The lawsuit is not demanding that states recognize polygamous marriage. Instead, the lawsuit builds on a 2003 United States Supreme Court decision, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down state sodomy laws as unconstitutional intrusions on the “intimate conduct” of consenting adults. It will ask the federal courts to tell states that they cannot punish polygamists for their own “intimate conduct” so long as they are not breaking other laws, like those regarding child abuse, incest or seeking multiple marriage licenses.I think the Lawrence-based argument for decriminalizing polygamy is much stronger than the Lawrence-based argument for requiring the government to give legal recognition to same-sex marriage. One is an argument demanding only that the government leave them alone as they pursue their "own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." The other is a demand that the government alter its treatment of its citizens, giving them access to to the benefits of having the official status as a married couple.
Mr. Brown has a civil marriage with only one of his wives; the rest are “sister wives,” not formally wedded. The Browns are members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, a fundamentalist offshoot of the Mormon Church, which gave up polygamy around 1890 as Utah was seeking statehood.
Making polygamous unions illegal, they argue, violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, as well as the free exercise, establishment, free speech and freedom of association clauses of the First Amendment.
“We only wish to live our private lives according to our beliefs,” Mr. Brown said in a statement provided by his lead attorney, Jonathan Turley, who is a law professor at George Washington University.
The connection with Lawrence v. Texas, a case that broadened legal rights for gay people, is sensitive for those who have sought the right of same-sex marriage. Opponents of such unions often refer to polygamy as one of the all-but-inevitable outcomes of allowing same-sex marriage. In his dissenting opinion in the Lawrence case, Justice Antonin Scalia cited a threat to state laws “based on moral choices” against “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality and obscenity.”
July 12, 2011
A lawsuit challenging Utah's anti-polygamy law, premised on Lawrence v. Texas.
To be filed by Kody Brown, the husband of 4 wives (who starred in the reality show "Sister Wives"):
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1 – 200 of 298 Newer› Newest»Someone needs to tell him that this sort of slippery slope argument just isn't allowed to happen. All right thinking people assured me.
TOTALLY DIFFERENT ISSUES!!!
Weren't people ridiculed for suggesting that this would happen if we legalize same-sex marriage?
@Original Mike I don't understand the premise of your question? Ending the prosecution of adults who live together in a group they call marriage is much more basic than extending government recognition to nontraditional marriage.
Would you prosecute the religious folk who call what they are doing "marriage" but leave alone a group of friends who live together and have sex but don't use the term "marriage." It's a matter of their use of language. I'd strike down the criminal law on free speech alone.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage.
Marriage - it's all the rage.
Entirely predictable
And let's take the classic hypothetical of the man who wants to marry his dog.
Man A says his dog is his wife.
Man B has sex with his dog.
Would you prosecute one, both, or neither?
Good analysis.
This concerns a quirk in Utah law which defines polygamy as anything resembling it. In other words, assuming the wife agrees, it's okay for a husband to have sex with other women, even if they live in the same house as long as he doesn't claim to be spiritually married to them.
To put it another way, the laws of the state of Utah state that plural marriages are not recognized as such unless someone pretends to be a polygamist and then they are considered such for prosecutorial reasons only.
It was a no-brainer that this was going to happen, no? We've had many back and forths hearabouts about SSM in which this very point came up.
.
Polygamy is bad for society. Society is right to ban it, every bit as much as it bans prostitution.
.
"Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage."
Yet.
Oh, and then there's Man C, who applies for a marriage license for himself and his dog. Obviously, the state doesn't give him the license, he doesn't get to file a joint tax return, etc. etc. and he's wasting everyone's time. Do you want to prosecute him though?
Things were a lot simpler when people had shame and didn't go around poking people in the eye with their specialness and demanding they be considered unspecial.
It's shame itself that's under attack. Where will we be without her?
BTW, As ususal, I'm ashamed of what I wrote here, BUT I WILL NOT BE SILENCED!.
And let's take the classic hypothetical of the man who wants to marry his dog.
Since it's impossible to get the dog's consent, this is hardly apt, is it?
Slippery slope, anyone?
Oh, I know - this isn't due to the passage of SSM laws in several states, nor of court cases striking down DOM type laws. It's just really, really convenient timing.
Isn't it? Can't wait to see what coming next...
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage.
. . . yet.
Is the dog Catholic?
"Polygamy is bad for society. Society is right to ban it, every bit as much as it bans prostitution."
That is the argument you have to make after Lawrence. It can't be that you think it's immoral.
But how is it bad for society? And how do you distinguish people who call what they are doing marriage and people who just live together?
Patrick and Lyssa sitting a tree...
Polygamy is in the Bible. King Solomon had hundreds of wives.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage.
At this time.
What law are they breaking now, in this live as sister-wives but not legally married system? I've never really understood that, and the article doesn't say. I assume that the penalties can't be very severe, if they were willing to go on TV about it.
- Lyssa
But the Bachmann view of sexual relations in a family that are not based upon marriage of a man and a woman is that such creates a servitude for the participants.
So why should a Government under the 13th Amendment permit that in Utah or anywhere else.
It is a Crack argument that cults a are bondage.
So when does the freedom for incest law suit begin?
"Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage."
Wasn't this also the premise of the 'civil unions' movement in the 1990s? Within a couple of decades we've moved very quickly from ending anti-sodomy laws to definition of marriage debates.
I know, I know, Althouse is a right thinking person assuring me that this is different. Don't slide down the slippery slope, we're told. There's an elevator waiting in a couple of years.
Miight we say that the Paddy O's of the world have been hoist by their own petard? I love it! Popcorn please and what's next?
OH OH, Patrick's got two ladies in that tree! How appropriate.
"Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage."
The Browns may not be, and they may not be now, but someone will.
Someone will argue that inheritance laws should be altered to account for polygamous marriages. Someone will argue that 2nd, 3rd, etc. wives should have visitation rights that cannot be blocked by the first wife. Someone will argue that a sister wife should have visitation rights to children that her husband fathered.
And these are all 'rights' that need to be enforced by law. When someone argues that they should have these rights, the additional wives will need some legal recognition, and when/if that happens, polygamy is legal.
Can the proponents of SSM please admit that their opponents may have been on to something?
Why is Althouse comparing women to dogs?
Are these equivalent?
"The lawsuit is not demanding that states recognize polygamous marriage..."
No, but it's a good first step towards that goal.
Polygamy is in the Bible. King Solomon had hundreds of wives.
Irrelevant (and I think you know it) unless you're ready to start codifying Leviticus into US law.
Damn it, that will teach me to post first and read later.
"have been hoist by their own petard?"
Am I in the tree now too?
Not yet...
Same sex legalization has opened the door wide for polygamy. Just watch. Rant and rave as you will, it will be here big time within a decade.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage.
Is the mistake you're describing that the Brown case is only about the law prohibiting polygamous relations (and not legal recognition / benefits for polygamy)?
Honestly, to the extent that the eventual Brown decision would be used as (non-binding) precedent for a polygamous marriage decision, I can't divorce the two.
To me, it's akin to saying that Griswold v. CT wasn't about abortion. I don't think that anyone would disagree with the statement, but at the same time....it's much harder for the Courts to craft the Roe v. Wade decision without Griswold existing out in the penumbra.
Would you prosecute the religious folk who call what they are doing "marriage" but leave alone a group of friends who live together and have sex but don't use the term "marriage."
Yes. That's the whole point. You can try to be clever but that's only because you're divorced* and now want to do whatever you want (you've waited 25 years!) but there are clear parameters around what a marriage is and your "nontraditional" BS ain't it.
*I just wanted to get that dig in there because, you know, it's such a common refrain on this blog,...
"King Solomon had hundreds of wives."
Indeed, and was the last king of a united Israel. The country dissolved into two parts after his reign.
Why do you want to tear apart America?!
The Bible isn't necessarily a good resource for justifying polygamy, even as it acknowledges its existence.
Original Mike, I understand the premise of your question, and you are correct.
Tried in 1880. Mormons lost in 1880.
The "answer" was religions couldn't do everything on its books. For instance, a woman couldn't be burned on the funeral pyre alongside her husband's body.
The idea that you get a free pass because you can point to ritualistic behaviors is a CROCK!
While if you don't care for the status of marriage; nobody stops you from stacking yourself up in a group. Commit violence, however, and your ass could end up in jail.
Like cockroaches, we can't get all the insane lunatics stomped out.
But the heterosexual monogamy laws have stood the test of time.
And, the best news for the Mormons; once it got through a few male thick skulls ... is that with only one wife ... they could climb on board the Federal train. And, be over-represented in government.
Should, for some insane reason, the Mormons get to go back to their strange ways of wanting more than one wife? They'll fall off the Federal train ... where they go out and get elected.
Does this embarrass Mitt Romney, enough, yet? Does it embarrass Harry Reid?
Does it embarrass every FBI putz with a badge? You'd be surprised how many Mormons carry those things.
