The million dollar question:

...said Ma “I think often that there are so many different families today. The modern family has stepdad and gay dads and two mommies. What is family and how do we explain that to children?”

Forget children, *I’d* like to hear her define what a family is and is not, and then explain to me how that definition will work on a functional level *without* requiring a total rewiring of our cultural expectations and our legal system.

Just last week Sen. Santorum was ridiculed for making this connection, and of course many observers of same-sex debacle have seen it coming.
What’s that fancy German word for ‘‘I told you so’‘?

Yes, Charles52, it’s all part of the ‘game’ as it gets played. The media continues to produce drip-drip articles on The Next Coming Thing weighted towards fairly uncritical, almost advocacy, pieces all the while decrying anyone who suggests that the current cause celebre is connected to that next thing they’re setting up.

Then once the current cause is ‘in’, the argument switches and people in the public square say, “Obviously the two are connected and the principle at work there works here. It’d just be inconsistent to not accept this now.”

That’s not to say all or most people involved are self-consciously playing a game - people believe what they want to (at least in part) and it’s often the case that last decade’s great progressive warrior becomes cast aside for a new voice because they genuinely did, and continue, to believe something that is no longer acceptable.

Nonetheless, at the level of systems, it’s like Lucy and the football. How often does this ‘bait and switch’ have to occur before people see it and learn to recognize it for what it is?

This is just so sad. I feel badly for all of them. I can’t even imagine what kind of spiritual and emotional toll this must be taking on each of them whether they’re aware of it or not. So terribly sad.

Wonder what the lgbt advocates in TEC would say about this? Do they draw a line or do they not?

I feel sorry for the children. And for any person with whom the child alleges to “love.” And their progeny. Exodus 20:5.

I had a “couple” like this walk into my church last summer. I didn’t realize what they were at first. I gave them the tour of the church, and the woman and man #1 were holding hands at first, and then later on, it was woman and man #2 holding hands. I finally just had to ask what was going on. They told me pretty up front, and were wondering if, since we are an Episcopal church, if the congregation would be accepting of them. I just told the way it was…there might be a few folks who would be okay with it, and most people would be polite, but acceptance…in small town South Dakota? Yeah, right.

What does one even call a couple that is actually three people? A triple? A couplet? Even the English language item doesn’t have a term for this.

Utter nonsense. All of it. I’ve got more than plenty with just one woman. You think I’d want two? Uh-huh. And ask any sane woman whether she understands the one man she has. Ya want another one, too?

The real issue here is that these are people who expect another person to be the source—rather than the object—of their passion, joy for life, or whatever. Somebody else as source, not God. When that doesn’t work, because it can’t,  with #1, well then, find a #2, either poly or serial. And when (of course) that doesn’t work, go for #3, #8 or #17.

Fools’ errand.

No. 8, My general retort was…you mean you want two mothers-in-law? That usually halts a conversation on the issue.

#7, the generally used term is triad. 
There was a poly family in my parish, and they were accepted(-ish) until one of them wanted to run for vestry.  They left after the rector said that wasn’t an option.

I’ve met a lot of people in open relationships and often I’m amazed that they could find one person to be with, let alone multiples.

I’m just wondering how the churches which have become gay marriage meccas will handle requests from polygamists and polyamorists to be “married” in those churches. How can they say “No!”  (Heck, they probably are looking forward to further deconstructing traditional marriage and the family.)

here we go again…incest love justification is just round the corner…

Been done already.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116905/

My candidate for next popular perversion is ephebophelia (desire for sexually mature but underage adolescents, mainly boys).  The infrastructure is there in NAMBLA, and there is that Greek thing the sophisticates admire so.