Hey, We’re Two, Too!

(“I now pronounce you man and wife and wife and wife.”)

It’s not fair. It’s just not right. There I was, sitting at home and minding my own single guy business, when suddenly some whining psychotic starts yelling at me online.

Look. If I wanted whining psychotics to yell at me, I’d start dating again.

But there he was – some faceless guy sending me Twitter messages, demanding (see ‘whining’) I support him in his quest to marry multiple people. (see ‘psychotic’)

Ooh. Where do I sign.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. You’re probably thinking this online petitioner was just one more marginally-stable male with a manifesto; just the latest self-diagnosed tragic hero; just another 21-to-34-year-old guy speared with a few ounces of oddly-situated face jewelry, who drinks bulk-priced beer and smells like bulk-priced cheese, is dressed in a checkered hunting shirt, gym shorts, & athletic socks, and lives in his parent’s dimly lit basement with a refurbished Apple laptop and a forgery-accessed Ritalin prescription.

But no. This guy (I’ll call him Lipids) had also put together a nice basket of logical (see ‘raging sarcasm’) arguments in favor of his effort, a cause that he’s christened ‘Plural Marriage.’

(Lipids is what, in the sixties, we would’ve called an ‘activist’ or, as we know it today, a ‘schmuck.’)

See, Lipids thinks it’s downright discriminatory that several consenting adults aren’t allowed to marry each other, all at the same time, even optimistically assuming that they’re all sane. (see ‘Pollyanna Syndrome’)

So Lipids and his lieutenants are fighting for group marriage equality rights (see ‘tax breaks’), while ignoring the societal implications of such massive relationship-based redistricting. I mean, just for a start, allowing a whole gang of people to marry each other would call for a complete rethinking of that whole ‘bridal registry’ thing.

Or, on a less mercenary level, imagine this: one husband, living in a house with seven or eight wives, all sharing (or not) one bathroom. Poor guy would have to grow another bladder.

And speaking of the ol’ Fortress of Solitude, how about all those monogrammed hand towels? Hmm? Since the dawn of time … or at least the dawn of Target … those little towels have been sold in just-so sets, His and Hers. Haven’t thought about that little detail, have you? Hmm? I didn’t think so.

Nonetheless, Lipids and the Spousettes are demanding his/her/their equal access to entitlement money, which is what people do these days instead of working. See, according to these Pluralistas, marriage is a fundamental human right, right up there with a free cell phone, or being allowed to unload your idling car in the airport’s “Taxis Only” lane.

Hey, it’s in the Constitution. Look it up.

From there, Lipids segued into a debating point that even I thought was obscure, and I make up stuff for a living. Plural Guy’s next postulate was based on the following iffy, oddly-spelled premise: “Humans are not animals on Noah’s Arc. Two by two is nonsense.”

Ooh. Touché.

It is a point that may or may not sway potential Pluralites, but it does confirm a few things:

Lipids has never been mistaken for a returning Jeopardy champion.
Apparently, Noah and menagerie survived the flood by hunkering down in part of a circle’s circumference.
Lipids missed his 3pm dose of Ritalin.

But the overarching argument of the macro-managing Many-Mates is this: the more love in the home, the more stability in society.

Sorry, Lipids.

Nice idea, but you’re assuming that more people shoved in the same place would somehow automagically equal more harmony, even though one of them hasn’t seen the inside of a bathroom in twelve years. That’s like saying the more people in the car, the better the freeway traffic.

And Team Lipids isn’t settling for simple polygyny, either. This is not just some chauvinistic “me and my harem” movement. In the Plural Marriage handbook, anything goes: a man and two or three women; two men or two women; two men and two women; three women and two men; one woman and seven dwarfs; five men and Grace Jones – the possibilities are rich.

By the way: in this type of discussion, it’s usually around this point that people start fretting about something they call the “slippery slope.” (Usually these people are conservatives. Conservatives, as a rule, want to avoid heading down a “slippery slope.” Liberals, on the other hand, are always averse to opening a “can of worms.”)

But these multi-betrothal big-tent mathematics come in handy for simpatico recruiting purposes, too. According to one Plural Marriage supporter – a strange spotted-faced female named Dave – two out of three people in a plural marriage will be the same sex! So the Neo-Nuptialites are mano a mano with the LGBT community, too! (Of course, the 2-outta-3 rule does not take San Francisco into account. At last count, Frisco had more recognized genders than Joe Biden has original teeth.)

LGBT, of course, collectively refers to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community. It used to go by the acronym LGB (less than/greater than/both), not to be confused with RGB (genders that have been Photoshopped) or the KGB (Russian grooms posing as Russian brides). The term LGBT was originally coined by an off-campus clothing chain known as The Gap. Roughly translated from the original San Fernando Valley-speak, LGBT means “If it moves, date it.” (Source: the lost scrolls of, like, Santa Monica and stuff)

The LGBT are a subgroup of AOI (Alternately-Oriented Individuals) who may or may not suffer from GID (Gender Identity Disorder), a condition recognized by the APA (American Psychiatric Association) as part of the AAA. (Absurd Array of Acronyms)

Ultimately, of course, given that I’m a single guy with no social acronyms whatsoever, I opted out of Lipids’ offer of solidarity. But I do wish him all the best, as he continues on his mission to collect enough in-laws to field his own NCAA football team. And from everything I’ve heard about in-laws, he’s gonna need all the padding he can get.

Not to mention some more Ritalin.