Polygamists Hunted down, Gays Accepted; What a Society!
By Ndzana Seme
02/21/2004 - Westernization, whether imposed by violence with slavery and colonization or by the
irresistible global entertainment industry, is devastatingly harmful to the African descent people. That only
41.5% of Black men and 31.2% of Black women are married, vs. 56.8% and 53.2% respectively for
Whites (per U.S. Census 2000), should be a subject of big concern when it is known that not finding a
spouse is a nightmare for young people in Africa, most of all women.
A 1999 study by the University of Minnesota (?Just in Time Research: Children, Youth & Families - Men
in the Family: Associations with Juvenile Conduct? ) had shown that 62% of adolescent with conduct
problems are found in an ?extremely disrupted home?, 39% are found in ?very disrupted home?, 26% in a
?mildly disrupted home?, 22% in a ?stable one-parent home?, and 8% in a ?stable two-parent home?. The
study defines the rate of family disruption based on the number of men the mothers dated.
When these findings are coupled with the U.S. Census data showing that 41.6% of Black men and 39.7%
of Black women where never married, in addition to 13.9% and 18.7% respectively who were
divorced/separated, all representing a strong majority of Black population in which mothers are likely to
date several men, the violence rooted in American Black communities is explained in big part.
Psychoanalysts since Sigmund Freud have demonstrated a strong relation between child sexual
environment and future conduct problems, which include violence.
The best remedy seems to rest on a renaissance in African American communities of the African culture,
which teaches the prevalence of marriage as the foundation of the community so essential for people?s
security, including the polygamist marriage.
However, in the current heated debate about gay marriages(1), it is surprising to hear liberal groups stating
that they would tolerate a society with gays, but not a society with polygamists. It is even more surprising
that women are those who defend this argument the most.
Like in Africa, polygamy was neither a sin nor a misdemeanor/felony/crime in America a century ago.
About the jurisprudential theories of those who agree with the recent decision of the Supreme Judicial
Court of Massachusetts, the question is: should laws and state constitutional provisions banning polygamy
be struck down?
This question is supported by the dissenting opinion of Justice Scalia, joined by the Chief Justice and
Justice Thomas, in the case Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), who wrote:
?The constitutions of the States of Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah to this day contain
provisions stating that polygamy is "forever prohibited." [?] The Court's disposition today suggests that
these provisions are unconstitutional, and that polygamy must be permitted in these States on a
state-legislated, or perhaps even local-option, basis - unless, of course, polygamists for some reason have
fewer constitutional rights than homosexuals.?
We should remind that the United States Congress required the inclusion of these anti-polygamy provisions
in the constitutions of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah, as a condition of their admission to
statehood....
According to an AP story (?Measure Targets Polygamy, Same-Sex Unions?, Nov. 15, 2003) published
four days before the Massachusetts decision, the Utah state senator D. Chris Buttars introduced a bill
defining marriage as involving only ?one man and one woman?.
Of the Groups with a liberal view on same-sex marriages marshaling to oppose the proposed legislation,
the Utah branch of the National Organization for Women issued the following statement opposing Buttar's
proposal:
"This discriminatory legislation only serves to foster bigotry and hate against a responsible population of
society who deserve the same privileges and rights afforded to other couples in committed relationships.?
Utah NOW president Andrea Moore-Emmett made a distinction between same-sex unions and polygamy,
which "violates human and civil rights of women and children" while homosexual unions reflect "sexual
orientation" in which there are no victims, AP quoted her statement as saying.
The weak but pleasant fallacy behind this argument is to equate monogamy with fidelity, and monogamy
with solution to marriage crises. Yet cheating in monogamous marriage is rampant.
Historical data show that the rate of marriages has decreased significantly since the US Congress made
monogamy the only recognized marriage in the United States in the 1800s. From 9.8 per 1,000 persons in
1990, the rate is down to 8.4 per 1,000 in 2001.
Today, about 130 years into our monogamy experiment, about half of all people who try a monogamous
marriage change their minds (only 54.4% of Americans 15 years and older are married).
?Unaware of the source of their problem, however, victims of failed marriages typically blame themselves,
thinking they weren't fit for marriage. But besieged by incessant cues on the superiority of monogamy in
romantic movies, television, media, and the law, they decide to try again, frequently only to fail once again.
Even those who stay married are frequently unhappy. Americans spend billions of dollars every year on
counseling, books and escapes designed to help them make their monogamous marriage bearable,? wrote
Matt Evans in a post at stuartbuck.blogspot.com.
Many married Americans are polyamorists (another word for cheaters), unwilling to deny their sexual
orientation. They are invested in committed, healthy marriages to multiple spouses; but yet they are
forbidden to be called polygamists.
The American system should stop encouraging polyamorists to enter monogamous marriages -- which
leaves a wake of estranged partners, hurt children, hard feelings, and years of regret -- and instead help
them build the committed, loving, healthy, and stable relationships they want and need, said Evans.
However, lured by social services benefits, majority of Black American women use celibacy and home
disruption as a means to access public assistance by way of solution to unemployment. Many others are
fascinated by the feminist discourse echoed by Hollywood, and unconsciously join conservatives in deifying
fidelity as a matter between only two persons.
For millenniums, the African Wisdom has taught and perfectly guided its peoples to a personal well being.
Contrary to Hollywood and the capitalist industry, which use sex and violence to build fortunes out of the
poor's pocket, it teaches that passion is not what makes love ? the foundation of marriage.
Passion, one of the main motives of fidelity demand, is both a destructive and constructive emotion. It is
also one of the main causes of home disruption. Yet the mock freedom, conveyed by Western beliefs and
some zealous human rights groups, imposes laws that protect that destructive emotion into families.
The African Wisdom teaches that sharing is a noble virtue and is a premise to love. Monopolizing
something as valuable as a person's personality, affection, kindness, and love, is a glaring ignorance of the
paths leading people?s well being. Threesome families often show higher levels of fulfillment and love than
found in monogamist families.
The main reason behind the acceptance of polygamy in Africa is the prevalence of the community. A
polygamist family is the micro-community par excellence. Community is about putting grand parents,
parents, cousins, uncles, aunts and siblings all together; if not under a single roof, in a same area.
Community is the best way to raise kids with strong values and to build a belt of security within an
essentially exclusionist and racist American society.
Community is what African Americans lack the most. It is outraging to see African descent people joining
Western cultural noxiousness in supporting a deviance that melts human dung with semen as delightful.
Polygamy is part of African culture and a solution to the disruption of African American families, omen of
our community?s extinction.
It is time to impose our African values into American federal and state laws. Black Americans should claim
the right to polygamist marriage and the marriage certificate necessary, the abolition of the laws that only
recognize a one- or two-parent family, and a total revocation of all administrative laws and rules that award
public assistance only to single parents.
(1) Gay is an American word for homosexual, sodomite, sexual deviant, introduced these last decades to give the deviancy an
acceptable face
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