“Sister Wives” clan files suit claiming polygamy law is unconstitutional
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.
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.
Blowback
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Oh no. If polygamy gets legalized, next thing you know we’ll have gay marriage. Just like happened in Iran, and other places where polygamy is legal and they love gays and have never heard of the slippery slope fallacy…
RightOFLeft on July 12, 2011 at 2:57 PM
Or find little boys they can treat like little girls.
NotCoach on July 12, 2011 at 2:57 PM
Good point..
Dire Straits on July 12, 2011 at 2:58 PM
You have a point here. The culture needs to be fixed and people need to return to their morals. That does not however, mean we shouldn’t fight the legislative battle as well. Legalizing something is the same as acknowledging that it is acceptable behavior.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” ~John Adams
Pattosensei on July 12, 2011 at 2:58 PM
From studying the FLDS fairly extensively, other religious polygamist groups not as much, but some. I’m not sure why someone would need to study individual polygamist family units (unconnected to a religious sect) to conclude that they probably wouldn’t drive out their own child. I simply don’t see the motivation if there isn’t any competition.
Just speculating, of course.
Bee on July 12, 2011 at 2:58 PM
I agree 100%..
Dire Straits on July 12, 2011 at 2:59 PM
We already have gay marriage. In fact, these women are using SCOTUS hearings on sodomy laws to try to get the state to recognize polygamy. Slippery slope, indeed.
MeatHeadinCA on July 12, 2011 at 2:59 PM
You are going to compare a theocracy run by thugs who make the laws they want to a liberal democracy? I think I see your brain slipping down a slope.
NotCoach on July 12, 2011 at 2:59 PM
The issue seems to be that polygamy allows increased abuse of women and children in societies were such abuse is widely accepted. Is the same true for open societies where women are legally and socially on a level playing field with men?
Count to 10 on July 12, 2011 at 3:00 PM
I disagree. For example, I think it should be legal to be drunk, but I find drunkards to be immoral.
MeatHeadinCA on July 12, 2011 at 3:00 PM
LOL. You shouldn’t need to read it, by now you should know it, and if you don’t then you’re already a lost cause.
DFCtomm on July 12, 2011 at 3:00 PM
He’s so cute when he does his coy act, ain’t he?
Akzed on July 12, 2011 at 3:02 PM
Are there any open societies where women are legally and socially on a level playing field with men where polygamy is legal, and if there isn’t then maybe that should tell us something.
DFCtomm on July 12, 2011 at 3:03 PM
It’s funny that you “schooled” me in reading in context and then directed me to a page that took verses out of context. Right on!
Not only that, but also quoted me out of context, set up an “anything goes” strawman and then commented on what your strawman believed.
Your style of debate is extreemely dishonest.
In fact, the page you sent me to twist Scripture in an extreemely dishonest way as well…why am I not surprised.
The Bible says specifically that kings were not to have multiple wifes because they would lead his heart away from God. Which was true and which happened, but even when David “A man after God’s own heart” did go and have multiple wives, God was silent on it. In fact, in the whole Bathsheba case God confronted David about the adultery and murder but then when David married Bathsheba (thus giving him yet another wife), God said nothing at all. In fact, it appears that David married her because he thought it was the right thing to do.
Then the page author goes on to talk about Esau marrying two wives and how this caused his parents all sorts of heartache — but it’s quite clear that the Esau’s problem wasn’t that he was a polygamist, but that he had married foreign wives. In fact, his dear brother Jacob was ALSO a polygamist but the page author fails to mention him because it doesn’t further his argument.
Can polygamy lead to problems — sure, but is it anti-scriptural? No, not at all. And in his attempt to make it appear so, the page’s author perverted scripture, inserted his own opinion as God’s opinion and did an incredible disservice to his readers.
29Victor on July 12, 2011 at 3:03 PM
What then is the difference that makes some immoral things less likely to occur if they are illegal, and other immoral things just as likely to occur if they are illegal.
elfman on July 12, 2011 at 3:04 PM
If its a problem with numbers why do i pay the same “Family” insurance payment with one child as the guy who has 7 kids? What do insurance companies say about that? Shouldnt you pay by the person then? Not just “single”, “single with spouse” or “family”.
Greed on July 12, 2011 at 3:05 PM
I’m not comfortable with such reasoning (not saying you are). For example, if the data suggested that Blacks were say 3 times as likely to commit domestic abuse, does that mean we don’t allow Blacks to marry?
MeatHeadinCA on July 12, 2011 at 3:07 PM
The fear of getting caught? Again, how hard is it for two consenting siblings to have intercourse without ever being sent to jail? From a legal point of view, there’s probably more deterrence for speeding as it would be much easier to get caught. The reason incest isn’t rampant in America is because it’s viewed as disgusting and deviant. Now, perhaps we should wait til public schools start a campaign to make it acceptable.
MeatHeadinCA on July 12, 2011 at 3:10 PM
Genesis 2:24
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Matthew 19:5
For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.
???
Akzed on July 12, 2011 at 3:10 PM
Ohs nos, the thread just dropped out of the “Headlines” section.
