The New York Times reports that “laws granting rights to people in polyamorous relationships are being recognized in more cities.” Somerville, Mass., for instance, has laws granting domestic-partnership rights to people in polyamorous relationships as well as a ban on discrimination based on “family or relationship structure.”

During the gay-marriage debate, social conservatives, as a warning of what might follow, asked: if gay marriage, why not polygamy? But in practice, relationships of more than two people are rarer and, perhaps as a result, haven’t captured public sympathy in quite the same way as same-sex relationships.

Nevertheless, the Times reports that “there is significant crossover between those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and pansexual and those who practice nonmonogamy, according to multiple studies.”

That is unsurprising. Gay culture has long been invested in ideas of subversiveness. Indeed, there were gay-rights activists who rejected the idea of gay marriage on the grounds that it was too conservative and boring.

The social acceptance of gay relationships may have ruined the subversive street cred of being LGBT. For now, polyamory survives as one of its edgier expressions. Perhaps those seeking legal recognition of polyamorous relationships should be careful about what they wish for.