.

And we have plenty of politicians who are quite happy to promote this sexual insanity. Consider as Exhibit A what has to be one of the most idiotic, senseless and morally-vacuous speeches ever delivered in the Australian Parliament. I refer to the wit and wisdom of Greens’ Senator Adam Bandt as he introduced his “Marriage Equality motion” on 15 November 2010:

“Love knows no boundaries.
Love knows no limits.
And love knows when it has found its partner.
Mr Speaker, there have been many attempts through history to limit love.
And all have failed.
And as we move further into the 21st century I am confident that attempts to limit love will fail again, that full marriage equality will become a reality.”

Wow, Washington would be all weepy hearing such a speech. Churchill would be quaking in his boots to hear such learned oratory. Lincoln may never have run for office had he heard such a stunner. And this is what the Greens are so utterly and absolutely passionate about! This is what they see as the nation’s highest priority.

Love has no limits all right. Anything goes. Love your pet skink? No probs, man. Love your IPad? A ceremony can certainly be performed for that one. Have an erotic thing for gum trees? Go for it. Get your kinky kicks out of getting it on with basketballs? Hey, who am I to judge?

After all, Adam tells us love is without limits. I guess he should know what he is talking about. And obviously any attempt to limit love is so very wrong, and will always fail. So anything now goes, and Adam will ensure that you can solemnise your many varieties of love. Nothing will be denied. Thank you for all that Adam.

And you are of course in good company. The polys are everywhere it seems. Just google the word ‘polyamory’ and see how ubiquitous these groups are. They are found all over the place. Consider just one of many such group love sites: Polyamory Australia. This is what we find on their homepage:

The poly community is diverse:
We could be rural, inner-city urban or suburban, straight or gay, bi or asexual, cis- or trans-gendered. We could be agnostic, atheist, Christian, wiccan, Buddhist, pagan or Mormon, to name but a few. We could be into polyfidelity, swinging, bdsm, polygamy, kink, feminism or plain vanilla sex on flanellette sheets. We could be dressed as daggy geeks, conservative businesses suits, or fetish fashionistas who sport a mean corset. Our common goal is that of ethical, multiple, intimate relationships and respect for our incredible, wonderful, stimulating diversity.”

Yep, that’s some kind of diversity all right. And check this out. It comes from their rather revealing FAQ section:

“Why be polyamorous?
So many answers, so little space!
Different poly people will give different personal answers, but some of the common reasons are:
•    I fell in love with more than one person at once and chose not to choose between them
•    I love being completely honest with myself and my SOs about my feelings
•    It gives me the ability to ask myself honestly, “What do I really want?”
•    I fell in love with someone who was poly
•    I was born poly – it’s who I am
•    We tried swinging and it wasn’t emotionally satisfying
•    It grew out of sexual exploration
•    It’s such a rich interesting life
•    I want to let every relationship find it’s natural potential, without imposing artificial restrictions
•    I love lots of sex with lots of different people
•    It enlarges the love available on the planet, rather than diminishing it”

Hey, where did we hear all that before? Sure sounds familiar. And I loved this one: “I was born poly – it’s who I am”. Yep, it’s in your genes, you cannot help it, and the right thing to do would be just to give in to all this. That is obviously the loving and compassionate thing to do.

But wait – there’s more. We also find on this site polys who are quite happy to share their own stories. These also make for some very revealing reading. Consider just one offering:

“NEWCASTLE
Tue, 22/11/2011 – 8:22pm | newy2foru
Hi there we are looking for a third, We are in newcastle and looking for someone to come join us!
We have 3 kids under 7 and would love more!
We would be keen to Meet a a guy or girl to love!”

Did you catch that? These guys have “3 kids under 7”! And they want to open up their household to even more adults, and more love. Gee, I bet the paedophiles are smacking their lips as they read these kinds of things. What madness has bewitched these parents? Just how sick can we get?

But this all makes perfect sense in the eyes of the homosexual activists, and politicians like Bandt. They are the ones who have laid the foundation for all this. They are the ones who have begun the demolition job on marriage. They are the ones who have declared war on the institution of marriage and human sexuality.

Well, maybe they are on to something here. Perhaps I am being just an old-fashioned, bigoted, intolerant obstacle to progress. I guess I need to see the light. I guess I need to get with it. OK then, let me do my bit for the cause:

Polys unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! It is time to stand up for your rights. Demand that your love be recognised, endorsed and enforced by the state. Demand that the narrow and oppressive institution of marriage be properly opened up so that all people can celebrate their love in any way they choose.