Meanwhile, I can care less what men do ... They're more than entitled to think they've got a harem. Scare-um.
Man A says his dog is his wife.
Man B has sex with his dog.
Would you prosecute one, both, or neither?
Both. Neither dog is capable of understanding or consent (in much the same way the law protects 'willing' minors.
PETA and others would no doubt cheer the further 'humanizing' of dogs and other animals so that their 'rights' might be more easily protected. Goodbye cheese burgers!
Wait until the followers of Islam demand it. Who is going to stop them?
While I can't understand why a man would want more than one woman to nag him, I have no problem with multiple wives as long as there is no abuse. As Ann pointed out, polygamy is in the Bible and has been accepted in many societies throughout history.
I once considered having two wives. I thought it would be awful big a' me.
"Would you prosecute the religious folk who call what they are doing "marriage" but leave alone a group of friends who live together and have sex but don't use the term "marriage.""
I'd leave them both alone. I'm pretty libertarian. I was pointing out that opponets of same-sex marriage said that loosening of the traditional definition of marriage would lead to the further erosion of same, and on several occasions I heard same-sex proponents ridicule this notion.
"I'd strike down the criminal law on free speech alone."
I concur.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage.
Yet.
Homosexuals didn't begin their campaign with marriage either.
I know deeply committed gays who act as if they are married, but I always apposed gay "Marriage" for just this reason - it washes away the justification for any limits. The relationship between one man and one woman is inherently different from our animal nature and always needed special status. It's basic to our civilization Everything else is what happens without civilization. Not that it's wrong, but it's not special.
Great minds think alike Patrick....(my middle name by the way...)
Ann Althouse,
@Original Mike I don't understand the premise of your question?
I think it's fascinating that, when an issue requires pretzel logic, Ann Althouse is the advocate to call. But - when an issue is simple and straight-forward - she doesn't understand the premise.
That must be that *rational* mind we've heard so much about at work, ignoring that guy's words about sitting in church for 20 years but claiming he never heard the preacher.
That must be it.
Oh, I expect polygamy could be made legal at some point. Many roadblocks have been removed over the past few decades and it's not like it is foreign to human nature. Add to that that a lot of left wing politics has always been about sex, especially for the guys.
Ann Althouse,
Polygamy is in the Bible. King Solomon had hundreds of wives.
So's slavery - can I come live with you?
I can help out in the luxurious Meadehouse garden,...
Paddy O,
Why is Althouse comparing women to dogs?
Don't get me started on the bitches,...
"Polygamy is in the Bible. King Solomon had hundreds of wives. "
Even the most cursory reading will show that this is not presented favorably.
Althouse: "Man B has sex with his dog."
I'm tired of rehashing this, but one more time: As I told the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department, the bitch wanted it.
In the history of English common law, marriage was a matter for church courts until the civil courts took over jurisdiction after the Reformation.
In essence, the underlying nature of marriage in English common law was sacramental, and no one ever saw fit to challenge it.
Until now.
Once the historical assumptions underlying marriage are shown to be religious constructs, the floodgates will be opened, because there is no other foundation that will be acceptable to all the warring parties.
We will have SSM. We will have polygamy. We will have animal marriage. And why not? Once the sacramental sense is lost, isn't marriage whatever the two consenting parties want it to be, and nothing more?
PS: Yes I know animals can't consent, but if you can legally kill and eat a pig without its consent, I guess you can marry without consent, too.
I really don't care. Any man who has more than one wife gets precisely what he deserves. Government should get the hell out of his house and mine, too.
What law are they breaking now, in this live as sister-wives but not legally married system? ... I assume that the penalties can't be very severe...
Again, in Utah pretending to be a polygamist is considered polygamy and is a felony and the man can go to jail. It is rarely prosecuted, but has been recently.
Since nobody is getting this, I'll make it simple. A couple separate. The man starts living with a woman. If they claim they are spiritually married, Utah can then proclaim them married for the purposes of prosecution and can charge the man with bigamy.
It's a legal fiction.
Another thought experiment; what if the man isn't actually having sex with his plural wives, simply claiming they are his spiritual wives? Should that be a felony? In Utah it is.
Plenty of room in the tree, although room for only one wife, which position is occupied.
Once you have a court decision stating that "so long as other laws are not broken," there is no problem with the conduct, you no longer have a basis for denying marriage to the participants.
Hugh Hefner's household is legal because, while he lives with and has sexual relations with several women, he hasn't married any of them.
A never-married man who has children by multiple women may get hit with child support, but hie behavior isn't illegal unless he marries one of the women and the rest of them live with the married couple.
The apparent difference with polygamous Mormons is that they have religious ties as well as sexual ones. Recreational sexual ties are okay, religious ones aren't.
Any man who has more than one wife gets precisely what he deserves.
Incredible sex once and a while with enough variety in between to offset the inevitable, endless tsunami of nagging?
Sign me up. I'm a master at picking my battles visa vi marriage, so I'm quite sure I can Napoleon a couple of wives enough to wrangle three-ways well into our sixties.
Carol, these are Mormons only in the loosest sense of the word. They are splinter groups from the main LDS religion. And yes, they embarass Reid, Romney and all the rest, even though they have polygamist ancestors. Most mainstream Mormon leaders would love to rewrite history and pretend the whole polygamy thing never happened.
Disclosure: I'm a non-believing Mormon with several polygamist ancestors.
<"Polygamy is bad for society. Society is right to ban it, every bit as much as it bans prostitution."
That is the argument you have to make after Lawrence. It can't be that you think it's immoral.>
That is the consensus view. I'm just not sure that it makes sense. Isn't the court just saying that you can only rely on certain moralities--that only certain kinds of "bad" count as bad?
Marriages to animals, tables, and dead people will henceforth commence.
As Charlie Brown once observed, "It's thrilling to be vindicated in one's own lifetime". I wonder how long it will take Santorum's campaign to jump on this?
Ann Althouse said...
Ann Althouse said...
"Polygamy is bad for society. Society is right to ban it, every bit as much as it bans prostitution."
That is the argument you have to make after Lawrence. It can't be that you think it's immoral.
But how is it bad for society? And how do you distinguish people who call what they are doing marriage and people who just live together?
Polygamy creates an unnatural situation in which wives (or husbands in polyandrous societies) are the privilege of a favored few, leaving many without spouses. Consider the concern over the paucity of women in red China.
Women and marriage tend to moderate the violent impulses of otherwise single men.
Polygamy is in the Bible. King Solomon had hundreds of wives.
IIRC, Scripture wasn't too thrilled about it.
" One is an argument demanding only that the government leave them alone "
And why, Ann, was this not a good enough argument for so-called homosexual marriages?
Isn't the court just saying that you can only rely on certain moralities--that only certain kinds of "bad" count as bad?
That's always been my take. The SSM people were always shouting that it was unequal/discriminatory/unfair to slam the marriage door in their faces, but none of them wanted to leave that door open for other forms of non-traditional marriage once THEY got past the bouncers.
Althouse -- Why can marriage licenses be denied polygamists? How can the notion that this contract can only be made between 2 people, and not 3, be insisted upon, when a factor like gender of the two shouldn't be considered?
And what right does the government have to come between a man and his dog? "Nonconsensual", just because Muffin can't give her consent verbally? Pish posh. Just look at that expression of romance in her eyes.
Just look at that expression of romance in her eyes.
That's an astigmatism. Her breed is prone to it.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage.
The problem is that slippery slopes are made up of tiny intermediate steps. This might not be gay marriage, but it is gay adoption. All the proponents of gay adoption scoffed at the idea that it could ever lead to gay marriage, but when the SJC found that gay marriage is a constitutional right, they supported their notion of evolving social standards by pointing to gay adoptions.
Polygamy is in the Bible
So is the practice of executing those who have offended the local religious authorities.
@Original Mike I don't understand the premise of your question
His premise is that the past exists, and it can be remembered.
I do sometimes think abut how much blood would not have been spilled if Henry VIII could have used polygamy laws instead of asking the Pope for a dispensation or faking a queens adultery.
Seems like the Mormons will open the door for the Muslims; where is that Rabi Gershom ben Judah who can extend the ban for another thousand years? Oh I guess the ban expired in 1987 so why not sister wives or what ever?
"The relationship between one man and one woman is inherently different from our animal nature and always needed special status."
Exactly. It's a truce in the war between the sexes, a special perk, for a man and woman getting together to procreate and raise children. It ain't easy. It was always hard, since forever. Men and women are so different. Mars and Venus, etc.
Even the childless at least model the relationship for others, hopefully in a good way.
Any man who has more than one wife gets precisely what he deserves. Government should get the hell out of his house and mine, too.
Ah...but the real issue, as we are seeing now in same sex marriage is about the financial benefits and tax treatments of the status of "marriage". (reference the health insurance benefits for married vs gays... crappola)
Currently, if you are not "married" and are receiving health insurance benefits for your same sex partner or domestic partner, who could be of the same sex, that benefit is considered taxable according to the IRS rules. Some companies are proposing to pay extra for gay couples to offset this. I expect the IRS to challenge.
