A lawyer for polygamous former Hildale police officer Rodney Holm urged the Utah Supreme Court on Thursday to lift a ban on plural marriage, and justices responded with sharp questions about whether the ban is constitutional.
Attorney Rodney Parker argued his client has a right not only to believe in a religious tenet of polygamy but also to practice his belief in a meaningful way.
"The ban on plural marriage affects so many fundamental rights," he said, contending that tens of thousands of Utahns are forced to hide their relationships for fear of prosecution.
Parker asked the high court to decriminalize polygamy, allowing its adherents to have a legal marriage with a first wife, then enter into religious unions with other women as a way to reach the highest degree of heaven. [Source]
Remember the outcry over when Sen. Rick Santorum said:
And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society?
One thing interesting here is that polygamists have learned from same-sex marriage proponents in the language they use. They almost describe bigamists as having to be in a closet and that society is forcing them to hide their relationships. The next tactic is to not to ask that polygamy be legally recognized, but instead that it be decriminalized and additional wives allowed as religious unions. Same-sex marriage advocates did the same thing by first promoting same-sex unions as a stepping stone to publicly endorsed same-sex marriage.
One of my favorite puns as a child is the one that describes a bigamist as someone who wants to have their Kate and Edith too.
5 comments
I’d rather see the LDS Fundamentalist version of polygamy legalized than gay marriage. These people aren’t perverts, for the most part; they’re living out religious tenets. It’s not that they feel strongly attracted to plural marriage, but that they can’t attain the highest level of the afterlife unless they participate.
These folks are the Mormon equivalent of our Sedes, if that clears anything up. They schismed from the LDS Church over whether the prophet at the time, Wilford Woodruff, had the authority to revoke Joseph Smith’s proclamation of plural marriage. (It didn’t make it look much more legitimate that the announcement came as Utah was trying to attain statehood, and being blocked for the plural marriage practices.
I wouldn’t want to live that one out, though. I have one wife, and I’m in awe of anybody who can cope with more than that.
“These people aren’t perverts, for the most part; they’re living out religious tenets. It’s not that they feel strongly attracted to plural marriage, but that they can’t attain the highest level of the afterlife unless they participate.”
Homosexuals would argue that they aren’t perverts either, they are just living out their natural inclinations. Though objectively one could say that polygamy is not so disordered, it is still a terrible step in the wrong direction and much be fought against with as much vigor as homosexual “unions”.
Having religious tenets as a motivating factor does not somehow lessen the evil that they are proposing. Consider that the Islamic terrorists are only blowing up buildings, cars, and crowds of people because that is their way of attaining the “highest level of the afterlife”.
I am afraid I would have to disagree with Joe as well especially when you consider that many men practicing plural marriage have a disturbing habit of marrying very young teenage girls. I read an article about how Canada has actually started turning people away from it’s borders near the town of Bountiful if there are young teenage girls in the car because they know that they are going there to enter into plural marriages under the age of consent. Really I can’t think of a better word to apply to a 60 year old man who “marries” a 14 year old girl than pervert.
I’ve never understood this. How do these Mormon guys get several women to marry them? Most men are tickled pink to get one woman to sign on. Is there a shortage of Mormon men?
Elinor, I think there was historically. From what I understand a lot more men than women died on the way to Utah, and thus there was a surpluss of women. Of course that has evened out by now. I also understand the early mormons practiced polyandry (thus a women could marry several men, and a man could marry several women). I’m not sure though. Polygamy seems like a horrible idea to me…