Smash oppressive social structures. Down with those intolerant and bigoted polyphobes. It is time to stand up for real marriage equality. End this unjust discrimination and denial of our human rights. Smash all polyphobia and allow the love to flow. We’re poly, we’re jolly, and we’re not going to go away.

Yep, it all makes sense to me. After all, I sure don’t want to be seen as intolerant, narrow-minded, and unloving.

http://www.article8.org/docs/general/platform.htm
http://www.adam-bandt.greensmps.org.au/content/speech/marriage-equality-motion
http://polyamory.org.au/
http://polyamory.org.au/faq

[1434 words]

35 Replies to “Time To Stamp Out Ugly Polyphobia”

  1. Bill, it seems to me that before we try to constrain the definition of marriage, we need to set the definition of love. Some of the examples you cite are equating love with illicit and/or indecent sex. Love is much more than that.
    John Bennett

  2. Thanks John

    Of course that is the very point I was trying to make. We have ballooned the definitions of both love and marriage to such amazing proportions that neither one means anything anymore – they just mean whatever people want them to mean.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  3. “But if I live in a world of nonabsolutes and would fight social injustice on the mood of the moment, how can I establish what social justice is? What criterion do I have to distinguish between right and wrong so that I can know what I should be fighting? Is it not possible that I could in fact acquiesce in evil and stamp out good? The word love cannot tell me how to discern, for within the humanistic framework love can have no defined meaning.”
    –Francis Schaeffer

    Annette Nestor

  4. Excellent point Annette. I was going to add, love is knowing what is right and good, what is wrong and evil, and expanding the right, reducing or removing the wrong.

    If you have a child and love them, you do not let them swim without supervision or training, you do not let them put their hands on an operating hot plate; you protect them from harm, even in spite of themselves on occasion.

    Exhort, teach, train and edify those around you to do what is right and repel what is wrong.

    Neil Waldron

  5. Bill

    Love is the fulfilling of the Law. If I love, then I will not commit adultery, polygamy, beastiality, buggery, sodomy, and any other illicit thing condemned by the Law of God.

    When we fail to define love in the context of the Law of God, we create fudgy boundaries that cannot be held (like a leaky levy bank).

    Lance A Box

  6. I would love to get that book Graeme but the cheapest I can find it for is 50+ dollars. I have been told by someone who knows boos that it is not a collector’s item.
    Carl Strehlow

  7. There was a doco of the children of Nimbin some time ago, they certainly did not enjoy their parents lifestyle, what they yearned for was a stable home with a mother and father. Mr Bandt and his colleagues need to have look at this if still available.
    Ian Brinkworth

  8. *The Left is chaos and anarchy, so there is more to rule over*

    “In short: intellectuals cluster to the left, generally adopting as a social norm the principle of pas d’ennemis a gauche, pas d’amis a droit, because like everyone else they are drawn to power. The left is chaos and anarchy, and the more anarchy you have, the more power there is to go around. The more orderly a system is, the fewer people get to issue orders.”

    And a Christian culture is orderly and self ruling. Unhelpful to Power and the left. http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF09H36.pdf

    So, to criticise the ‘Cathedral’s’ (state-university intellectual atheocracy) culture war is, for them, to demonise – deploying the old principle of ‘this animal (any push back against the left) is very dangerous; when attacked, it defends itself.’ The progressive is always the underdog in his own mind. Yet, in objective reality, he always seems to win in the end.”

    (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified.html)

    Regina Coeli

  9. Thanks Bill – great article.

    According to this latest offering from Mr Bandt, he makes a few more telling comments about the results of legalizing SSM and long term intentions of their advocates

    “churches or religious organisations that are not yet ready to change will be able to move towards change in their own time and in their own way”.

    (and what if they don’t?)

    “It sends a powerful message. …to the girl at high school who wants to take her partner to the school formal”

    (and what should schools expect if they ban same sex partners from school formals because it is against their faith? Tolerance and acceptance?)

    “The struggle to end discrimination and for full equality did not begin with marriage equality and it will not end when it is achieved….”

