Many Unitarians Would Prefer That Their Polyamory Activists Keep Quiet

from Stand Firm by Greg Griffith

Please note that in the coming fights for equality, it’s not going to be called “bestiality” but “polyspecies.” And it won’t called “pedophilia” but “polygenerational.”

But keep it under your hat for now if you don’t mind.

UUA headquarters says it has no official position on polyamory. “Official positions are established at general assembly and never has this issue been brought to general assembly,” a spokeswoman says.

But as the issue of same-sex marriage heads to the Supreme Court, many committed Unitarians think the denomination should have a position, which is that polyamory activists should just sit down and be quiet. For one thing, poly activists are seen as undermining the fight for same-sex marriage. The UUA has officially supported same-sex marriage, the spokeswoman says, “since 1979, with tons of resolutions from the general assembly.”

Conservative opponents of same-sex marriage have long used the slippery-slope argument: If states are permitted to let two men or two women marry, then what’s to stop them from giving the same privilege to two men and one woman, or two women and one man? Or six? Or 12? Once you legitimize same-sex marriage, sociologist Peter Berger wrote on his blog in 2011, “you open the door to any number of other alternatives to marriage as a union of one man and one woman: polygamous (an interesting question for Muslims in Germany and dissident Mormons in Arizona), polyandrous, polygenerational – perhaps polyspecies?”