West Hollywood just vindicated yesteryear's critics of homosexual "marriage."
Shot
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize homosexual "marriage." By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2015 that the right to wed was guaranteed by the Constitution to same-sex couples, 35 states and the District of Columbia had already joined the Bay State in legalizing the practice.
'You've undermined the entire legal foundation for the family.'
Conservatives were pilloried for warning throughout this legalization campaign that transmogrifying the institution of marriage would not only have degrading impacts on American law and culture but also set the stage for other debased forms of "marriage."
The late James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, told Fox News after Massachusetts legalized homosexual "marriage" in May 2004 that "you cross that Rubicon, then there's no place to stop."
"Because if a judge can say two men and two women can marry, there is no reason on Earth why some judge some place is not going to say, this is not fair. Three women or three men, or five and two or five and five," said Dobson.
"So you could have polygamy. You could have incest. You could have marriage between a father and a daughter. You could have two widows or two sisters or two brothers," he continued. "Once you start that and put it in terms of rights, where somebody says, 'Why should I not have benefits if they get them?' then it's gone. You've undermined the entire legal foundation for the family."
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When, years later, Maine became the fifth state to permit homosexuals to wed, televangelist Pat Robertson said, "We haven’t taken this to its ultimate conclusion. You got polygamy out there. How can we rule that polygamy is illegal when you say that homosexual marriage is legal[?]"
Witherspoon Institute senior fellow Matthew Franck underscored in 2011 that by changing the meaning of marriage to suit gays, the meaning becomes malleable.
'Every critic of gay marriage said this was the logical outcome.'
"If men can marry men, and women marry women, we no longer know what the institution is, or what it is for, or what its boundaries are, or who is to be ruled in and who is to be ruled out as eligible to participate in it," wrote Franck. "Polygamy is back; polyamory is in; even incestuous relations are impossible to condemn."
These slippery-slope arguments were written off in the liberal media as illogical and bigoted, and defenders of homosexual "marriage" were certain that it would not lead to polygamy.
For example, Whet Moser, now an editor for the New York Times, cast doubt in a 2013 Chicago Magazine piece on the likelihood that polygamy would one day be legitimized.
"Homosexuality is a biological imperative, and polygamy is a cultural one," wrote Moser. "There's going to be a lot more natural demand for gay marriage, not so much for polygamy."
Chaser
Just as critics prophesied, polygamy — or at the very least "polyamory," which is sustained romantic relations with more than one partner — has been given the green light in various cities in the United States, most recently in West Hollywood.
West Hollywood's woke city council, which opens its meetings with a land acknowledgement, unanimously passed a city ordinance on Monday defining "multi-partner domestic relationships," establishing a registration process for their relationships, and changing local laws to include protections for individuals in polygamous relationships.
In West Hollywood, "multi-partner domestic relationships" has been defined as a relationship between three or more persons ages 18 or older who are competent to enter a contract, not related by blood closer than what is prohibited in the state, responsible for one another's welfare, and involving persons not formally in another polygamous relationship.
There does not appear to be any limit on the number of people in such relationships. Non-residents can also register.
The policy itself echoes the argumentation of yesteryear's gay "marriage" advocates.
While multi-partner relationships "are becoming increasingly common," it says, they "are not formally recognized or protected at the state or federal level, and partners are not extended the same rights in multi-partner domestic relationships as provided in a monogamous marriage or domestic partnership."
Having determined that there "is both tangible and symbolic value in the registration of such multi-partner domestic relationships," the woke city council embraced the policy, declaring "that it is necessary to recognize and protect the right and opportunity of all persons to have multi-partner domestic relationships formally recognized and respected, and to be free from discrimination on account of their partnership in a multi-partner domestic relationship."
According to the ordinance, the recognition of "polyamorous" relationships will have ramifications for housing, city jails, and city health care facilities.
Christina Fialho, the non-straight activist who proposed the idea to West Hollywood Councilwoman Chelsea Lee Byers last year, told the Los Angeles Times, "This law is just the beginning."
"I think it makes it possible for people to dream about a future they once thought was out of reach," added Fialho.
In 2020, Somerville, Massachusetts, passed a municipal ordinance legally recognizing domestic partnerships that include more than two persons. Cambridge and Arlington, both also in Massachusetts, followed suit. The Los Angeles Times highlighted recent efforts in Berkeley and Oakland, California, as well as in multiple Oregon cities to legally normalize domestic partnerships comprising three or more members.
Mark Hemingway of RealClearInvestigations wrote Wednesday, "Every critic of gay marriage said this was the logical outcome; virtually every mainstream proponent of gay marriage assured us it would never happen. And here we are."
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[H/T Blaze Media]
