William Saletan has this rather stupid piece in Slate, apparently trying to calm down conservatives that the legalization of gay marriage won't lead to legalizing polygamy.

He gives a few examples of modern polyamorous relationships that fell apart because at least one person was jealous. It's human nature, he says.

The average guy would love to bang his neighbor's wife. He just doesn't want his wife banging his neighbor. Fidelity isn't natural, but jealousy is. Hence the one-spouse rule. One isn't the number of people you want to sleep with. It's the number of people you want your spouse to sleep with.

This may be true of most, but surely not of all. And then, of all things, Saletan quotes the Bible. Nice.

This, though, is really the crux of the article:

Women shared husbands because they had to. The alternative was poverty. As women gained power, they began to choose what they really wanted. And what they really wanted was the same fidelity that men expected from them.

Ah, so it's about choice, is it? They why the fuck is polygamy illegal? If it's so much against human nature, that every poly-whatever relationship is doomed to fail, why not just make it legal? That is, if choice is what you care about. Why restrict the freedom to enter into whatever adult, consensual relationship people want to?

Who the hell is Saletan to say, "It goes against human nature, won't lead to stable, lasting relationships, and should therefore be illegal." Doesn't that basically sound like an argument against homosexual unions?

He's a hypocrite. Saletan's view of "worthwhile" relationships just happens to include gay ones, but he's just as close-minded and exclusionary as Krauthammer. If they won't work, fine...but why take away people's right to make that choice?