    (if SSM is not the end of it, can you please tell us NOW exactly what else you will be demanding to ‘end discrimination’?)

    http://www.adam-bandt.greensmps.org.au/taxonomy/term/663

    Annette Williams

  10. Adam Bandt is a starry-eyed idealist who simply doesn’t know what he is proposing. But then, consequences rarely matter to leftists. In attempting to use the justification of ‘love’, that would logically mean that the government would need to introduce a test so that it could only approve those marriages which proved ‘love’ existed.

    And since when is a government going to legitimately rule on ‘love’? All the qualifications a government needs to be concerned with for marriage are already available. Mr Bandt is either deceived or trying to deceive. Everybody in Australia already has the same rules that apply to them. They are:

    1. One partner only.
    2. Opposite sex.
    3. Old enough.
    4. Not a close relative.

    Everybody. Equality. End of story. The Australian people are being fooled by cute stunts and dumb slogans, and especially deceptively leveraging the natural desire of young people to right historical wrongs.

    And Adam Bandt sidesteps what happens to those people who will simply never comply because to do so would render reason and conscience invalid. So let him (and the other extremists infecting our governments) be constantly asked, what will happen to the tens of thousands of people in Australia alone who will never agree, not just in their churches, but in their workplaces and even in their homes. What happens to the Australian people who run florists, who make wedding cakes, who hire out gardens for weddings, etc.? And that doesn’t even cover things like teaching kids all about the wonderful equivalence of ‘two dads’ or ‘two mums’, to a mum and dad – and how some parents might have a problem with that in schools.
    Take a look at this (but I warn you, you might not find it pleasant):
    http://booksforkidsingayfamilies.blogspot.com.au/

    You know what you can do with your “change”, Mr Bandt. When most Australians see this trojan horse for what it really is, I think most politicians who are not willing to commit political suicide will run for cover very quickly. But it is up to us to tell those politicians and the Australian people, because they’re certainly not going to get the truth from popular culture.

    Mark Rabich

  11. Thanks Bill.
    Funny, but before I came across your excellent blog, I had intended to start my own addressing this issue.

    Some of my now half baked articles include:

    Homophobia – an ever evolving word. How it was once defined, how it is defined now and how it will be change again….

    If SSM is supposed to reduce ‘homophobia’ how come it has exponentially grown everywhere that SSM has been legalised? there are now more people than ever being hauled into tribunals and courts(and the number of tribunals and courts is also on a growth path trying to keep up) accused of this ‘crime’….surely this is the exact opposite of what the SSM advocates want?

    Exactly how much money are we spending on LQBT health organizations and why is the cost and demands for services increasing every year?

    While all the LQBT organizations recognize the more negative mental health outcomes experienced by LQBT people, why can’t I find any advice on the dangers of sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility?

    LQBT health – promoting or rebuking of unsafe sex? you be the judge.

    What SSM means for our schools.
    What SSM means for our businesses.
    What SSM means for our children’s TV
    What SSM means for outdoor advertising
    What SSM means for religious liberty

    You are free to do what you want in your bedroom, but get your hands out of my pocket.

    Why is homeschooling in Canada booming at unprecedented levels?

    ….just a few of about 100.

    Annette Williams

  12. It’s incestphobia we should really watch out for…. Why should two adult consenting relatives who love each other not be permitted to get married?? I mean this is the 21st century.. get with the times people!!! What about incestuous people’s human rights?? I mean incestuous people were born that way… if that weren’t the case then why would anyone choose to be incestuous considering how much disdain, persecution, and discrimination they experience from the gay, straight, Christian, or polyamorous community?? Furthermore, what about the human rights of the incest community??? I mean, if gays are now permitted to marry and straights are allowed to marry, and since marriage is a human right according to the gay community why are incestuous people being denied their rights?? Surveys show that incestuous people account for 20% of the Australian population… Also studies show that all that’s needed in raising children is a guardian who loves them so why shouldn’t incestuous couples be allowed to adopt?? And with all these gay marriages in the UK and Canada breaking down, there’s no good reason to stop incestuous couples from rearing children!!!
    Joel van der Horst

  13. What Jesus says about incest:

    That’s right incest was only a prohibition on Jews in the OT and doesn’t apply to Christians today!! In fact many Bible figures were incestuous… All of Adam and Eve’s kids, the sons of Zebedee, the apostle Paul was a closet incestuous person… And any way, the writers of the Bible didn’t understand loving committed incestuous relationships as we understand them today, it was only referring to non-consensual incestuous abuse and temple prostitution…

    Joel van der Horst

  14. Imagine the legal carnage when polyamory divorce cases start arriving at the courts. It would take the wisdom of Solomon to provide discernment re ex-wife C’s support entititlements and share of assets with ex-husband, and wives A and B. I’m sure many a lawyer’s children will be put through college on the tsunami of legal bills polygamous divorce will initiate.
    Doug Holland

  15. Mark, as someone who worked for 40+ years in the public service, your comment has sparked an idea in my mind. Clearly the government should now rule on love, on the assumption that there is almost nothing that governments will not try their hand at. Please let them know that I will seriously consider coming out of retirement to head up a new Department of Love.

