Polygamy Continues to Gain Traction

According to their mission statement, Our Weekly "will position itself as the paper of choice as it relates to reaching the Los Angeles African American community." Their cover story by Gregg Reese is on polygamy.

Here are a couple quotes of interest:

Less well publicized is the practice of polygamy within the African American community. Its proponents argue that the adoption of this custom can be seen as a return to the conventions of traditional African rituals abandoned when our present citizenry was forced into slavery. Other viewpoints suggest polygamy is the answer to the extreme imbalance between Black men and women, and the generations old plight of children who grow up fatherless.

and

Plural marriage as a viable concept today is not merely one of a hedonist arrangement put into service for masculine benefit. Advocates from the counterculture of the 1960s, especially those embroiled in the Black Power/Black Nationalist Movement, suggest this idea represents a return to the traditions abandoned when slaves were wrenched from their homeland and forced into the constraints of Christianity and monogamy. Curiously, some feminists claim this as an alternative lifestyle potentially empowering for women, while social scientists suggest it is a practical solution for the dysfunction and ills that ravage contemporary society, especially the absence of fathers and parental figures that plague the Black family. Some religious leaders and theologians propose that polygamy is morally sound compared to the deceit inherent in many Christian unions.

[More is below the fold if you care to read it.]

Notice that fatherlessness is presented as a problem, with the implied answer supposedly being sharing a father, instead of getting another mother.

The article also implies that affairs involving married people are virtually equivalent to formal polygamy, and conversely that being involved in polygamy can give some participants the benefits of an affair without the full responsibility of marriage.

Formal polygamy certainly has a long historical basis, while calling or licensing same-sex pairings as marriages does not. We frequently see marriage neutering advocates cite past polygamy as evidence that marriage has changed over the years, though in doing so they ignore that, through all of the changes, one of the few core elements of marriage has been its uniting of the sexes.

By the reasoning of the California Supreme Court when it struck down Proposition 22, historically oppressed minorities (African-Americans certainly qualify) should be granted what they ask from the majority – doesn't that mean that if some African-Americans ask for a polygamous marriage license, they have a right to one?

(H/T: LAObserved.com)