c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) By day, he’s an Atlanta real estate investor, a self-described political conservative, a member of a Methodist church, the son of a Southern Baptist pastor.

After hours, he’s known as “Mr. Big,” a columnist for PolyamoryOnline.org. His family _ a wife and five children _ lives with another couple, who have four children. Each husband is romantically involved with both wives, and vice versa.

As “Mr. Big” and his wife entered the polyamorous relationship with the other couple two years ago, he said he began to study the Bible more closely and “found something fishy.”

“I still haven’t figured out when Christianity and Judaism went from being poly-type religions to strictly monogamous ones,” said “Mr. Big,” who asked not to be identified to protect his children’s privacy.

Since Old Testament figures like King David had multiple wives, he said, it was only logical that in today’s society, in which men and women are equal, that women should be allowed multiple partners as well.

That doesn’t mean it’s at all socially respectable.

“Our family has to keep things behind a little bit of a veil,” he said. “Nobody wants to hear about your sex life at church.”

That veil may be lifting _ however slightly and slowly _ as faith-minded polyamorists come out of the sexual closet. Mr. Big is just one of many polyamorists who say their multiple romantic relationships are intimately linked to their faith and values, even as their celebration of non-monogamy often earns a cool or hostile reception from others.

Every Wednesday night, Harlan White gathers his “tribe” _ his three adult partners and other adults they’re romantically involved with _ for an unconventional family dinner. In White’s house, multiple love relationships are openly pursued.

“We make a conscious effort to create something that feels like an extended family,” said White, a 57-year-old medical professional who lives on the West Coast but asked that the city not be named. “One of the values of polyamory is building networks of relatedness that transcend the nuclear family.”

White is board president of the group Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness. Polyamory seems to run in his family: His sister, Valerie White, has what she calls an “intentional family.” She shares the parenting of 5-year-old twins with two other polyamorous adults.

Her Unitarian Universalist congregation on Boston’s South Shore has been “completely accepting,” she said, even electing her president.

“The principles of the Unitarian Universalist church are equity and compassion in human affairs,” said Valerie White, a lawyer. “Nothing that I know of is more focused on compassion and equity than polyamory.”

The term polyamory _ the idea of openly engaging in multiple love relationships with consent of all parties involved _ was added to the Oxford English Dictionary only last year but first came into circulation in the late 1980s.

(Polyamory and polygamy are not the same; polygamy involves marriage, legal or otherwise, most often by men who take multiple wives.)

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While the term itself is new, polyamorists are quick to point out that such arrangements have been around for centuries.

Members of the early 20th century “Bloomsbury Group” of English writers and artists _ Virginia Woolf and others _ had intertwined love lives. More recently, investing guru Warren Buffet had what his wife, Susan, called “an unconventional marriage,” in which Buffett openly consorted, for decades, with a close friend of his wife, according to the New York Times.

In a more religious vein, the 19th century utopian Oneida Community engaged in theologically Christian “complex marriage,” in which every adult male was married to every adult female. In the 1970s and ’80s, the San Francisco commune Kerista was based on group marriage with an overlay of New Age spirituality.

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“There is always 5 percent of people who don’t want to do things the way everyone else does; that’s not new, and it’s not going away,” said Timothy Miller, a professor at the University of Kansas who studies new religious movements.

“The only difference now is unconventional sexual practices are more socially acceptable.”

Lisa Davis embraced polyamory before she even knew what the word meant. The 44-year-old convert to Hinduism says the practice is consistent with ancient Hindu stories of polygamy and her experience of communal living on a Hindu ashram.

Davis was living in Florida when her husband, a politically conservative Air Force veteran who traveled for months at a time, suggested that his close friend assume the role of “surrogate husband and father” when he was away. The relationship evolved from platonic to romantic to sexual, all with her husband’s consent.

“I’m not sure why our culture is so hell-bent on monogamy. It’s so impractical; look at all the help you need raising children,” said Davis, pointing to stories from Hindu scripture in which kings or gods had multiple wives who supported and helped one another.

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Because polyamory tends to operate in the shadows, the number of polyamorous Americans is impossible to judge, said Robyn Trask, managing editor of Loving More, a Colorado-based magazine devoted to polyamory.

The organization that runs the magazine, however, has a database of 15,000 individuals. Four years ago, it polled members on their religious affiliation. “The result was about 30 percent Pagan, 30 percent Christian and 30 percent agnostic or atheist, with a few others who were Jewish or Buddhist,” she said.

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Tolerance can vary. Some Christians like “Mr. Big” keep their family life veiled from public view. Others are more public, but still the reception can be chilly, even within liberal church circles.

Kathleen Reedy heads the Washington, D.C., area chapter of Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA) and said some local congregations have refused to advertise the group’s meetings in church bulletins.

“Ironically, some resistance has come from members of the gay and lesbian community, who have said we are `muddying the waters’ and diverting people from the goal of legalizing same-sex marriage,” said Reedy, 71, a divorcee who now has a “primary” male partner in addition to several “secondary” relationships.

For its part, the national Unitarian Universalist Association said the polyamory group is independent, but UUA spokeswoman Janet Hayes said the church “support(s) responsible adult relationships based on mutual love and respect.”

Pagan polyamorists, however, find little to hide from other pagans.

“There almost is no stigma on it,” said “Laura,” a pagan who lives in suburban Washington but did not want to be named because she fears her polyamory could cause child custody problems with her ex-husband.

“Pagans don’t conceive of the divine as a single power,” she said, “and that concept of multiplicity pervades our lives.”

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A photo of Harlan White is available via https://religionnews.com.