Polygamy should be legal in the United States

I will offer my contentions in this round with some brief rebuttals since it ties into the points I am making. I will offer direct rebuttals in later roundsContention 1Cultural Dependency. "From a standpoint of the law emotional and cultural ideas about what "marriage" is supposed to mean are irrelevant and if so important then we should just rename all "marriage" "civil union" and let religion culture emotion and spirituality have the word "marriage."I disagree with this entirely. My adversary is claiming that cultural ideology about what marriage is should not be taken into account. Culture is a drastic part in the legalization of anything. In some cultures murder is considered legal, possibly with rape and pedophilia. Why are these things illegal in the USA? Because the question of what is being legalized is dependent on the culture in which the question is being presented. More often that not if it would bring more harm than good to that culture, it is not legalized. That is one way to look at the ontological foundation for morality and the legalization of things within a culture itself. So the question that should be asked is, "does polygamy bring more harm than good?" I will address this in my following contentions and show the flaws within legalizing this, and why we should not bend laws for polygamist. Contention 2Taxation View the form below, this is a tax refund form. Note the areas I circled. The issue with this is that a polygamist is entitled to have multiple wives or dependents, all of which must be accounted for in taxation. If you grant a polygamist the right to have one extra wife, what stops him from having 300 or 500 wives. He could very well marry any number of women he pleases. A middle income family who yields a income of around 25,000 - 50,000 dollars could receive a refund up to around 4,500 if they were just to claim one wife and one child. If that family were to claim 4 children, it could go to around 7,500 - 10,000. So how then do we gauge a person whom could have 300 wives and 700 children? Here are three examples of how this would fail horribly and could not be worked around. Dependents - a person who relies on another, esp. a family member, for financial support.Claiming dependents and wives on one form : If a family with 4 children could yield up to a 10,000 dollar refund, think about someone whom had 700 children. It would almost guarantee them a full refund, and with that, there would be no need to pay taxes at all because of the number of people he is claiming. This would be exploited and used to no end, because the only thing he would have to prove is that he helped support them or provided (x) amount of his income. The current system now requires you to support someone over half a year to claim them. There are so many ways this would be abused. Claiming on a house hold to house hold basis : If you were to file a separate form for each individual family. Your income would have to be calculated by how much you put into each family directly, how much your wife made in that family, if she worked, and the total amount of your money that was put into each individual family. It would be virtually impossible to determine dependents in regards to children, because you could simply say they lived with you and move them from family to family to receive maximum benefits. Wifes with multiple husbands claiming them as dependents :One more example would be, what happens if a wife has 30 husbands. Could each individual husband claim her? Seeing as how traditional marriage only allows a wife to be claimed by her husband if she is working, think about this in regards to her having 30 husbands whom all support her. There are way to many loopholes to even try justify legalizing this. The repercussions of this would echo through the economy, and be exploited by people whom would seek polygamy out as a source for financial gain. We already give out enough free money to people, we do not need another reason. Contention 3Employer paid healthcare Think about how this works. More often than not there are multiple ways in which an employee can select this. He can chose to put each family member on a plan for (x) amount of money that is removed out of his paycheck. There is usually a cap sometimes at a wife + 4. Here is an example of that Now take a look at the cost with some of the new laws in place that are forcing employers to pay healthcare. Now assume this. Since this is normally capped with one family, and the employer has to pay in (x) amount of money depending on the number of people in the family. Also this would raise the cost that comes out of the employees check, because the more you are claiming, the more you pay. What happens when you go to apply for this and have to put you have 20 legally recognized wives. He could chose to cover some and not the other? This would also lead to exploitation because we are only considering this from a one person perspective. What happens if a woman whom does not work, has 30 husbands whom does. Each husband could individually opt, to claim her under a specific plan, or even have her claim dental on one, and eye on another. Whatever would be the most beneficial to that person. Contention 4Upholding the values of marriage. Marriage in itself is defined as an act of commitment between two people. It is a promise to love and cherish the other, as long as they leave. To death to us part, as most vows put it. Marriage was built on the foundation that it is between two people whom love each other, and are seeking to enter a live long commitment. Marriage - the formal union of a man and a woman, typically recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife.Marriage - the formal union of two people, typically acknowledged by law.There is controversy about whether it is between a man and woman, or simply between two people. The thing both sides mostly agree upon is that marriage is an act of commitment. While Pro claims that it is a legal contract which is the case, it is a contract that also comes with promises between the wife and husband, or between the two whom are getting married. The very foundation of marriage is a life of commitment to that person. So pro would rather have all marriage be classified as civil unions, and marriage itself to be reformed as only a religious commitment. I disagree entirely. Marriage has always been defined as a commitment between two people. If anything he should argue that civil unions should have the same benefits as marriage, and that if a polygamist wanted more than one wife, after the first wife , the others would be classified as civil unions. Even that is not viable and I have shown a few reasons in my previous contentions. Contention 5The effects on a younger generation. What kind of moral principals do you think polygamy would instill in children? They would have 20 dads and 20 moms. They would have to pick whom they liked the most, and at a certain age, could even decide to stay with another family if they saw fit. The can chose which parent to live with at a certain age. There are just tons of ways this would not legally work out as well. Also it instills in them a sense of "cheating". They would not know what the word commitment entails because they would never be around it. They would see Daddy cheating on mommy, or being with 20 other women. They would grow up with the mindset that cheating is acceptable. It would instill in them values that would make them not be able to function socially.Commitment goes far beyond marriage. Commitment and dedication to jobs would also be affected by that. If you take out the need of dedication around a child, and let him see that. He will not feel the need to dedicate himself to anything. That is basic psychology. If a child sees something, he will mimic it. He also tends to adopt the habits of his parents. RebuttalProtecting spousesThis is the only one I feel the need to address, since I feel I adequately responded to his first argument. "One aspect of marriage benefits is that if there is domestic violence it is easier to get the involvement of court and police services."I think this point is erroneous. Whether or not a police officer or the law does not agree with someone having a mistress. They are still required by law to protect them and uphold their rights. If domestic abuse is happening, all that is needed is for someone to contact authorities and it will be handled the same way any other domestic abuse is handled. That is a requirement of them by the law. In ClosingThe question is not whether it is morally acceptable to have more than one wife, it is will it harm this society. I have just gave a few out of many reasons as to why it is a bad idea. There is no solid reason to support this stance, and I have shown how it will harm us more than it will help.