Greed on July 12, 2011 at 3:12 PM
Um…sorry to jump in in the middle here, I don’t want to take sides, but the I’m pretty sure that insurance companies price “family” insurance the way they do because they have run the numbers and it’s the most profitable way to sell coverage. If the situation changed, I’m certain they’d change the way they do business — unless the government told them not to.
29Victor on July 12, 2011 at 3:12 PM
Yeah, ya know Moses, the guy who wrote that? — Polygamist. Sorry, but therefore it must not mean what you take it to mean, if it did then Moses would have known that and behaved accordingly. But I somehow doubt this fact will change your interpretation.
29Victor on July 12, 2011 at 3:16 PM
I actually have no idea what you are talking about. Did youmean to quote someone else?
Count to 10 on July 12, 2011 at 3:17 PM
The anything goes part was meant to be a response to anyone (like Good Lt.) that seems to believe there are no moral standards. I didn’t do a good job of separating the two responses. For that confusion I apologize.
However, I did not “quote you out of context.” I quoted your full quote and it has a date stamp. I did not deny that your case was true…I said it doesn’t sound right out of context. Anyhow I will defend that page.
Really? Is that true? Let’s READ the article shall we:
Why, he even mentions David.
You also skipped over the whole point of the articles which was:
He points you to the versus to look at context yourself. Perhaps my problem was choosing a short/condensed version. I’ve pretty much put the whole article here as it is.
There’s another take on it at this site that is longer if you like.
Pattosensei on July 12, 2011 at 3:21 PM
Well, I was just talking about basing marriage laws on data on violence and such.
MeatHeadinCA on July 12, 2011 at 3:22 PM
Ummm… because we live in a society and country that values freedoms and allows people to make choices.
This sounds a lot like the arguments used against interracial marriages back in the day.
ButterflyDragon on July 12, 2011 at 3:22 PM
You’ll have to back that up. We aren’t told of the death of his wife Zipporah, Exodus 2:15,22, but the marriage to the Ethiopian woman was much later, Numbers 33:1-49.
Given that Moses -as God’s spokesman- prohibited polygamy, the safets assumption is that Zipporah was dead when the second marriage occurred.
Akzed on July 12, 2011 at 3:24 PM
It exists.
DarkCurrent on July 12, 2011 at 3:25 PM
He was?
MeatHeadinCA on July 12, 2011 at 3:25 PM
If the arguments against polygamy come down to a religious argument, then there is obviously nothing wrong with it.
Man, the religious zealots that get into the whole “my God is better than your God” arguments are the worse to try to have a conversation with.
ButterflyDragon on July 12, 2011 at 3:29 PM
I love the smell of obtuseness in the afternoon. Polygamy will strip us of those choices if it were to ever become widely accepted. And that is the point. And you are going to have to point out how this is similar to the arguments against interracial marriage or are you just throwing out some lame ad hominem?
NotCoach on July 12, 2011 at 3:29 PM
More than likely. He had both Zipporah and a Cushite wife. Why wouldn’t he? It was common in his culture.
29Victor on July 12, 2011 at 3:30 PM
Simultaneously? Now you’re just guessing. Moses seemed very careful to document the problems arising from having multiple wives. I’m going to go out on a limb guessing he didn’t approve of polygamy.
MeatHeadinCA on July 12, 2011 at 3:33 PM
Sure, one of the first arguments against interracial marriage was that it was against “God’s plan”. (Sound familiar to some of the arguments made on this thread?)
It was considered “unnatural” and that both races would be degraded. Furthermore the biracial children would be “inferior” in every way. The biracial children would be “outcasts”. (Unnatural. Sound familiar?)
There were legal arguments against the legalization of interracial marriage because if they allowed it the next thing you would know it would lead to “incestuous relationships”. (Strange, that looks familiar too)
The argument of “self preservation” of the society is the “moral argument” made to attempt to continue the ban on interracial marriage. (Once again, same argument)
That interracial marriage would “degrade conventional marriage”.
ButterflyDragon on July 12, 2011 at 3:38 PM
I wasn’t really speaking to marriage laws, just to preemptively illegalizing the cohabitation of multiple women who have kids with the same man. Do the problems we see in polygamous societies arise from that polygamy, or is polygamy just a common result of those problems? I don’t think I want to base law on my confidence in that answer.
Count to 10 on July 12, 2011 at 3:41 PM
Please. Yes the author mentions Jacob & David but then dismisses both with the line that they were “hardly at a spiritual high point at those times.” What about Bathsheba? If they married them at “low points” then why not “put them away” at “high points” like hundreds of Jews did in with their foreign wives in Nehemiah? In fact, Nehemiah states that Solomon’s sin wasn’t that he had multiple wives so much as that he had foreign wives.
The site you directed me to is called “What the Bible Says,” but one of the first things the does is say
So shouldn’t the name of the site be “What the Bible Says, unless the Bible Doesn’t Say Anything, then I’m Gonna Write My Opinion and Attempt to Prooftext Enough to Give it Scriptural Authority?”
