Slippery Slope: Polyamory Gets Support From Harvard Law
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage, Chief Justice John Roberts — who dissented — argued the ruling would open the door to legalizing plural marriage. At the time, outlets like Slate stated emphatically the judge was “wrong.” But as it turns out, Roberts’ warning now seems pretty prescient.
Roberts argued in his 2015 dissent that, “although the majority randomly inserts the adjective ‘two’ in various places, it offers no reason at all why the two-person element of the core definition of marriage may be preserved while the man-woman element may not.”
“Indeed,” he continued, “from the standpoint of history and tradition, a leap from opposite-sex marriage to same-sex marriage is much greater than one from a two-person union to plural unions, which have deep roots in some cultures around the world. If the majority is willing to take the big leap, it is hard to see how it can say ‘no’ to the shorter one.”
Roberts’ prognosis is now the present reality.
Although recent Harvard Law School graduate Natasha Aggarwall “didn’t know much about polyamory until last spring,” according to Harvard Law Today, she says she now feels “very, very strongly about it,” thanks to her work at the school’s LGBTQ+ Advocacy Center, which has partnered with the newly formed Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition.
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