Amy Nash-Kille knows that not everyone would choose a polyamorous family like hers. But she called it the “greatest blessing” of her life.
Nash-Kille said she has spent the last 17 years in a committed relationship with “two gentle, loving men”, sharing the costs and responsibilities of raising four kids.
But she’s concealed her family arrangement from her graduate school adviser, co-workers and even her hairdresser. She said someone harassed her family for more than a year, and she took out a restraining order to stop it before moving her family from a Colorado suburb to Portland, Oregon, in 2011.
In March, the city became the largest in the US to pass an ordinance protecting polyamorous people and multipartnered households from discrimination in housing, jobs and public accommodation. For Nash-Kille and her partners, it was “one of the greatest relief moments of our lives”.
“People are still going to judge what they don’t understand,” said Nash-Kille, who told her story to the Guardian and in city council testimony. But the new law, she said over email, “is helping to establish the inherent worth and dignity of people who have unusual family configurations when considered by society at large”.
I’ve known one poly guy for over 20 years. When he pops up in Austin, it’s always with a different partner, and you’d never think them to be anything other than a loving, monogamous couple at a restaurant.
The other poly couple of familiar with is the one looking to start a commune. I slept there a few nights, and nothing untoward happened.
Poly doesn’t mean you think you can fuck everyone; it just means being able to hold romantic feelings for more than one person at the same time. Which, let’s be honest, we’ve all experienced in life.
I’m almost wondering if there’s a way to word these protections such that they also account for all future groups which may/do face discrimination. In any case, I’m happy to see an attempt to tackle it for poly people.
As an aside, one of my hair stylists in the past was in a poly relationship. You wouldn’t even know it unless he talked about it. Seems he faces many of the same issues you’d see couples face who are in same-sex relationships or relationships with a trans partner. He gets asked a lot of dumb questions by people too. It’s funny how simple it all is: people who love each other are together. As for all the details of the relationship, it’s really not your business.