If you are a "married" polygamous group, why then wouldn't you also want to have those benefits of non taxed health insurance for all of your 8 wives and 32 children?
How about the IRS tax deductions for married and for dependent children. You wouldn't have to pay any taxes when you deduct all the wives and kids.
You should be concerned about this since the economic fall out will fall directly upon your head.
Whenever something doesn't make sense or people are pushing really hard for some sort of change....ask yourself...."Who benefits and how?"
Can the proponents of SSM please admit that their opponents may have been on to something?
Why are so many people invoking gay marriage when, as Ann notes, the correct parallel/slippery-slope issue is the right to have gay sex?
I'm guessing that either people are okay with the conduct of these folks but just don't want them to ask for marriage licenses, or they're not OK with prosecuting gay people for having sex and so are focusing on gay marriage because they are more comfortable opposing it.
Thoughts?
Is the dog Catholic?
"Who's your mama? Are you Catholic and can you make a roux?"
In south Louisiana, the right anwswers to those questions spell wedding bells. Locals would probably look the other way if the bride had four legs.
Good cook book, BTW.
ScottM, that's just what that "psychiatrist" with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department claimed. But Muffin and I don't care what you people say...we're in love.
Why are so many people invoking gay marriage when, as Ann notes, the correct parallel/slippery-slope issue is the right to have gay sex?
Thoughts?
I think you don't understand the concept of slippery slope.
It's all irrelevant to me. My wife won't let me have a second wife. She won't even let me have a girlfriend!
We should also remember we fought a war to stop this.
Multi-partner sex is wonderfully chaotic enough without including lubricated slopes.
Ann Althouse -
"Polygamy is in the Bible. King Solomon had hundreds of wives."
Yeah, and they kept the four winds in a storehouse and threw out a leader because he didn't kill all the women, children and animals of the defeated enemy.
And don't forget the huge list of inedibles, proscribed by religious law.
You don't get to pick and choose your support out of the same book.
Blogger Pastafarian said...
Althouse -- Why can marriage licenses be denied polygamists? How can the notion that this contract can only be made between 2 people, and not 3, be insisted upon...
---
If I sign contracts with two publishing houses granting each of them exclusive use of my work products, what would you expect the result to be?
It's all irrelevant to me. My wife won't let me have a second wife. She won't even let me have a girlfriend!
It's a question of packaging and PR. You really have to think through your in-home ad campaign which should be easy as you know your target demo quite well, one would assume.
Start with a third salary (for very marginally cost increases) and/or free day care if the third wheel is a homebody. Either way, it CAN work, by God.
"How can the notion that this contract can only be made between 2 people, and not 3"
Or, why can't we have multiple contracts? I can have two cars, each with their own payments, two houses, each with their own mortgage, or (to use Althouse's language) two dogs, each with their own purchase price.
So if marriage is simply a social/legal contract, why can't I have two different contracts (or more) with different women or men or whatever mix?
If I sign contracts with two publishing houses granting each of them exclusive use of my work products, what would you expect the result to be?
Gosh. I don't know. How do wills work again?
Because marriage is define as 2 people entering into one contract?
Don't oppress me with your definitions!
We're here! We're Mormon! Get used to it, Althouse.
This is just about common respect for Mormon polygamist's sexuality, and for equality.
You're sure you've got this thing under control of your incredibly rational, sober intellect?
Could be the guy's just worried about medical insurance and hospital visitation rights.
I think you don't understand the concept of slippery slope.
The lawsuit is itself premised on Lawrence v. Texas. Scalia worried about the effects of that decision. Gay marriage is not legal in Utah and is unlikely to become legal there anytime soon unless it becomes legal nationwide through a court decision.
So I'm wondering why gay marriage, and not Lawrence V. Texas or the right to sodomy generally, is what people are up in arms about. I have my theories, which may be wrong.
" Things were a lot simpler when people had shame and didn't go around poking people in the eye with their specialness and demanding they be considered unspecial."
It's the State that's "poking people in the eye", by selectively prosecuting people it doesn't like. If being "special" means being a State-sanctioned target for persecution and prosecution (as gay people like me once were, back in the good old days of shame), then I think it's a perfectly good thing to demand "unspecialness".
-
"Why is Althouse comparing women to dogs?
Are these equivalent?"
I didn't think so, until a bunch of God-botherers decided that it would make a good argument to compare gay relationships to bestiality, so the bestiality standard should now apply to any question of the State interfering with interpersonal relationships.
-
"The Bible isn't necessarily a good resource for justifying polygamy"
The Bible isn't necessarily a good resource for lawmaking either. But if you insist on citing it in secular, legal matters, then you'll have to contend with the parts of it that are, shall we say, inconvenient to your moral arguments.
My great-great-great grandfather Milo had 11 wives (not all concurrently) and 57 children. Maybe the Feds will finally stop persecuting my people!
The reason why it's PC to bash Mormon polygamists is because gays don't want to be lumped in with anything that is perceived as "freakish". Society is ready to accept gay monogamous couples. How boring.
You don't get to pick and choose your support out of the same book.
Really? People do it all the time.
Re: the original post...
If it's really true that this law criminalizes *calling* someone your wife in everyday life -- i.e. not in sworn legal documents, not on a second marriage license, not on health insurance forms or passport applications or home loan documents...
Then I can't imagine how this could stand up to a basic first amendment challenge -- pick your clause, free exercise, free speech... heck, freedom of the press if you can show that this only became an issue because of the family's participation in a reality tv show.
But I'd like to see what the "other side" has to say about the state of the law in Utah, and what the actual standard is.
After all, they haven't been prosecuted -- all we have is "law enforcement officials" announcing that they were investigating whether the family had violated the law.
We had a bunch of discussions about slippery slopes over at Volokh.com in regards to SSM. My view is that because polygamy is repeatedly found in the Bible, both New and Old Testaments, that recognizing SSM will inevitably lead to polygamy.
So, we have an intermediate problem that seems to need to be addressed first - essentially bigamy, except, of course, that the Utah law is broader than that. And, I just don't see how laws against it can be justified.
This is the problem with going after SSM through the court system instead of the ballot box. But, of course, SSM advocates would have been swimming up stream at the ballot box, at least until very recently.
But, no one here should be surprised if and when polygamy, as a legally recognized arrangement, does make it before the courts, and gets allowed.
If being "special" means being a State-sanctioned target for persecution and prosecution (as gay people like me once were, back in the good old days of shame), then I think it's a perfectly good thing to demand "unspecialness".
Didn't happen much, Palladian.
Most of it is manufactured martyrdom.
In two dimensions, polgamists can have regular relations with any number of wives.
In three dimensions, regular relations exist only for four, six, eight, twelve and twenty wives.
Pasta-
Some people just don't understand the whole Man's best friends with benefits thing.
But, no one here should be surprised if and when polygamy, as a legally recognized arrangement, does make it before the courts, and gets allowed.
And just remember it will really be all about money, taxes and property.
This is, of course, the original reason for the state/government and even the church's intervention into the status of 'marriage'.
Money, taxes and property.
Who pays, who inherits, who gets to keep power, land.....and cows.
I have never understood the government's ability to prosecute willing polygamists--they certainly don't prosecute married people who have multiple, simultaneous affairs, or married couples who swap spouses at parties.
Hey there's slavery in Bible too!
If we are bring all that stuff back I call dibs on Halle Berry. And Rachel Weisz.
I mean those old timey Jews were slaves and all.
You should never listen to anything someone who is on a reality show has to say.
They have to be idiots to be on one.
Just sayn'
Alex --
You don't get to pick and choose your support out of the same book.
"Really? People do it all the time."
Yes, yes, your pedantry wins. I really didn't think it necessary to explicitly state " without the parts you don't like being used against you."
"I have never understood the government's ability to prosecute willing polygamists--they certainly don't prosecute married people who have multiple, simultaneous affairs, or married couples who swap spouses at parties."
You're assuming that the State follows some sort of logic related to whom it persecutes.
The State will stick its busy little fingers into any activity that suits its actors at any moment.
The State roasted 76 people in Waco on flimsy premises, and got away with it. Just because... they were creepy!
If King Henry the 8th ... could have had polygamy institutionalized ???
Would that have saved the heads of the wives he "dismissed" from service?
Me thinks, when a man chooses to have another woman ... the relationship with the first woman ... goes south.
Polygamy? Instead of "First Wives" getting some sort of legal support through divorce ... The poor dames would be forced to eat the scraps at the table.
Why do politicians keep playing with this "holy matrimony crap?" Wouldn't the best policy be less policing? Less laws that need incarceration to enforce?
Schmuck wants two wives at the same time? I pity both women. He wants more than two. I'll raise my pity to whatever level the poor schmuck wants.
And, I won't put anyone in jail if by happenstance, one night, his putz falls off.