The author first decides that polygamy is a sin and then inserts that view into his interpretation of Scriputure to go on and prove it was a sin.
But to even say that “A very important point to remember is that not everything recorded in the Bible is approved in the Bible” is a complete cop out, the Bible goes on for chapters and chapters and chapters telling the Jews what it is and isn’t okay to eat, drink, wear…how to shave, who to marry &/or have sex with. It goes into great detail about not marrying your cousin, not fiddling with the same gender, not marrying outside the faith, and that kings shouldn’t be polygamist…but then somehow forgets to include that that the polygamy law applies to everyone else too.
29Victor on July 12, 2011 at 3:44 PM
The “biracial” part is pretty funny, given how few pure-bread Africans there were in the US at the time. One has to wonder if hybrid vigor is a major factor in the demographics of our professional sports.
Count to 10 on July 12, 2011 at 3:44 PM
Fail. So much fail. None of the arguments I have made relate to purity or “God’s” plan in any way. Please reread what I have posted. I am concerned about liberty and only care about polygamy as a social pressure upon liberty. Not about what religions may or may not practice or what God may or may not think of it. God doesn’t consider me a close personal friend, councilor or confidant. So He hasn’t given me His input on the issue.
NotCoach on July 12, 2011 at 3:46 PM
Wait. Your idea of preserving liberty is by constraining it? Really?
Did I just fall down the rabbit hole?
ButterflyDragon on July 12, 2011 at 3:56 PM
I would tell you to reread the whole damn thread, but you won’t. So I’ll school you here.
Is murder against the law? Is that not a constraint upon your liberty yet it preserves it at the same time? Why do so many other laws exist that actually constrain your liberties but ultimately preserve them by constraining them at the same time?
There are lines we should not cross because crossing those lines will ultimately destroy our liberties even if they seem to broaden them. Anarchy is a perfect example of this. Only those strong enough to rule over the many would truly be free in such a world.
As to why I place polygamy in the same category you will have to reread the thread to find out. I am done responding to you because you are not a serious or honest person.
NotCoach on July 12, 2011 at 4:03 PM
I love when people “assume” things in Scriputure so that is lines up with their morality. It is the “safest assumption” only if you reading the Scipture with the preconcieved notion that polygamy is unlawful, but then you’re allowing you beliefs to influence your interpretation of Scripture instead of allowing Scripture to inform you beliefs.
Also, Moses never “prohibited polygamy” for anyone but kings, quite specifically in fact.
According to Exodous 18, Zipporah was alive and well when the Israelites were camped at Rephidim but Numbers 12 says that just two camingings later (see Numbers 33), Moses went and married a Cushite woman in Hazeroth. Acutally, the Word doesn’t say that Moses married her at Hazeroth, it just says that’s where Miriam & Aaron complained about it.
So for Moses NOT to be a polygamist we have to “guess” both that Zipporah died between Rephidim & Hazeroth AND that Moses married the Cushite woman at Hazeroth.
But Scripture never gives us a reason to assume either of these things unless we begin with the assumption that polygamy is a sin.
29Victor on July 12, 2011 at 4:10 PM
Oh, and when the Lord does forbid kings from having multiple wives, He specificially states that it is because they will lead the king away from the Lord, not because the polygamy itself is a sin. If polygamy was a sin for everyone then why not just say that polygamy is a sin for everyone instead of singling out kings and then giving a specific reason (as I state above) that it is wrong for kings?
29Victor on July 12, 2011 at 4:25 PM
That’s about as good an answer as I can think of.
Not sure if it’s applicable to incest. Strange father-daughter or sibling families would attract suspicion, especially if families grow over the years. But if it weren’t illegal, they could certainly find communities that support it, probably even some supporting the three headed kids that result.
elfman on July 12, 2011 at 4:33 PM
3 Points:
1)
I can’t help you if you don’t understand that everything recorded in the Bible is not necessarily condoned by the Bible. The Bible also records instances of incest (Noah) and certainly doesn’t condone them. Next thing you’ll be saying is that Jesus is all for adultery because he didn’t condemn the woman brought before him.
2)
You clearly don’t understand theology or scripture. There is little point in debating with you. At no point does the article specifically call it a sin. It is rather equated with divorce: something not part of God’s perfect plan, but tolerated under certain circumstances.
3)
As you’ve already demonstrated, and I pointed out, you are not good at reading. Furthermore, you make assertions with far less supporting evidence about Moses being a polygamist and then turn around and accuse me and an Apologetic’s article of obfuscating and making things up from thin air? Furthermore, you have never once listed the scripture you are referencing when you refer to Moses’ laws. That means I cannot be sure that you are even correct in your assertions without having to do the research myself.
Pattosensei on July 12, 2011 at 5:51 PM
Siblings and father daughter? My guess is that there’s probably a 90% chance that they won’t get caught. Not because 10% of the time someone will find out that they slept together one time, but because a substantial portion of the time they start a “relationships”. That raises red flags, and they get suspected if not caught. And if it were not illegal, a fair amount of them would have children and find a way to normalize it in some subculture. What’s your guess?
elfman on July 12, 2011 at 11:50 PM
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