It seems to me that many of the arguments put forth in favor of same sex marriage would also apply to polygamy.
For example, the following issues are argued to support gay marriage:
- raising of children can be done favorably
- people loving each other should not be kept from marrying
- absence of negative effects of gay marriage on heterosexual marriage
- gay marriage it is a reality whether it is recognized by government
- banning it is contrary to American freedoms
Regardless of the merit of each of these arguments, I believe they apply equally to polygamy. Yet there is no serious “polygamy” movement. But if all the arguments equally support gay marriage and polygamy, and there is a huge gay marriage movement and a negligible polygamy movement, then this shows that there is more to the story.
That is, if you grant that because of the above arguments that gay marriage should be legal, then you should also grant legality to polygamy.
In my opinion, one of the most significant underlying motives for legalizing gay marriage is that government has widely enacted economic benefits to marriage, and why should gays be denied those benefits?
However, I take the opposite view: the government should not be in the business of deciding winners and losers, and should not exceed its authority in doing so, whether you are talking about favoritism to heterosexuals, to union members, or to business enterprises of the favored political elite (as in “corporate jet benefits that were part of the Obama stimulus.”)
Nobody should get a special break because of race, creed, color, national origin, age, disability, genetic information or sexual orientation. Tax policy should be 100% focused on raising the revenue needed for the duly derived functions of government, and 0% focused on the attainment of someone’s opinion of what is good for society.