Gay Marriage - 'Marriage' should be religious only and receive no recognition or benefit from the state. This means that churches can call people married, not married, whatever, but they aren't the authority on it and any random person can consider themselves married if they want. The legal (tax purposes etc.) equivalent of marriage should be open to any partnership.

Polygamy - Agree in principle, though risk of abuse for tax purposes etc. very high so maybe some sort of check to make sure the situation is real. But otherwise sound.

Prostitution - Yes. Fully accepting it will bring it into proper legal frameworks and then we can regulate it like any other industry with regards to employment law and so forth.

The problem with polygamy and prostitution is that they both tend to be abused. I haven't heard of many women that choose prostitution out of choice, but rather out of necessity. I'm more concern with vulnerable women/girls being victimized from prostitution and polygamy than about the moralities concerning them.

For gay marriage, what's the argument against it there besides a strong bias from the religious community?

If I just take prostitution here, surely the best way to avoid exploitation is to bring it 'above ground' where it can be regulated?

i agree, its like with Drugs and Alcohol, we know that making them illegal dosent work, so why not make them legal so we can at least regulate them and stuff.

The only really easy distinction I can make between what should and should not be illegal as far as marriage goes is the idea of it being consensual. As long as all of participants are consensual adults they should all be allowed to enter into a marriage together. This places a clear distinction between things like gay marriage and the things some people think that gay marriage will lead to such as marrying animals or inanimate objects.

So with that in mind, I am for all of the above being legal.

I disagree about the drugs. The reason it works for alcohol and would work for prostitution is that, fundamentally, these actions aren't harmful in moderation. There is no safe lower limit on most of the illegal drugs; legalising them would increase access and therefore number of users but wouldn't decrease harm caused.

I'm pretty sure in US and Canada there isn't anything really illegal with polygamy (as this easily falls under freedom of religion), but most of the polygamist groups are arrested for illegal activities that almost always is statutory rape.

I don't see how any of these things should be considered illegal, although each of these subjects could easily have its own thread for discussion.

Sure but as I said, I assuming that prostitution isn't a very desirable profession for women. There's always a risk of smuggling from third world countries. There's also the fact that why would criminal organizations bring prostitution above ground just because it's legal if there's more profit underground. In any case, places like Germany and the Netherlands seems to have prostitution well regulated, so I don't know.

I think I'm for legalizing all. Read the book _Under_The_Banner_Of_Heaven by Jon Krakauer. It's about FLDS compounds throughout North America. It's never going to be enforceable - but I think getting it out in the open may prevent, to some degree, the child marriages that seem to occur frequently.

As far as tax-breaks go...I think all tax breaks for marriage (monogamous, polygamous, and whatever else there is) should be repealed. Tax adults on an individual basis by income - get rid of tax breaks for children (never understood this as they are a tax-burden but I guess the State wants a growing demographic). I don't see the problem with any kinds of marriage then. Let banks, and other companies that have specific rules for joint accounts, or co-signers or what have you, deal with the rest.

Legalize it all but keep an eye on polygamy. Too often it's been used for the abuse of young girls (can't even call them women, really) by cults over the years.

But if two 18+ women want to marry the same dude, good for them (bad for him... I already had one wife, I couldn't imagine dealing with multiple insanities at once). It's none of my business.