When the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, many conservatives worried that the law opened the door for polgamists and polyamorists to also have their unions sanctioned by law.
In a recent article for The New Yorker, Andrew Solomon writes that with the rising numbers of polyamorists across the country, as well as the recent changes in some states — including Utah — to the legal status of polygamists, those fears aren’t ill-founded. But what would it mean if we widened our definition of family? As Solomon writes, “American conservatism has long mourned the proliferation of single parents, but, if two parents are better than one, why are three parents worse?” We’ll talk with Solomon about our common assumptions about the differences between polygamists and polyamorists — one, “right-wing misogynists,” and the other, “decadent left-wingers” — and how they share a goal and even, he says, a way of life.
You can read Andrew Solomon’s article for The New Yorker “How Polyamorists and Polygamists Are Challenging Family Norms” here.
Andrew Solomon is the author of Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. [IndieBound|Amazon|Audible| Bookshop]
