Loth, to talk about gay marriage and group marriage in the same breath is a like putting the cart before the horse.
I think what you are really asking is whether I think giving gay's the right to marry is a slippery slope that will lead to others "wacky" marriages.
As for the multi-partner marriage thingie. I haven't given it much thought. My gut feeling is it's a pretty marginal group of people who are poligomous. However, there are a lot of gays out there in America. How do I feel personally about group marriage? I think it's silly, but, what the fuck? I think loving other humans is normal and however you want to express it should be supported.
And redundancy? I thick what is redundant about the union of two people is that the common structure of that union applies those two people to the task of loving and rearing young in an equal way - they have a similar interest, founded in love. Keys being love and equality.
I think, and could very well be wrong, that poligomy is founded on religious doctrine rather than love. It's a dude marrying a lot of women. The job of caring for the young is passed to the women. The man is superior. It's not at all the same structure. It's not equal, it's not founded on love, and it's inherently unstable.
As for what I know of poligomy it's rather bad for the women involved, too. My understanding is that you can see the father marrying his own children ... So while I'm not opposed to group marriage, I'd want to see some good info on what it means, really. And as a taste issue, poligomy smacks of fundamentalism, women dressed head to toe in thick, obscuring clothes, and women as objects - all things which piss me off.
Gays aren't talking about changing the structure of marriage - two people, pledging their lives and love to one another - but they are demanding they be let into the club. I'm happy to give them the secret handshake.
In getting back to a rehashing of the old slippery slope argument, one that I've used before in regards to other things (esp state/church seperation issues), but in this case I don't think it applies. I don't think it applies to gay marriage because we've had similar cases of civil rights vs cultural fears before: the civil rights movement, the abolishion of slavery, ownership rights for blacks, and women's right to vote. All were contraversial, much like gay marriage. All were rights issues that have turned out great for America.
So as far as slippery slope ... no. Gay marriage is an equal rights issue.
Below is a link to a great column on this slipper slope gay marriage thing:
http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/Here's a long gaff. Understand, it's rather biased.
"From what I can glean from some of my hate mail and the general conservative outcry, here is what the homophobes fear about same-sex marriage: bestiality.
That is, they are utterly terrified that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope of permissive debauchery that will lead to the utter breakdown of social rules and sexual mores, to people being allowed to marry their dogs, or their own dead grandmothers, or chairs, or three hairy men from Miami Beach.
In short, to the neocon Right, a nation that allows gays to marry is a nation with no boundaries and no condoms and where all sorts of illicit disgusting behaviors will soon be legal and be forced upon them, a horrific tribal wasteland full of leeches and flying bugs and scary sex acts they only read about in chat rooms and their beloved "Left Behind" series of cute apocalypse-porn books.
You know, just like how giving blacks the right to own their own land meant we had to give the same rights to house plants and power tools, or how granting women the right to vote meant it was a slippery slope until we gave suffrage to feral cats and sea slugs and rusty hubcaps. "
