Cohousing-L Mailing List: Double Standards

[Rebecca Dawn Kaplan (rebecca]

Well, for the past several days there have been NUMEROUS
posts on UU. Many of which have asserted than many/most
members of various coho groups are UU, & others have 
suggested that people seekign to recruit for coho should
look to UU groups, thus perpetuating the current skewing of 
membership. This discussion might lead many people to believe
thatt they are not welcome in coho, from various perspectives.
Although UU claims to be UNiversal, it really only is
Universal with regard to many forms of christianity.  If someone
were practicing traditional Jewish religious practices, their
practices woudl not be encompassed in UU, which, first of
all, alsmot allways hold their "nondenominational services"
on sundays. Additionally, many forms of pagan/wiccan practice
are not encompassed by most UU groups. And yet, traditional 
religious christians of various denominations also condemn UU,
believing that it is a flight from "real" christianity. 
Despite all of this, no one has proposed cutting the 
trumpeting of UU on this list in order to 
protect the image of coho. why? I suggest that it is
because most people like UU, but don';t feel
comfortable with polyamory.  I raise this again because
I think it is important to think carefully about what we
are promoting here, because it is dishonest to say that 
we are not promoting anything. ALso, please note that 
what was originally objected to was *not* writing articles
in public newspapers which implied that coho people
were pro-polyamory, but rather, merely discussing polyamory
on this list, which some "enemy" might see and use against
us, somehow. 

I also want to point out that the responses that people have
sent to me regarding my post (personally sent to me) contain
contradictory justifications. One person insisted that
compulsory monogamy does not really exist, that tehre
are no realy social forces againt polyamory anyway, s
so what do i have to be so riled up about. Another person
said that I'd better be quiet about this, because
Newt's armies are rallying at the gate, and will destroy
us all if they even think that there might be some 
poly people in CoHo.  So, which is it?  It seems
that whether people think this is Utopia or Armaggeddon, 
the message is still to shut up, which makes me think 
people are still profoundly uncomfortable with polyamory.
But, if Newt's armies are at the gates, we'd better not
takl about there being any queers here either, or unmarried
couples living together in sin. 

-rebecca