As to muslems; through all the generations where they kill their own daughters ... what they have are females who are as good as sheep. They've eliminated those who complained.
And, that's why they'll never get out of the 7th century. They don't have the stock that's gonna produce much in the way of offspring.
In an overpopulated world that grows hungry ... there may be a clearinghouse created, ahead, for what seems to be Darwin's Award Winners, anyway?
Good analysis but I don't think AA's distinction is sufficient, in and of itself, to prevent future legal recognition of polygamy and other minority views of marriage.
The historic trend on social issues in the U.S. has been an increase in the scope of what constitutes rights and the demand by those groups for protection of their "rights."
Thus, I believe the slippery slope argument in the comments above have merit.
However, I see a growing resentment by moderate individuals who would otherwise be apathetic to SSM and polygamy in now being forced to recognize alternative marriage structures as normal.
If this group joins social conservatives in significant numbers there might be enough push back to prevent further expansion of the definition and recognition of marriage and even repeal or reversal of current recognition.
Let's face it, no matter how right an activist might be on an issue, no one likes having same activist invading one's personal space to make their point.
You don't get to pick and choose your support out of the same book.
Believers do this allllllll the time.
It's worse than a salad bar, hearing them downplay the rough stuff in their books.
The leftist Boomers have demanded to do whatever makes them feel good since 1960. Love the one you're with. Smash marriage. End the patriarchy.
Now gay marriage. Soon polygamy. Exactly as predicted. So marriage will go to the dogs, perhaps literally.
But they will police your food choices, your light bulbs, your toilets, your children's history books (CA public schools required to include the history of gay rights), your religion (Catholic placement services must make adoptions to same-sex couples), your cars, your medical care, your speech on campus, and soon enough your speech everywhere.
All must conform to leftist thought. No disagreement allowed.
The libertarians agree because it fits their freedom desires, even though it only operates under the thumb of a very big and increasingly punishing State.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the key to leftism is never having to say you're sorry.
"@Original Mike I don't understand the premise of your question? Ending the prosecution of adults who live together in a group they call marriage is much more basic than extending government recognition to nontraditional marriage.
Precisely, just as the Lawrence decision was a necessary precursor to the demand for gay "marriage". The rational basis in law for acknowledging the biological complementarity of the sexes was struck down by fiat. That domino having fallen, it is only a matter of time until the law demands that arbitrary personal self-identification must overturn biological fact in all other areas within reach of the law.
The law has always favored monogamous marriage because it constitutes the basic family unit and naturally brings about the generational structure by which any civilization can exist as a collective unit. There can be no families, no tribes, no nations, nor civilizations where people are atomized products of conception, disintermediated from family trees.
Where non-monogamous sex has been tolerated, it has occurred within a context of legal preference for family -- wives and natural heirs possess rights that mistresses and bastards do not -- and an understanding that its presence undermines family units in general. But the apostate West is so enlightened now that it has dispensed with all that. Father and Mother have already been replaced by "Parent 1" and "Parent 2"; Parents 3-n will follow in due course.
Why? Because the left holds freedom of sexual practices as the right that trumps all others (it is the sole area of the law which the left would deny to the state), and rejects the commonsensical idea that certain non-monogamous sexual conduct can be too harmful for society to tolerate. Therefore this case is simply the necessary logical precursor to subsequent cases demanding polygamous marriage along the lines of Geoff Matthews' 10:33 post.
Courts need to stay the hell out of this issue. You want to redefine marriage? Fine, pass a law. Hold a voter inititive. Do it the hard way, not the easy way hiding behind the robes of some self empowered philosopher kings.
Gay marriage will gain ground as pass in some states. Polygamy will not. The courts should not be in the business of creating law, only interpreting existing law.
Joe made some good points about Mormons - my guess is that he is either LDS, or lives among them (I am not, but I do live in a state that now has two Mormon Senators, one from each party and used to live in Utah).
In any case, the "real" Mormons (i.e. those belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints based in downtown SLC) seem to have a real problem with polygamy and polygamists. And, the reason is fundamental to their religion.
Mormonism is a top down religion, surprisingly similar in ways to Roman Catholicism. Just as the Pope appears, at least to the outside, to portray some of his pronouncements as coming from God, similarly with the head of Mormon churches - and when I use the plural here, it is to include the schismatic Mormon churches with the official, mainline, one. Their prophet has revelations, and these become church dogma.
The problem is that the prophet of the mainline Mormon church right before statehood apparently had a revelation about how polygamy was no longer required and therefore should now be illegal and immoral. Others had their own revelations that polygamy was still a good thing and should continue to be practiced. They broke off from the mainline church, and formed their own Mormon based churches, but with their own lines of prophets.
The line of prophets is essential to the legitimacy of these churches. And therefore, these offshoots, by claim other prophets, and that the prophets of the mainline church are false, directly attacks the legitimacy of that mainline church (or, indeed, of any other LDS descended church).
In other words, they are worse than schismatic. They are apostates.
And, this is why Utah has such a weird law on its books, and isn't about to change it voluntarily.
Well stated, Bruce.
(I am a non-believing Mormon living in Utah with Mormon ancestry, including several polygamists.)
This will happen. All the arguments for gay marriage lead to this as a legal conclusion. Plan on it.
I can imagine Dan Savage arguing for legalizing gay polygamy.
So I think this leaves you free to be gay and to have an abortion.
Everything else will be forbidden, pretty much, unless it's compulsory.
Oh, don't be ridiculous; that would never happen!
This will happen. All the arguments for gay marriage lead to this as a legal conclusion. Plan on it.
It was just a matter of time and standing. There are those of us that have been making this point for a long time.
And eat your goddman peas!
MayBee said...
I can imagine Dan Savage arguing for legalizing gay polygamy.
And also that it should become some sort of norm....because he says so. Dan Savage is simply uncivilized.
"All must conform to leftist thought. No disagreement allowed."
And rightists, when in power, are different... how?
Jesus, you people whine a lot.
And rightists, when in power, are different... how?
Technically speaking, the further right a leader is, the less he/she would exert their power over the individual. If a "rightist", driven by some inner religious zeal, decides to outlaw dancing, that's a leftist viewpoint.
First you pretend you're all "leave us alone, government!" and "Freedom!" and "Don't Tread on Me!" and I'm right there with ya! But then when something happens, generally involving people's sex lives, and you're all "It's the end of the world!" and "Oh Mr Government, save our society!" and I'm like, huh?
Physicians, heal thyselves! If you're looking to government to save your failing moral institutions, the battle is lost, dears.
@Bruce Hayden,
It was my understanding that the theological reason that the Mormon fundies support polygamy is because, in the original Mormon teachings of Brigham Young, each man will be the new Adam on a new planet with each of his many wives as the new Eve. Thus, denying a man polygamy damages his spread in the life to come.
Is my understanding correct?
I tried to google it and the best I could find is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam-God_doctrine
which is close, but not the same.
"ntil a bunch of God-botherers decided that it would make a good argument to compare gay relationships to bestiality..."
Well, I think we'd all admit that men are dogs.
"Technically speaking, the further right a leader is, the less he/she would exert their power over the individual. If a "rightist", driven by some inner religious zeal, decides to outlaw dancing, that's a leftist viewpoint."
Whoa! That's a vertiginous little logical whirl you did there...
See, I don't think it has anything to do with a particular political polarity. I think it has to do with what power does to the weak-willed and weak-minded, whatever their political constitution.
I think it's best that no one ever have that kind of power over people, because they're almost assured to turn evil. See, I'm rather Biblical in my thinking about human nature.
"Well, I think we'd all admit that men are dogs."
No, dog's intentions are clear and without malice. Men are much worse than dogs.
Ann Althouse said... Please don't make the mistake of thinking that people like Brown are asking the state to include them in the legal definition of marriage.
Please don't make the mistake of thinking Brown is the only person pushing for polygamists' rights. There is a small and passionate minority--sound familiar?--pushing for the legal recognition of polygamy, and it's ridiculous to think if Brown gets what he wants then the polygamy issue is resolved. With little successes like these, the polygamist movement will continue until full legal recognition.
And why not? We're redefining marriage for gays. Why not include other non-traditional groups like polygamists? Why are gays so insistent that the doors of marriage be opened for them but slammed shut before anyone else sneaks in?
As the great-grandson of polygamous great-grandparents, I'll follow this case with something more than academic interest. One of my great-grandfathers served time in the federal penitentiary for the crime of having more than one wife. After he was released from prison, the family relocated to Mexico. (The federal marshals were on my great-grandfather's heels all the way to the boarder.)
The US Supreme Court held that the federal government had the right to prohibit such marriages in its territories [Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878)]. Despite the rather harsh result on my family, I always thought the Court reached the right result in that case. The court ruled the 1st Amendment's free exercise protections don't prevent Congress from regulating conduct that is religiously motivated.
However, I've never been able to square that result with Lawrence. A written limitation on Congress's legislative authority doesn't trump Congress's ability to regulate private conduct but an UNWRITTEN (a/k/a made up) limitation does?
