Portland’s polygamy law adds to growing status

 
By Jason Williams,
Williams is a writer, researcher and founder of Taxpayers Association of Oregon.

A Portland City Council anti-discrimination proposal would redefine families as any consensual relationship, even those with multiple partners, non-monogamous lovers, multigenerational households and stepfamilies. The measure would prohibit discrimination of such families by landlords, employers, city government and businesses.  Portland is set to  join Somerville, Mass., Berkeley, and Oakland as cities recognizing polyamorous relationships.

This comes at the same time as Oregon couples were featured on a polygamy TV reality show called PolyFamily.   It was also featured nationally as a way to save on daycare expenses.

This is not helpful for Portland’s decline.

• Making Portland an icon for polygamy while at the same time there is a population exodus of young families is a bad recipe.  Young families are leading the demographic of people leaving Portland because Portland is not family friendly.

• Children are more at risk of abuse and societal harms in a polygamous arrangement according to the National Institute of Health.

• Oregon has a birth crisis as more people are dying than were born in Oregon.

• “Non-monogamous” households, where different partners come in and out of the relationship, are unfit for children.

As said, Portland is in decline on the most important social metric — families.   They should really refocus their attention on restoring the family foundation of the city.