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In one of its more inflammatory articles, The Weekly Standard's Stanley Kurtz reports that on September 23 there was a cohabitation contract signed by a man and two women in the Netherlands. Kurtz uses this to illustrate what he appears to see as the "slippery slope" from same-sex marriage to polygamy. |
The logic of this article is so twisted, it defies imagination, but I will quote just one line: "The De Bruijns' triple marriage is a bisexual marriage. And, increasingly, bisexuality is emerging as a reason why legalized gay marriage is likely to result in legalized group marriage. If every sexual orientation has a right to construct its own form of marriage, then more changes are surely due. For what gay marriage is to homosexuality, group marriage is to bisexuality."
As a happily married monogamous bisexual man (who has been married to the same woman for 24 years) I object vehemently to this perpetuation of the myth that bisexuals are somehow incapable of monogamy, and can have their needs met only by simultaneous relationships with both men and women.
This is the great canard about bisexuality, and Kurtz hammers it hard to stir up his already concerned audience into a rabid fear that the slightest acceptance of same-sex marriage will inevitably lead to the dissolution of the institution itself, and then to the fall of western society.
Now, at the risk of poisoning my own argument, I will say with full candor that I think that consenting adults should be allowed to enter into just about any combination of loving individuals they choose, so long as the rights and needs of children are fully protected. But set that aside, surely society can make room for same-sex couples without fear that doing so means the end of marriage. And surely we can agree that society does have an interest in the institution of marriage and its role in protecting and nurturing children.
But Kurtz, in his relentless effort to fight a chimera, ignores the far greater dangers to marriage and to children: domestic abuse, alcoholism, adultery, media glorification of 2 hour marriages; the list of heterosexual threats to the institution is far longer than the threat posed by homosexual or bisexuals who wish to marry.
In short, this is a classic red-herring and the right response is to walk away shaking your head and find something productive to do with your time (like cancelling your subscription to the Weekly Standard).
3:51:31 PM 
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