I'm ok with legal polygamy.
Might not like it culturally, or want it for myself, but if the fall of morals laws which permit legal sodomy (for both married hets like the Meade's and the homosexuals, married or not) and potential gay marriage also means the legal acceptance of polygamy, so be it.
Let consenting people choose, if that's the dilemma that offering SSM options means for polygamists.
Still, I think the two -- SSM and polygamy -- can be legall distinguished on other grounds. It's all in how you frame the issue, and the professor here isn't being very ... "creative" in her framing.
fwiw.
wv: examixdj
It was my understanding that the theological reason that the Mormon fundies support polygamy is because, in the original Mormon teachings of Brigham Young...
No, it's because Joseph Smith claimed to be restoring the same church as was in the New Testament. He expanded on that with revelations concerning temple theology, which included eternal marriage and part of that was plural marriage.
Now a cynic would suggest that Joseph Smith's revelations were extremely convenient cover for his philandering ways.
Man A says his dog is his wife.
Man B has sex with his dog.
Would you prosecute one, both, or neither?
Red meat, professor. Red meat.
Soo....what's the argument against brother/ sister marriage?
@Joe,
"He expanded on that with revelations concerning temple theology, which included eternal marriage.."
You're speaking in Mormon theological code there, buddy. What do the terms "temple theology" and "eternal marriage" mean?
Whoa! That's a vertiginous little logical whirl you did there...
Not really if you understand the vertiginous trick progressive pulled off when they convinced everyone that Hitler and his ilk were right wing. Respectively;
Absolute tyranny---moderate---anarchy
It really doesn't have to be any more complicated.
BTW, there is a tiny minority of Mormons who claim that Joseph Smith never taught polygamy and that it was all Brigham Young's idea (which he learned about while preaching in England--there was a pro-polygamy movement existant at the time in that part of England, so this isn't far fetched.) After Joseph Smith was murdered, the theory goes, Young redacted Smith's revelations. There actually is incontrovertable evidence that Young and others did redact Smith's revelations and that the claims of Smith's polygamous relationships were exagerated, but it gets really murky. (Smith also redacted an awful lot of his revelations, which makes it even murkier.)
Alex,
Gays don't want to be lumped in with anything that is perceived as "freakish".
That's why they put on that crazy naked parade every year,...don't want to seem "freakish"...
The serious issue with Smith's marriages is that a great many were to teenage girls.
"you people whine a lot."
That's cuz you folks keep stealing all our best words.
We used to be able to be happy, to be weird, to hide, to leave the house.
Now, being gay, to be queer, to be in the closet, to be out, all has been robbed from us and means the same thing.
Don't tread on our dictionaries!
No redefinition without representation!
I didn't know Scalia was defending state laws against masturbation. In which states is it illegal?
Why, masturbation is as American as Mom and apple pie.
What do the terms "temple theology" and "eternal marriage" mean?
Mormons believe that they can get married for eternity, not just until death. They also believe there are certain ordinances (rites) beyond baptism that are crucial for salvation. They also believe that everyone must be baptized to be saved and that the dead can be baptized by proxy and will be given the choice before the final judgement to accept that baptism or not.
All these take place in temples. If you haven't seen one, Google Mormon Temples. (Whatever you may think about this theology, most Mormon temples are very attractive buildings.)
In which states is it illegal?
Inebriated.
No problem, actually. Simply uphold the ban on polygmany under the commerce clause. It affects interstate commerce, right? Therefore congress can regulate it out of existence.
Palladian's come out from underneath his rock to rail.
Hilarious.
This post should be combined with the post on the rise of super-gonorrhea.
Lots of supposedly outdated morals may exist for a reason we thought we had left behind.
I didn't know Scalia was defending state laws against masturbation. In which states is it illegal?
If the fall of morals laws in Lawrence means the voting public cannot pass a law outlawing masturbation, I'm ok with that too.
"This post should be combined with the post on the rise of super-gonorrhea.
Lots of supposedly outdated morals may exist for a reason we thought we had left behind."
I wonder if taking a vote to ban multiple partnerships based on morals -- eliminating multiple marraiges under no-fault divorce too -- might help keep the STD rate down?
For the record,
if the fall of morals laws in Lawrence means divorced people get to fornicate over and over until they get it right, even if they might be spreading STD's to their multiple families, well, I'm ok with that too.
Freedom for all sometimes means risk of disease.
Palladian's come out from underneath his rock to rail.
Don't you have a gig somewhere to practice for, MachoMan?
It was my understanding that the theological reason that the Mormon fundies support polygamy is because, in the original Mormon teachings of Brigham Young, each man will be the new Adam on a new planet with each of his many wives as the new Eve. Thus, denying a man polygamy damages his spread in the life to come.
Is my understanding correct?
Not. Even. Close.
If you want to learn what Mormons believe (and by extension, what the fundamentalists believe on this particular subject), go to http://mormon.org/. Asking Bruce (or anyone else who's not even a member of the church) is not the best way to get accurate information. (I'm not suggesting Bruce would intentionally mislead you on this or any other topic. I'm suggesting a primary source is apt to be accurate than a secondary source.)
As to the LDS view on polygamy, this is from the Book of Mormon (Jacob 6:27-30):
27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
...
30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.
In other words, the Church teaches polygamy is under most circumstances wrong. It is only when God grants a specific exception that polygamy should be practiced. The fundamentalists believe God has granted them such an exception. Indeed, they believe God demands the practice of them.
ScottM,
Not really if you understand the vertiginous trick progressive pulled off when they convinced everyone that Hitler and his ilk were right wing.
Hey, Palladian, since you didn't want to talk about the simple and straight-forward topics I threw at you before, wanna discuss the history, and sexual make-up, of Hitler's viciously violent SS? Maybe Ann can do a post on it.
I'm surprised it's never part of the PRIDE parade,...
Don't you have a gig somewhere to practice for, MachoMan?
A gay man being defended by "Mary"?
After the lesbian and ex-nun attacking Bachmann on the other thread, how many aggressive gay stereotypes are we going encounter today?
Crack:
Do tell how come you know so much about those perverted Pride parades anyway?
Attended many yourself? If that kind of on-display exhibitionism so disgusts you, why go?
Guess what? Plenty of pervy het's out here too. You just playing your stereotypical "nigga" card hating on the homos, pretending the majority is like that?
Really, why can't you give 'em a pass, and just chalk it up to "not for me, but they're free to be" mindset?
That too liberatingly New Age for ya, permitting equal legal rights for the gays and straights? You never much hit me as all that much a moral man, concerned with "correcting" all that others do, so why's this gay issue so riling you?
(or, just playing it for pagehits here, the way the professor is, I suspect?)
Speaking of manufactured martyrdom, it's the Crack Emcee!
t-man said...
Lots of supposedly outdated morals may exist for a reason we thought we had left behind.
The juxtaposition of "left" and "behind" in this particular thread is appropriate.
"Lots of supposedly outdated morals may exist for a reason we thought we had left behind."
Let's all stop eating pork and shellfish and make our womenfolk stay outside when they're menstruating. You know, it's those old-fashioned morals.
A gay man being defended by "Mary"?
Sorry, but that was my grandmother's name waaay back before it became synonymous as gay lingo for a queer dude...
Say, how come you know so much of the secret-handshake gay language anyway? Pick it all up in the comments sections here?
wv: iquareas
A California queer in the days of Aquarius? (Sorry, I'm not much up on my New Age lingo either...)
"Palladian said...
Speaking of manufactured martyrdom, it's the Crack Emcee!"
Trooper York missing this thread is like Mick missing a thread on natural born citizens.
Mary,
Crack:
Do tell how come you know so much about those perverted Pride parades anyway?
I was married and living in San Francisco for 20 years with a woman who finally revealed herself as a NewAge fag hag.
Next.
Palladian,
Speaking of manufactured martyrdom, it's the Crack Emcee!
Yes, yes, come on out - the best disinfectant is light.
Guess what? Plenty of pervy het's out here too. You just playing your stereotypical "nigga" card hating on the homos, pretending the majority is like that?
Guess what? You got the wrong boy. I never said I disliked gays. I never even said I was against gay marriage.
I have said I'm against dishonesty and that's my problem with the gay rights movement, just as it's my problem with the "medical" pot idiots.
So take your simple-minded, everybody hates us, bullshit and you and Palladian go fuck with each other over it, O.K., Mary?
@DKWalser,
I'm very suspicious of "official" Mormon teaching outlets because they slant their message to make it more palatable to mostly Christians who browse, and elide over the points of friction.
I went to the site and searched on "holy trinity" and "incarnation" and both came back with no doctrinal hits.
I'll stick with Joe & wikipedia, thanks!
"I was married and living in San Francisco for 20 years with a woman who finally revealed herself as a NewAge fag hag."
I'm sorry for your personal pain.
Sincerely.
(at least she wasn't a lesbian, eh?)
wv: voingyra
.
