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Polygamy and Same-Sex Marriage - Allies or Adversaries Within the Same-Sex Marriage Movement

This article addresses the charged slippery slope accusation that permitting same-sex marriage will inevitably lead to the legalization of polygamy. While same-sex marriage advocates generally distance their cause from polygamy and its disparaging history when responding to such accusations, this article determines whether that response is appropriate, or alternatively, whether the same-sex marriage movement could benefit from linkages between polygamy and same-sex marriage. In conducting the analysis, this article presents a nuanced discussion of marriage and its varying forms. Specifically, it examines the United States' historical regulation of polygamy, interrogates analogies between polygamy and same-sex marriage, compares cross-cultural practices and regulation of polygamy, and reviews the international human rights stance on polygamy and its implications for gender inequality. The article ultimately concludes that while polygamy and same-sex marriage may share some common ground, advocates should continue to distance same-sex marriage from plural marriage to avoid relinquishing the movement's hard-earned cultural capital and societal support. In doing so, however, advocates should avoid maligning polygamy and playing into the cultural narrative that plural marriage is resoundingly barbaric and misogynistic, and instead, direct time and energy toward respecting diversity while fighting for equality. * Jaime M. Gher has an L.L.M. specializing in gender and international human rights from American University, Washington College of Law, a J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law, and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She would like to thank her professor and mentor, Claire Smearman, for her time and commitment to the publication of this article, and for Ms. Smearman's visionary and inspiring course "Gender Perspectives Across the World." She would also like to thank her gender colleagues for sharing their life experiences to enrich this article, as well as Amy Todd for her unwavering support for the author's objective and desire to uplift women around the world.