The reason why I considered this is because I think genuine bonding at least with long lived animals produces humans who care about nature more as well as provides social benefits to those who can't find humans who would interact with them in this way.
By de-stigmatizing and even commending such relationships, perhaps clearly differentiating them from animal hoarders (who do themselves and the animals harm by trying to "take care" of too many), we would ideally cause more such relationships to develop.
My opinion on people interacting and bonding with social robots or programs is similar.
A thought occurred to me today as I skimmed an article in a rationality forum where the subject of gay marriage cropped up; seeing as the issue has been hotly contested in various public fora and especially the courts, what about poly? After all, many if not all the arguments for gay marriage apply to poly marriage as well.
Questions for LWers who are currently in a such a relationship, or have an opinion to share:
Do polies want to marry each other or do such relationships not lend themselves to permanence above a threshold of partners? Should polies campaign for the right for a civil union anyway? what are the up and down sides of this? etc