One of our members was asked if he supported equal marriage did that mean he also support polyamorous relationships? He hadn’t given it much thought until the question was posed. While I was not privy to that conversation, I have been a part of others like it, and I have seen how one issue is being used to undermine another.
About a month ago, a headline blazed “Many Unitarians would prefer that their polyamory activists keep quiet.” That phrase leading into Lisa Miller’s article is misleading in several ways. First, the denomination is the Unitarian Universalist Association; and as cumbersome as that moniker is, it’s members are properly referred to as Unitarian Universalists. That wouldn’t fit neatly into a headline though. Unfortunately, the other thing that didn’t fit into Miller’s article was any documentation that “many” Unitarian Universalists wish polyamory activists would keep quiet. She cites a friend who is studying “to become a Unitarian minister (sic)” who is glad she hasn’t been asked to bless a polyamorous relationship.
Clearly, Miller wishes that polyamory activists would keep quiet, and she wants the UUA to stifle them.
I don’t think that’s the way we do things as Unitarian Universalists. We let the reality of diversity be known in our midst. You may not have known until reading this article that Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA) exists, but, now that you do, you might seek out the website and absorb some of it’s arguments. You might, in inner dialogue and in conversation with others, grapple with the idea of polyamory -- either in opposition or affirmation.
Sometime in the late 80’s, a member of the UUA staff published a booklet of civil unions. The booklet included a service for three people. At that time, I decided that I wouldn’t offer a ceremony for three people if asked. Fast forward a quarter century.
If you’ve ever watched Sister Wives, you’ve seen Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn Brown negotiate their lives in a polygamous marriage.** Along with their 17 children, they’ve let cameras into their living rooms and family-led worship. They’ve let people see good times and bad times, too. Speaking as a group of wives and husband to an audience, they were hurt and shocked when someone asked if Kody had to take "pills" to keep up with all the wives. They knew, as the questioner did not, that their marriage wasn’t about sex, but, about commitment and caring that encompassed all the members of the family: infants, children and spouses.
Marriage, when sanctioned by the state, promotes the application of rights for all members of the family. Marriage, when sanctioned by a religious body, encourages seriously considered commitments and vows of caring that must be lived to be fulfilled. When adults come to me seeking a blessing for a union they wish to offer each other, I look for caring, commitment and continuity. Then, my answer can be ‘yes’, even when the state would deny them their legal rights.
* Miller, Lisa, “Many Unitarians would prefer that their polyamory activists keep quiet”, Washington Post, March 22, 2013, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-22/national/37938821_1_unitarian-universalists-union-of-one-man-marriage
Accessed April 16, 2013
** The Browns sued Utah in an attempt to overturn the state’s bigamy law as unconstitutional. In Utah, multiple relationships, not multiple marriage licenses, define bigamy. Huffington Post, July 25, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/sister-wives-lawsuit-kody-brown-utah-bigamy-law_n_1701450.html