    Graeme Mitchell, Sydney

  16. A ‘Ministry of Love’, Graeme? Hmmmm, now where have I heard that before?
    Mark Rabich

  17. Thanks for the link Mark.
    It is a very disturbing read indeed. I was particularly struck by two titles:

    1. ‘Two Moms are better than one’
    2. ‘Fairytales for the 21st century’, which is a rewrite of the classics Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella (Cinderallen) with gay characters.

    I wonder what our world will look like when our children’s books, televisions, movies, are all rewritten to get rid of all the horrendous heterosexism?

    Annette Williams

  18. The Ministry of Love’s catch phrase could be: “We’re lovers who love lots of loving”?
    Daniel Kempton

  19. Mark, it seems the noble profession of librarianship has been corrupted by such repulsive material.

    Ross McPhee

  20. I am aged over fifty and personally, I have never encountered anyone who wished to be in a polyamorous relationship, but then I must admit, I have led a very sheltered life. I find one spouse enough of a challenge (and he’s lovely!), this kind of set-up would be far too much like hard work. Thankfully, no-one is holding a gun to my head demanding that I join one forthwith.
    On the other hand, I do currently know about five same-sex couples who are either in civil partnerships or long-term relationships (but not getting civil partnered yet as they hope for marriage) and they have all outlasted a lot of straight marriages I know.
    Your article, Mr Muehlenberg, is as beautifully written as ever. However, I just wonder if googling ‘polyamory’ and then quoting sections from the websites you find there, doesn’t come across to the general public (many of whom know commited same-sex couples amongst their friends and family members) as nothing more than hyper-anxious scaremongering.
    Jane Newsham

  21. Thanks Jane

    But let me call your bluff here. It does not matter if you know ten homosexual couples. Your own personal experience does not determine the truth on an issue. Numerous studies have made it quite clear that on the whole homosexual relationships are far more transient, temporary and short-lived then heterosexual relationships. Also homosexual tend to be far more promiscuous than heterosexuals. That is all a matter of the public record, and something I have extensively documented in my new book.

    And of course it is not in the least “hyper-anxious scaremongering” to simply state the facts here. There is a huge push on right now for polyamory – from academics, intellectuals, social theorists, and so on. The simple fact that you get nearly 2 million hits when you google the term is just part of the evidence. And as I document both in the above article and in my book, the arguments for same-sex marriage are exactly the same as the arguments for polyamory. And plenty of homosexuals are arguing for it as well.

    So you can ignore the evidence or shoot the messenger all you like, but I am afraid you have not contributed anything to the debate here, except to show your obvious pro-homosexual bias, which you have done here before.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  22. No offense Jane, but you appear to indeed be as sheltered as you claim…. Polyamory is exploding in the Netherlands where it has been legalised, and my family in the Netherlands know a bunch of people who are into this moral obtuseness…
    Joel van der Horst

  23. Diversity has been taken out of “love” by Bandt and his sympathizers. Just as life has a million of applications, there is the life of a single cell organism human life, to cover the spectrum of life and so does the word “love” cover all relationships, each in their own distinct predetermined paths. In the view of homosexual or poly advocates that “love” is simply reduced to mean sexual activity. How very sad and demeaning for the word “love” and all that it used to mean.
    God only made one sort of relationship to include sexual love and that is heterosexual marriage and now all relationships are supposed to have that element? God help us. It is a bit like saying all body fluids are eqaul without discerning not only their uniqueness in composition, but also the distinct passages they flow through. Put blood into the urinary system and see what comes of it, death for sure.
    But if we don’t reclaim education the next generation with their unskilled and entertainment-sodden minds will lap up anything and think it is dinky-di. I have heard that some schools have to teach that cows have 4 legs and that eggs come from chickens rather than out of cartons.
    Praise God He will never leave His thrown!
    Many blessings
    Ursula Bennett

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