Slate writer: "Marriage is elastic" and polygamy is just fine.

What's next if gay "marriage" becomes the law of the land. No doubt a big push for polygamy. At least that's what this writer at Slate thinks and she's just fine with it.

In a story entitled: Legalize Polygamy! No. I am not kidding she writes:

Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?

We can only hope.

She goes on to describe polygamy as the "constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice."  And of course, she believes it will "help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families."  Where have we heard that before?

Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.

  And she says because so many people are doing it anyway, why not legalize it.

It’s also hard to argue with the constitutional freedom of religious expression that legalized polygamy would preserve. Most polygamous families are motivated by religious faith, such as fundamentalist Mormonism or Islam, and as long as all parties involved are adults, legally able to sign marriage contracts, there is no constitutional reason why they shouldn’t be able to express that faith in their marriages. Legalized polygamous marriage would also be good for immigrant families, some of whom have legally polygamous marriages in their home countries that get ripped apart during the immigration process. (It’s impossible to estimate exactly how many polygamous families live here, since they live their religious and sexual identities in secret. Academics suggest there are 50,000 to 100,000 people engaged in Muslim polygamy in the U.S., and there are thousands of fundamentalist Mormon polygamist families as well.)

Her views boil down to a radical individualism and a false understanding of marriage which she views as elastic.

The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less “correct” than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting adults. Though polygamists are a minority—a tiny minority, in fact—freedom has no value unless it extends to even the smallest and most marginalized groups among us. So let’s fight for marriage equality until it extends to every same-sex couple in the United States—and then let’s keep fighting. We’re not done yet.

Who is Barack Obama and what does he believe?

The controversy over the proposed Mosque in New York City and President Obama's ambiguous, vaguely supportive comments on it have only reinforced people's confusion about the President religious beliefs.

One story says:

A new poll showed that nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, believe Obama
is Muslim. That was up from 11 percent who said so in March 2009. The survey
also showed that just 34 percent said Obama is Christian, down from 48 percent
who said so last year. The largest share of people, 43 percent, said they don't
know his religion. A new poll showed that nearly one in five people, or 18
percent, believe Obama is Muslim. That was up from 11 percent who said so in
March 2009. The survey also showed that just 34 percent said Obama is Christian,
down from 48 percent who said so last year. The largest share of people, 43
percent, said they don't know his religion.

While there's a bump in the number of people who believe he's a Muslim, there's also a significant drop in the number of people who believe he's a Christian. In other words, his actions and words don't communicate the idea that he's a Christian man. This is not surprising given the secular sensitivities that emanate from those on the left. Faith is at best a purely private matter that has no impact on one's public life. That seems to be the impression President Obama is leaving with people.

Christian-Muslim conflict in Nigeria. Result of grow of Christianity?

Here's an interesting discussion of the Muslim massacre of 500 Christians in Nigeria. It suggests the genesis is Muslim fear of the growth of Christianity.

I think it's very interesting that Christianity is exploding in Africa. Much, much faster than Islam. Normally one thinks of Islam growing and spreading rapidly. In terms of converts, it's overwhelmingly tilted towards Christianity.

What might have surprised Lawrence, apart from the phenomenon that Islam in its doubt, was turning to suicide, was that by the early 21st century Christianity would have moved on from Europe and America to compete head to head with Islam in “Africa and parts of Asia”. Globally, as Jenkins sees it, the existential threat to Islam comes not from the declining number of Europeans indoctrinated in the quasi-Marxist “Imagine” creed, but from the burgeoning millions of the Third World. Whether Muslims are impressed by the secular belief system captured so succinctly in John Lennon’s song is open to debate. But the attractions of Christianity to the populations of the Third World apparently is not. Whatever the appeal of Islam in London might be, it is less so in Africa. “One factor driving Islamic militancy in many nations is the sense that Christianity is growing. Outside of the West, evangelism and conversion are two of the most sensitive issues in the modern world.”

Christianity, which a century ago was overwhelmingly the religion of Europe and the Americas, has undertaken a historic advance into Africa and Asia. In 1900, Africa had just 10 million Christians, representing around 10 percent of the continental population. By 2000, that figure had swollen to over 360 million, or 46 percent of the population. Over the course of the 20th century, millions of Africans transferred their allegiance from traditional primal faiths to one of the two great world religions, Christianity or Islam—but they demonstrated an overwhelming preference for the former. Around 40 percent of Africa’s population became Christian, compared to just 10 percent who chose Islam.