@Ann
But how is it bad for society?
Bad. A look at the pathologies that plague societies with wide spread polygamy is all you need to do. Younger wives treated as servants, and young men cast out. A large population of men with no prospect of marriage is good for gang recruitment and little else.
So take your simple-minded, everybody hates us, bullshit and you and Palladian go fuck with each other over it, O.K., Mary?
Nobody hates me. Not that I know of and have ever claimed.
Not a victim here. That's more your department/gig/blog identity, no?
You're the one with the anger issues who doesn't seem to want to permit legal equality, instead wanting to reserve special marital protections for the heterosexuals like yourself, it seems.
Personally, I understand why you probably feel so burned and angry, but it's not the homosexuals who caused your marriage to fail even if your wife was hanging with 'em. It was her, no? And maybe you too? (but blame away the queers parading down the street at Pride if it makes you feel better. Just don't think that's a convincing legal argument to treat some men and women differently under the law, when they present themselves for the same marital legal rights, and societal benefits, you and she once had available to yourselves. Thanks, and good luck! Sincerely.)
Polygamy reduces the status of women. American Indians traded women like horses. Young men without wives had to steal them from white settlers. Read the history of Texas.
"You just playing your stereotypical "nigga" card hating on the homos, pretending the majority is like that?
Guess what? You got the wrong boy. I never said I disliked gays. I never even said I was against gay marriage."
To be clear, the "majority" wasn't referring to blacks, but to gays who march as perverts in Pride.
I wonder if you don't dislike gays, why you wouldn't want those who don't play the pervert at Pride not to be able to legally commit and access all the benefits available to other married people? Why should it be reserved for preferred heterosexual people?
"Polygamy reduces the status of women."
Psst, you're supposed to be making polygamy seem unattractive!
Probably the only effective arguments here would have been aesthetic, since most of us care something about beauty.
What universal do we still have?
Beauty.
Marxists tried to outlaw the discussion of beauty and to say that it is a classist construct (Bourdieu is critical in this debate, as he even sees museums as classist constructs).
But beauty has to do with harmony (St. Thomas argues this) and there's something about a mother and father with their own children, as you can see the continuity: oh, there's the widow's peak, oh yeah, the legs have improved in this one, etc.
All the adopted kids would scream what about me. I'm not ugly! And of course all children have some cuteness to them, if you squint hard enough.
Maybe this isn't such a good idea.
It's very very difficult to talk about anything any more because you always run the risk of offending people.
But I say that Mormon's rimming is in bad taste and should therefore be discouraged, or not be the basis of a relationship. Same goes for anal sex. I know the new forms of ugliness since modernism have often passed for forms of beauty, which has in turn eclipsed more classical notions of beauty founded on st. Thomas.
Polygamy was practiced in the OT, and Solomon was quite the little monster with all his brides. He wrecked Israel with all the divisiveness it caused, but we got his stupid Song out of it.
WCW's smashed Pepsi bottle on the sidewalk IS beautiful, because of the refraction of light.
BUT, is it really THAT beautiful?
WCW is canonical thanks to the harbingers of the new ugliness, esp. Ginsberg (his poems struck me at first as quintessentially ugly, as he brings in poop, and people doing ugly things to one another, and he is also a communist at times, and even when he gets beauty in there it's generally twisted and lopsided).
What happened to classical beauty as per St. Thomas?
We need a champion of classic beauty.
I guess I'm it.
The gay rights parades always strike me as deliberately offensive. People with too much hair showing doing preposterously ugly things. What about Mormon parades with a big prick sitting there served by a bevy of fat babes with palm fronds.
People should sit still and watch Masterpiece Theatre, but I'll be tthe Mormon dad would be watchng professional wrestling.
Do I hear anybody in favor of classical beauty, which means what in terms of television? Is there anything on TV that isn't a violation of all codes of aesthetic practice?
Modernism really meant new forms of ugliness trying to pass under the line.
Without God, who's to judge?
God wanted beautiful goats and stuff without a blemish when Aaron and Moses were to offer sacrifices.
Perfection is beautiful.
Now we increasingly want to see the bizarre and broken as beautiful, too, in their own way.
That has been the push of modernism.
Black is beautiful was an attempt to widen the standards of beauty.
The Japanese assumed they were the most beautiful people in the world before WWII, and on that basis deserved to conquer the world with bucked teeth.
Americans begged to differ and blew them off the map.
But now I think most find different races as beautiful.
Different sexualities are still suspect, mostly because you don't get kids: and kids are the most beautiful thing in the world.
And yet, Catholic priests don't produce them. And sometimes they molest them.
This is too hard for me to think about.
I cry uncle, I cry aunt, I cry that everything is relative(s).
I cry for universals.
When God spoke back in the OT, there were absolute universals.
Did Jesus really see/saw everybody as ok, and everything was beautiful, let's all moonwalk on water?
That's what the left thinks He said.
I'm not sure what He said.
It probably doesn't matter to the secularists, anyhoo.
Why did I bring all this up? Am I stoo-pit?
Mary,
Thanks. Listen, I've written a lot on the subject of gays and anyone with eyes to see will find it's lies and hypocrisy that piss me off - not who someone fucks or how. I also don't think gays, who happily engage in subversion when it suits them, deserve coddling - which is why many assume I'm anti-gay. I'm not:
I'm sick of the lying - by everyone.
I hope that clears things up, and if it doesn't, go to my blog and click the tags for gay, gays, and gay marriage - I promise you'll be surprised.
Once Islamists get permission to practice polygamy, they'll demand Sharia law to be honored between the husband and his wives. Count on it. Don't worry about the Mormons.
"I'm sick of the lying - by everyone.
I hope that clears things up, and if it doesn't, go to my blog and click the tags for gay, gays, and gay marriage - I promise you'll be surprised."
Thank you too.
I hate the lies too, and especially, those who think that doing something dubious just to get it done is the way the game must be played. The hostess here defintely seems to support that political position at times.
Culturally, this too must -- and will -- change. Reality means the hypocrisy that's been sustaining the political system all these past decades is falling...
No more "pretend" or fears of overrated slippery slopes. Call bullshit on this mindset. Until you get fully deleted, that is. My game anyway. Fwiw.
@Kirby Olson: Albania's dictator, Enver Hoxha, even had a "cult of the ugly": link
The serious issue with Smith's marriages is that a great many were to teenage girls.
MOST marriages in those days were to teenage girls. The women were worn out by the age of 35.
Also, the marriage to Smith on the part of the teen's and their families was a pure power play. Political alliances.
Palladian, I fear you also believe that disagreement over gay marriage and polygamy is coterminous with evil.
The hostess here defintely seems to support that political position at times.
She hasn't deleted me yet, but she also hasn't indicated she understands the ends-justifies-the-means isn't the way to win anything. I would've thought the Obama presidency would've been an opportunity for everybody to see the results of such nonsense, but she's still trying to defend that absurdity, so what can you do?
I just keep plugging away, misunderstood maybe, but knowing I'm right.
Nobody ever said it was going to be easy,...
P.S.
Look at me and Palladian - he dislikes me, and assumes I'm against him and gays, just because I asked him for an honest man-to-man dialogue. He wasn't up to it, the big fag. This is also why so many gays died of AIDS. (I created one of the first public health brochures in San Francisco, warning against transmission.) People are going to have to get real at some point, but they'll never get there acting like Palladian does.
MOST marriages in those days were to teenage girls.
Nineteen year olds, not seventeen. (This is a weirdly persistant myth.)
"She hasn't deleted me yet, but she also hasn't indicated she understands the ends-justifies-the-means isn't the way to win anything."
Personally, despite the "conservative" bluster, I suspect she's one of those well-meaning libs, intent on "helping others" via social confrontations, which usually translates to the wealthy libs artificially gaming the system to "help" whatever lesser they deem to need it at the moment, thereby screwing the honest efforts of all the rest in the middle, who want only equal opportunities to compete, not to have the "prize" handed to them.
That's how I see many gays on these issues: wanting nothing special, just not wanting to have to wait, wait, wait until people like her the hostess are convinced that permitting equal opportunities without any special protections (here for heterosexual marraiges) really is ok and nothing to be feared.
Once this acceptance becomes passe in soceity, only then, I suspect, will we see less "red meat" using fear to rally the base.
You hit it on the head: once people stop being honest and start playing the game for other reasons (ie/ more page hits come with plugging "controversial" hits, whether it be the hot topic of the day, or even poking fun at someone's photo), you really can't much trust their motives on any issue. It all becomes politically tainted. And then, there's always the "it was just performance art!" out, to recuse oneself from the responsibilty of such strategic dishonesty.
I dislike that too, but culturally, people are changing and I don't think the fakes will be so successful in advancing themselves this way in the future. Dare to dream, anyway...
It's a matter of their use of language. I'd strike down the criminal law on free speech alone.
