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12/28/2006
CWA speaker: Bi Love = "Big Love"
Attempts to link gay rights with polygamy are commonplace in the arguments put forth by our opposition. After all, they know that a vast majority of the American public is staunchly opposed to the very idea of polygamous relationships, so they link monogamous same-sex couplings to these multi-partnered relationships in order to paint the two movements as in bed with one another. It is a tactic the use and re-use, as they try to create the illusion that LGBT activists are trying to "destroy" the very institution of marriage, not merely obtain the legal rights that they truly deserve.
It is a strategy that is always enraging, always duplicitous, and always faulty. However, in a new piece titled "When Will Bisexuals Drag Homosexuals out of Polygamy Closet?", the Concerned Women For America's Jan LaRue (pic.) goes beyond the territory of fallible logic and enters into the realm of just plain ignorant! She says:
"How long until there's a bisexual ménage a trois before the Massachusetts courts asking why bisexuals are "second-class" citizens in the Commonwealth?
Since the Goodridge court decided that the Commonwealth 'failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples,' how likely is it that it will be able to articulate a constitutionally adequate reason to deny marriage to three people, especially when the court held that it may not treat some citizens as "second-class."
How will the court rationalize that limiting marriage to two people can be applied in a "gender neutral manner" to bisexuals, when it refused to recognize that the prohibition against same-sex marriage applied in a gender neutral manner" to two men or two women regardless of 'sexual orientation'? The court will be hard pressed to assert anything other than its own moral code, which it claimed it couldn't' do in Goodridge."
...
"A May 2005 Gallup poll found that 92 percent of Americans oppose [polygamy], which is illegal in all 50 states. But if Americans can be convinced that polygamy, like same-sex marriage or civil unions is about 'fairness,' opposition can be expected to erode, once homosexual activists come out of the closet in support of the right of bisexuals' to marry an individual of each sex."
So Ms. LaRue isn't just trying to say that gay marriage legalization will inevitably lead to plural marriage, but rather she's also trying to imply that bisexuals are essentially polygamists at their core. Without any explanation or justification, she presents bisexuals as if they innately need a partner of each gender in order to fulfill their roles! In doing so, she tries to further link the gay rights movement to the polygamy movement, implying that we will at some point have no choice by to defend our bisexual friends, which will mean we're defending polygamy. But at what point did bisexuals become hypersexuals who are incapable of monogamy?! When did their capacity of attraction for either gender become a demand for a partner of each sex?! When did their attraction to both men and women make them more inclined to polyamory than someone who is merely attracted to one or the other?!
Simple answer: Never! In a move typical of our opposition, Ms. LaRue is putting forth a theory convenient to her argument and just hoping that those who she needs to convince will just blindly follow her logic. She is using the "B" to demonize the legal rights of the full LGBT rainbow. She makes a distinct point of placing bisexuals in a category outside of monogamy, as if their capacity for attraction makes them less suited for committed couplehood than those who are attracted to only one gender. She has taken flawed thought to a whole new level!
La Rue goes on to say:
"As a guest on Laura Ingraham's radio show a few years ago, I debated Evan Wolfson, former project director of Lambda Legal. Relying on Lambda's expressed concern for the rights of bisexuals, I challenged Wolfson to admit that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to legalizing polygamy.
My questions, which Wolfson dismissed as a scare tactic, were: If polygamy isn't legalized, how will a bisexual marry just one person without denying his or her "bisexual orientation"? Otherwise, in order to marry, won't bisexuals have to make a gender choice in a spouse and then engage in adultery in order to fulfill who they are as bisexuals?
Wolfson, now director of Freedom to Marry, says in his book, Why Marriage Matters America, Equality, and Gay People's Right to Marry: "Civil unions.... are unequal in the security, clarity, and status they provide, unequal in the legal protections that flow from them, unequal in fact as well as in name-and names or words, of course, matter."
Wolfson is critical of the recent New Jersey Supreme Court ruling: "But I'm not satisfied because the high court opened the door to equality but didn't finish the job [because it referred the decision to the legislature]. There's only one way to provide equality and that is by equal treatment."
How long will bisexuals accept less than "equal treatment" while homosexuals continue to diss civil unions and push for the right to "marry" in other states? Who thinks bisexuals don't want the same "legitimacy," "acceptance" and "affirmation" for bisexual behavior that legalized polygamy will provide? How long will they wait for their homosexual "allies" to help them achieve the equal right to "marry" the persons of their choice?
Uhm, yea, hey...Ms. LaRue: When you say things like "Otherwise, in order to marry, won't bisexuals have to make a gender choice in a spouse and then engage in adultery in order to fulfill who they are as bisexuals?" do you yourself actually believe it or are you just following orders from a larger "pro-family" power? Because honestly, it seems absurd that a seemingly intelligent, educated person who studies the gay rights movement would not understand that capacity for attraction and desire for committed, loving monogamy are not one in the same! Heterosexual men everywhere are attracted to Angelina Jolie -- doesn't mean in order to fulfill their heterosexual attractions they will need to cheat on their wives! The same goes for bisexuals -- just because they are attracted to Angelina Jolie AND Brad Pitt, it doesn't mean they have to cheat on their husband or wife "in order to fulfill who they are as bisexuals?" Hopefully "who they are" while in a monogamous relationship is one half of a committed couple! When any of us monogamy-adept folks fall in love with someone, all others are (hopefully) off-limits and unwanted. Bisexuals are no different!
LaRue continues:
Truth be told, homosexual rights organizations aren't pushing for the right of bisexuals to marry two people because it would hurt the cause of extending same-sex marriage to other states. Wolfson is adamant that homosexuals should never settle for civil unions, which makes the so-called concern for full equality of bisexuals a very distant prospect.
Homosexual rights leaders and their allies insist that the "slippery slope" to polygamy argument is a rhetorical dodge, while no doubt giving their bisexual friends a wink-wink.
...
It makes you wonder how long bisexuals will be content riding in the back of the homosexual marriage bus, and how long before another activist court pushes marriage down the slippery slope to ultimate destruction.
When society and its courts think "fairness" and "tolerance" trump morality, the laws of God and what's best for children, what will stop polygamists from marrying? Why limit it to three, "loving and committed" people? Why not two adults and a consenting minor? Why not a dozen polyamorists?
Ya know, what more is there to say on this, really? If Ms. LaRue is going to militantly refuse to play on the plane of reality where bisexuality DOES NOT innately equal polyamory, then why should we even waste any more breath challenging her absurdity? She has based her entire argument on false premise, so it's ridiculous to even try and refute it any further. Sadly, however, there are many followers of CWA who don't know any better about the true nature of bisexuality, and who will just blindly swallow the lines that Ms. LaRue is feeding them. Even sadder is that the blind embrace of this flawed logic is surely what Ms. LaRue is banking on.
When Will Bisexuals Drag Homosexuals out of Polygamy Closet? [CWA]
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