Dale Carpenter at Volokh Conspiracy has posted an essay on the slippery slope toward polygamy envisioned by anti-gay marriage activists.

Brian and and I have danced a bit over polygamy. Brian tagged me right smartly for switching arguments midstream, a crime which I will ackowledge.

Based on allowing people to express love, Brian is right that there is no distinction between ssm and polygamy. Carpenter makes a solid case to bar polygamy on other grounds.

The part about polygamy being bad for a democratic society is spot on. Think Bacon’s rebellion (where serial monogamy by plantation owners had the effect of increasing the skew of an already imbalanced sex ratio). The frontier farmers weren’t only rebelling on econoic and defense issues. They were pissed about dying virgins.

The Moral Animal, a book I’ve recommended before, has an excellent section explaining why polygamy is good for women and bad for men from an evolutionary standpoint. Whatever the selfish genes may say, polygamy is bad for democracy.

Which is why, in the Mike World Order’s faux democracy, the monogamy laws will only be set aside for Mike and his Ministers. (Dibs on Jaime!)