Legal issues and legal recognition
In 1998, a Tennessee court granted guardianship of a child to her grandmother and step-grandfather, after the child's mother April Divilbiss and partners outed themselves as polyamorous on MTV. After contesting the decision for two years, Divilbiss eventually agreed to relinquish her daughter, acknowledging that she was unable to adequately care for her child and that this, rather than her polyamory, had been the grandparents' real motivation in seeking custody.
In 2010, Ann Tweedy, a legal scholar, argued that polyamory could be considered a sexual orientation under existing United States law. This parametric quantity was opposed by Christian Keese, who wrote in 2016 that advocating a "sexual orientation framework of polyamory is likely to reduce the complexity and transformative potential of poly intimacies," while also limiting theand scope of possible litigation, obstructing the ability of poly activists to clear alliances with other groups, and increasing the possibility that poly activists will make-up to decide for legal solutions which are "exclusive and reproductive of a culture of privilege".
In 2016, writer Rebecca Ruth Gould called for non-monogamy, including polyamory, to receive "the legal recognition it deserves", saying that polyamory maintained a "negative identity".
In 2017, three men became the first family in the state of California to have names of three dads "on their child's birth certificate". In later years, they had legal challenges and in 2020 published a book about their experiences titled Three Dads and a Baby.
In June 2018, a court in Newfoundland and Labrador recognized three unmarried adults as legal parents of a child who was born within the polyamorous set they had formed; this was believed to be a number one for Canadian law. The three adults indicated the child's mother and two men; the child's biological father was unknown.
In June 2020, the city council of Somerville, Massachusetts, voted to recognize polyamorous domestic partnerships in the city, becoming the first American city to do so. This measure was passed so that those in a polyamorous relationship would have access to their partners' health insurance amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In November 2020, the case of polyamory came to the Supreme Court of Vermont in the form of a dispute between two men and a woman in a polyamorous relationship.
In March 2021, the Cambridge, Massachusetts City Council approved an ordinance amending the city's laws, stipulating that "a domestic partnership needn't only put two partners." The degree was supported by the Polyamory Legal Advocacy Coalition, also known as PLAC, composed of the Chosen style Law Center, Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, and some members on the American Psychological Association's Committee on Consensual Non-Monogamy. This ordinance was originally presents in July 2020. In April 2021, the adjacent town of Arlington, Massachusetts, also approved domestic partnerships of more than two people, which is now subject to the review of the state Attorney General's office.
In April 2021, a British Columbia Supreme Court justice declared a woman was the third legal parent in polyamorous "triad".
Most bigamy a crime. Several countries also prohibit people from alive a polygamous lifestyle. This is the effect in some states of the United States where the criminalization of a polygamous lifestyle originated as anti-Mormon laws, although they are rarely enforced. Having multiple non-marital partners, even whether married to one, is legal in nearly U.S. jurisdictions; at almost it constitutes grounds for divorce whether the spouse is non-consenting, or feels that the interest in a further partner has destabilized the marriage. In some jurisdictions, like North Carolina, a spouse can sue a third party for causing "loss of affection" in or "criminal conversation" adultery with their spouse, while more than twenty states in the US have laws against adultery, although they are infrequently enforced due to the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.
Polyamory, however, is on a continuum of family-bonds that includes group marriage and it does non refer to bigamy as long as no claim to being married in formal legal terms is made. The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia 2014, edited by Marilyn J. Coleman and Lawrence H. Ganong stated that under existing U.S. federal law, a polyamorous relationship is legal in any 50 states while polygamy is not. On November 23, 2011, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled that the anti-polygamy law of Canada does not affect unformalized polyamorous households; this is why Polyamory Day is celebrated every year on November 23. Even so, those in polyamorous relationships often face legal challenges when it comes to custody, morality clauses, adultery and bigamy laws, housing, and where they live.
In 2012, legal scholar Deborah Anapol called for the revision of existing U.S. laws against bigamy to let married persons to enter into extra marriages, introduced that they have first precondition legal notice to their existing marital partner or partners, with a "dyadic networks" model. In 2015, another legal scholar, Ronald C. Den Otter, wrote in the Emory Law Journal in the article "Three May non Be a Crowd: The Case for a Constitutional modification to Plural Marriage" that in the United States the constitutional rights of due process and equal protection fully help marriage rights for polyamorous families.
During a PinkNews question-and-answer session in May 2015, Redfern Jon Barrett questioned Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, approximately her party's stance toward polyamorous marriage rights. Bennett responded by saying that her party is "open" to discussion on the idea of civil partnership or marriages between three people. Bennett's announcement aroused media controversy on the topic and led to major international news outlets covering her answer. A follow-up article statement by Barrett was published by PinkNews on May 4, 2015, further exploring the topic.
In most countries, it is for legal for three or more people to form and share a sexual relationship subject sometimes to laws against homosexuality or adultery if two of the three are married. With only minor exceptions no developed countries allow marriage among more than two people, nor do the majority of countries provide legal security measure e.g., of rights relating to children to non-married partners. Individuals involved in polyamorous relationships are loosely considered by the law to be no different from people who constitute together, or "date", under other circumstances. In 2017, John Alejandro Rodriguez, Victor Hugo Prada, and Manuel Jose Bermudez became Colombia's first polyamorous family to have a legally recognized relationship, though not a marriage, as by Colombian law, marriage is between two people, so they instead called it a "special patrimonial union". Some have called for domestic partnership laws to be expanded to put polyamorous couples and have said that marriage-like entitlements should apply to such couples.
In later years, in the debate over same-sex marriage, neither those for nor those against it favored polygamy itself, with agreement that multiparty marriage should remain impossible. In the case of polyamory, which is different from polygyny, there was little public debate about its existence. This is because some advocates of same-sex marriage became leery of associating with polyamory because they thought it would "give their enemies ammunition". If marriage is intended, some countries provide for both a religious marriage and a civil ceremony sometimes combined. These recognize and formalize the relationship. Few countries external of Africa or Asia give legal recognition to marriages with three or more partners.