That about sums it up for me. It is legal for a guy to have multiple girlfriends, but if they say "we're married" it automagically becomes illegal even if they don't try to take advantage of the legal institution of marriage.
Makes no sense. It didn't make any sense BEFORE Lawrence, and it makes no sense after.
I just don't think that 40 years of experience with The Pill and (increasingly ineffective) antibiotics is a basis for throwing away standards of conduct (Hello Dan "new normal" Savage) that have formed the basis for our culture - even if they were no perfectly adhered to by all.
Did Europeans (or even widespread human culture worldwide) ban shellfish or make menstruating women stand outside?
Being conservative does not mean trying to freeze time, it just means appreciating that people in the past were not simply fools, and usually had good reasons for the rules laid down. The need for some rule may have been incorrect, or may no longer exist, but we should approach radical change with extreme caution.
"The need for some rule may have been incorrect, or may no longer exist, but we should approach radical change with extreme caution."
Look at what No-Fault Divorce has wrought, for example.
Crack: I think it's fascinating that, when an issue requires pretzel logic, Ann Althouse is the advocate to call. But - when an issue is simple and straight-forward - she doesn't understand the premise.
Hits the nail on the head.
Also indicative of why the American justice system appears to bear no relation to the reality most (non-lawyer) people live in.
Chicken Little: I loved that link! I'd never heard of Enver Hoxha's Cult of the Ugly before.
I shan't forget it!
I hope there's a book on it somewhere!
Oh, those socialists! What will they dream up next?
Joe,
Nineteen year olds, not seventeen. (This is a weirdly persistant (sic) myth.)
I'm not sure it's a myth.
Until very recently marriage was pretty common for seventeen- and eighteen-year-old girls.
The Liberties say:
1. The States should have household law, an offshoot of contract law.
Three categories: recognized households, unrecognized households, illegal households.
In recognized, each householder's rights are secured, and things like access and division of benefits have statutory protection.
In unrecognized, you're on your own, the State may not be able help you statutorily with disputes between householders, with your employers and neighbors, and common-law may not help either. Think hippie commune.
Illegal households: incest, non-consensual, minors, that sort of thing.
2. Either a) We the People will decide for ourselves what is and is not a marriage, or b) figure out a d*** good reason why the State should enforce a statutory definition of marriage and limit membership to this high-standard sacramental promise of lifetime fidelity.
What are you scared of? That somebody might do something you wouldn't do? Oh the horrors!
There is no "right" to marraige. Anyone who thinks that it is a "rights" issue is totally wrong. Tere is NO RIGHT to marraige in the US Constitution. The government incentivizes heterosexual marraige to propagate the citizenry, and no other subjective form of "marraige" foots the bill (except maybe polygamy). If Mormons want to call each other spouses in multiple family households then that is their right. There is no law against sex out of wedlock, nor playing house. Same with Homosexual "marraige". There is no "right" to marry, and the government likewise owes no legitimization of it, since it serves no natural law purpose. I think Polygamy has a more persuasive argument to legitimization.
AllenS: As a member in good standing of the LDS Church, I agree. Don't worry about us--it's the fanatic Muslims who will benefit most here, and will use it as a wedge to further attempt to destroy America and its long-standing legal framework of precedent and law.
Active members of the LDS Church (not its offshoots) pose zero threat to the electoral, judicial, and legal processes in America.
"We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers and magistrates, and in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."
The way this works in the U.S. if you don't like a law is not to break and break it, but to work through the electoral, legislative and judicial process.
Not chop off arms and blow up things.
Mick:
Plenty of legal precedent though, if you discount the Bill of Rights protections via Equal Protection scrutiny. See here: http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?ei=UTF-8&p=Skinner+v.+Oklahoma+fundamental+right+to+marry&fr=yfp-t-406&u=http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=Skinner+v.+Oklahoma+fundamental+right+to+marry&d=4609307597996262&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=2f59b6a8,7032ec57&icp=1&.intl=us&sig=PQ9BjIJT4roOQ3BL.Gfa9w--
The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the fundamental importance of marriage. As early as 1888, in Maynard v. Hill (125 US 190, 205, 211 [1888]), the Supreme Court stated that marriage “creat[es] the most important relation in life” and is “the foundation of the family and of society, without which there would be neither civilization nor progress.”
In 1923, the Supreme Court in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 US 390, 399 (1923), recognized that the right “to marry, establish a home and bring up children” is a central part of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. Nineteen years later, in Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 US at 541 (1942), it described marriage as “fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.” In 1967, the Loving Court recognized marriage as a fundamental right under the Constitution, striking down the state’s antimiscegenation statute: “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men... Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival.” 388 US at 12 (quoting Skinner, supraat 541).
One decade later, in Zablocki v. Redhail, (434 US at 384 [1978]), the Court reaffirmed its holding in Loving, stating that “[a]lthough Loving arose in the context of racial discrimination, prior and subsequent decisions of this Court confirm that the right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals.” Furthermore, the Supreme Court has noted that marriage is a: “right of privacy older than the Bill of Rights – older than our political parties, older than our school system. Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to a degree of being sacred. It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.”
Griswold v. Conn., 381 US at 486 (emphasis supplied). The Supreme Court has “long recognized that freedom of personal choice in matters of marriage and family life is one of the liberties protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Cleveland Bd of Ed v. LaFleur, 414 US 632, 639-40 (1974); see also Zablocki, 434 US at 384 (quoting Griswold, supra). As stated by the Supreme Court: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.”
"Active members of the LDS Church (not its offshoots) pose zero threat to the electoral, judicial, and legal processes in America. "
And if the majority of the LDS are not supportive of polygamy, maybe it's being used here not only to make folks fear legally married homosexuals, but also to promote a fear of Mormons because of the current political culture. (?)
I don't fear Mitt Romney in power, or LDS people pushing for polygamy either. It's a trumped up issue for strategic reasons.
YoungHegelian:
You said,
In the history of English common law, marriage was a matter for church courts until the civil courts took over jurisdiction after the Reformation.
In essence, the underlying nature of marriage in English common law was sacramental, and no one ever saw fit to challenge it.
What about marriages that are not sacramental? Inter-religious marriages or marriages among non-Christians? I'm pretty sure two Jews getting married in the year AD 900 or so were allowed to, and didn't come to the priest. But I don't know just how it worked.
Did you perhaps mean the underlying nature was "natural law"? Because that's the case.
The Church obviously did not invent marriage; the Jews did not. It is a universal institution originating so far back, no one knows when it originated. It is recognizable everywhere, although obviously with some differences: monogamy or polygamy, permanent, semi-permanent, covenantal or contractual.
But, if there is a cultural precedent for same-sex marriage--i.e., arising on its own as opposed to by legislative or judicial fiat--I'd like to know. It's advocates would surely have advertised such a precedent, if it existed.
RE: Slippery slope...
Of course the legal developments thus far in Lawrence, and the various judicial and legislative acts regarding "same-sex marriage," will create a climate for overturning other restrictive elements of marriage law--because once marriage becomes the arbitrary creation of the state, rather than having some intrinsic identity arising from human nature, then how can the state's arbitrary determinations withstand a challenge based on personal liberty? What did Justice Kennedy say about this in Lawrence? All about finding oneself or defining ones existence? Something like that.
Moreover, while the heterosexuality of marriage can be justified on natural-law basis, monogamy clearly comes from Christianity. Watch for polygamists to challenge these restrictions also on religious grounds.
More than one wife? Where's my revolver.
Good. I hope she succeeds. To paraphrase TJ, it does me no injury for my neighbor to have twenty wives or no wives. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. It's none of my business.
And the polygamous Islamics can go pound sand. There's going to be one statutory and common householder law, that applies equally for everyone. We will make no law respecting the establishment of a religion. The un-American perversion of sharia law can go die in a hole. We are a free people, and we will not submit to somebody's idea of God.
RE: "It's in the Bible."
More often the argument of folks who don't read it much. (Thinking of an argument Archie made in a rerun of "All in the Family" last night.)
No question polygamy occurs frequently with individuals in the Bible, including seemingly pious Jews. Seemingly.
But if you read the narrative carefully, you will find little to show these portrayals as positive; and quite a lot that shows them in a very negative light. I.e., it's one thing to say the Bible describes them; another to say it approves. I would argue--but not here, as it's not a suitable forum--that the Old Testament makes the case against polygamy pretty strongly, but not in a boring, "don't do it" way.
Not directly on point, but I think still valid: consider how Jesus answered the question about when to allow divorce. His answer surprised his interlocutors: he said never. They retorted, then why did Moses allow it (which he did)? "Because of the hardness of your hearts--but from the beginning it was not so"...and then our Lord cited Genesis: "and the two became one flesh...what God has joined, let no one divide." (See Matthew 19, I think--quotation not exact, you can check it easily enough.)
My point is, if someone wonders why the Bible doesn't have a commandment, "thou shalt not have more than one wife," I'd say, with the Lord, "because of the hardness of your hearts."
