THE WASHINGTON STAND/ Tony Perkins-
funny thing happened to the Democrats’ same-sex marriage bill on its trip from the House to the Senate: people actually started reading the legislation. When they did, an uncomfortable reality set in — nothing in the text explicitly outlawed polygamy. It was just a “drafting error,” the more liberal senators claimed. But it wasn’t a “drafting error” when a New York judge recognized polyamory late last month. How much longer until the party who wants “love” to be the legal basis for every relationship follows suit?
The decision by trial court judge Karen May Bacdayan should have been frontpage news. After all, she essentially gave New York’s blessing to polyamorous unions in her September decision, declaring that “… the problem with [previous same-sex marriage rulings] is that they recognize only two-person relationships.”
At the heart of the case was an apartment dispute, triggered when a tenant, who had a gay spouse living elsewhere, died. The landlords argued that the man he did live with didn’t have a right to renew the lease because the two weren’t married. When the roommate objected, arguing that he was a “non-traditional family member,” the judge decided to hold a hearing on whether all three were romantically involved.
Bacdayan pointed to two same-sex union cases, New York’s Braschi v. Stahl and SCOTUS’s Obergefell v. Hodges, explaining that both major rulings “limit their holdings to two-person relationships.” Those decisions, she agrees, were “revolutionary,” but they “still adhered to the majoritarian, societal view that only two people can have a family-like relationship.” In other words, “only people who are ‘committed’ in a way defined by certain traditional factors qualify for protection …” As far as she’s concerned, Braschi and Obergefell “open[ed] the door for consideration of other relational constructs — and perhaps,” the judge insisted, “the time has arrived.” Continue reading….