A lot of folks mistakenly think the Bible is meant to give us heroes. No; but it does give us individuals who grow in discovery of, and obedience to, God--and along the way, they sin. Big time. Few individuals the Bible tells us about don't fit this mold.
"Moreover, while the heterosexuality of marriage can be justified on natural-law basis..."
Except, Father, you forget: technology happens, and now homosexuals are quite often parents too, who wish their "families" and children to have the same legal protections.
So while "natural law" was once used to justify why we considered male-female couplings to need marriage protections, culturally defined, the same needs are now present in same-sex families.
You see, science and technology indeed does introduce some non-negotiable variables that need to be logically dealt with too. So, just as we now permit non-procreative heterosexual partners to enter the legal institution of marriage (because some of that type of coupling does need the family-organized protections), we now see that some homosexual families need the same recognition of their legal rights too, based on perhaps an "unnatural" way of babymaking (or not, if the children were conceived and born to an earlier heterosexual union, and adopted into a now-homosexual family).
Like with Galileo, you can't argue away the facts on the ground. And now, naturally or not, you do indeed have some children in homosexual unions, and plenty not in older, second-time-around heterosexual unions. You can't deny the former, legally, for protections you see fit to grant the latter. See legal precedence.
Is "Enver Hoxha" Albanian for "Barrack Obama"?
I think its OK as long as they don't get married. That's the hangup. Marriage is between one man and one woman.
Oh, wait a minute....nevermind.
Mick said: There is no "right" to marriage.
Ahem. By the Tenth Amendment, all other rights are reserved to the States, or the People.
The several States choose how to secure the right of marriage for some or all of their residents.
Utah don't want no polyamory, and CA voters only want hetero marriage. Let 50 flowers bloom, and if you don't like the State you're living in, there will be another more to your desires.
In my opinion, it's time for the People to take away the power of defining marriage from their governments. We the People know what is and is not a marriage, and we don't need no stinking State Legislators or voters to tell us otherwise. The pioneer days where women needed the protection of legal marriage to secure their rights are over. It's time for the law to change.
@ Mary,
Your post proves my point. Skinner v. Okla. for instance, was a "equal protection" case. The hiolding and precedent of the case was that those punished by castration for felonies that were not "white Collar crimes" suffered a different basis of punishment, although it did, in dicta, say that marraige was an important "liberty" that served to propagate the citizenry.
"Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race. The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far-reaching and devastating effects. In evil or reckless hands, it can cause races or types which are inimical to the dominant group to wither and disappear. There is no redemption for the individual whom the law touches. Any experiment which the State conducts is to his irreparable injury. He is forever deprived of a basic liberty"
"Marraige is a right" was not part of the holding, rather it held that the harm that castration did to Skinner's liberty to reproduce caused an unequal punishmernt for the same crime, and took away Skinner's possible liberty to procreate.
All of those cases recognized the importance of marraige as the "right" to procreate, and to produce the citizenry. None of them said that marraige should be anything but for the production of the citizenry, and "gay marraige" certainly failsthat test.
Again, the 14th Amendment has been used to confer "rights" that are not there. Natural Law is the basis of the Bill of Rights, and by Natural Law, many males, and females will not marry nor reproduce. Marraige cannot be a right. It is not given by god and is only statutory in nature, the purpose of which is to promote the "moral" propagation of the citizenry in an orderly fashion that best provides for those progeny to thrive. Those cases ONLY refered to marraige as the basis ofahstmo a liberty to procreate, not to shack up.
I said:
"Moreover, while the heterosexuality of marriage can be justified on natural-law basis..."
Blogger Mary said...
Except, Father, you forget: technology happens, and now homosexuals are quite often parents too, who wish their "families" and children to have the same legal protections.
So while "natural law" was once used to justify why we considered male-female couplings to need marriage protections, culturally defined, the same needs are now present in same-sex families.
You see, science and technology indeed does introduce some non-negotiable variables that need to be logically dealt with too. So, just as we now permit non-procreative heterosexual partners to enter the legal institution of marriage (because some of that type of coupling does need the family-organized protections), we now see that some homosexual families need the same recognition of their legal rights too, based on perhaps an "unnatural" way of babymaking (or not, if the children were conceived and born to an earlier heterosexual union, and adopted into a now-homosexual family).
Like with Galileo, you can't argue away the facts on the ground. And now, naturally or not, you do indeed have some children in homosexual unions, and plenty not in older, second-time-around heterosexual unions. You can't deny the former, legally, for protections you see fit to grant the latter. See legal precedence.
No offense, but, nah, I'm not buying that.
First, Galileo isn't really on-point, because I'm pretty sure we're talking about the received-narrative which is riddled with errors, as opposed to what actually happened. I'm not an expert on that, so I'm not prepared to delve into that--but I know that a lot of what folks think they know about Galileo is partly or significantly wrong. Maybe not you--I don't know you--but I think that's a rabbit-trail.
Back to Natural Law and marriage.
1. Government fiat doesn't change Natural Law. Either it's a valid source of law, or not, but if it's valid, the state of New York can't "amend" it. Obviously it can ignore it.
2. Non-procreative marriages are neither something new (recall Abraham and Sarah?), nor were they ever deemed to be invalid as marriages. I'm not an expert on how marriage has been validated in all human societies, so it may be that a failure to produce a child invalidated a marriage; but I'd like something to substantiate that. Certainly in Western Civilization, I don't believe this invalidated a marriage; it certainly might make someone want a divorce, which is a different matter.
After all, if you made such a claim, that would mean when two old folks get married, we used to think that "unnatural." I'd like a citation for what culture deemed marriages among old couples "unnatural."
In fact, the idea is that a marriage between a man and woman who cannot conceive still conforms to natural law, because, well--since folks don't get this anymore you have to explain it plainly--they in theory could conceive. You know--by marital acts.
Of course, we have more tools to ascertain that a man or woman cannot conceive; but even 1,000 years ago, folks knew that a man without testicles couldn't, and they probably figured out that a woman who might suffer certain injuries would be in the same situation. They certainly knew it was a big deal if it happened beyond a certain age.
3. As far as homosexual couples having children. Well, technology hasn't advanced so far that two men can do it by themselves. They need a woman somewhere along the line. Two women still need a man to provide semen. So the facts on the ground haven't changed that much.
I suppose in this decadent age, someone might actually use the term "marital acts" of sex acts between people of the same sex, but I doubt with a straight face, unless one is pretty naive. But I could be wrong.
Mick,
Keep reading: in Zablocki v. Redhail, (434 US at 384 [1978]), the Court reaffirmed its holding in Loving, stating that “[a]lthough Loving arose in the context of racial discrimination, prior and subsequent decisions of this Court confirm that the right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals.”
Re: "All of those cases recognized the importance of marraige as the "right" to procreate, and to produce the citizenry. None of them said that marraige should be anything but for the production of the citizenry, and "gay marraige" certainly failsthat test."
Distinguish Zablocki. And read my 2:31 comment. Like it or not, gay marraiges today indeed "produce citizenry" and the unions often pay for procreation that produces offspring. Might be "unnatural" to you and the Father the ways technology are now used to get there, but it is what it is. And I don't see anything in Zablocki saying that "the right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals" that excludes homosexuals who use surrogates, test tubes, and "unnatural" methods to bring about a perfectly natural result: a happy family that includes children.
If the divorced, second-go-round non-procreators are "in" with all the benefits and privileges, precedent clearly supports extending the same fundamental right to families with children. "All" is even more inclusive, actually.
"Polygamy is in the Bible. King Solomon had hundreds of wives."
He also kept slaves. Don't go TOO conservative on us here...
andinista said...
Mick said: There is no "right" to marriage.
Ahem. By the Tenth Amendment, all other rights are reserved to the States, or the People.
The several States choose how to secure the right of marriage for some or all of their residents.
Utah don't want no polyamory, and CA voters only want hetero marriage. Let 50 flowers bloom, and if you don't like the State you're living in, there will be another more to your desires.
In my opinion, it's time for the People to take away the power of defining marriage from their governments. We the People know what is and is not a marriage, and we don't need no stinking State Legislators or voters to tell us otherwise. The pioneer days where women needed the protection of legal marriage to secure their rights are over. It's time for the law to change."
7/12/11 2:40 PM
The problem w/ that is the legality between states. It sets up a Commerce Clause question, whereby the Federal Government must decide on how to mesh the laws between the states that do allow it and those that don't. The states that do should not get to impose their wishes on the other states. Further many of the states have imposed "gay marraige' by the state legislatures, only to be voted down by the populace.
The 10th Amendment says nothing about the "right" of marraige. Marraige is a statutory construct to legitimaize the production of the citizenry, and gay marraige does not fit that category. Natural law is where rights are derived from god. Statutory law is where rights are given by man. The Declaration of Independence cautioned against any law against the law of nature, and I think "gay marraige is the perfect example of that, as YY equals nothing.
Mary,
There were always non-marital offspring, this is not a new phenomenon, nor does it require up-ending the law.
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