Reader comments
Polygamists are urged to make public statement

So if I get this correct our Attorney General is asking polygamist groups to declare they will not condone "child bride" marriages. Isn't that like the Chief of Police asking robbers to swear off doing burglaries. Last I read, in the Utah Constitution, plural marriage was against the law. Not just the child bride part. Hey Utah Attorney General, how about doing all of your job? Instead of urging criminals to forgo some of their criminal acts, how about putting them on notice that you will prosecute all of their criminal acts?

To Ed H | 6:43 a.m. June 19, 2008

Mr. Ed, it's a time-honored, strategic, and viable tactic to choose one's battles. There's nothing useful or grand or noble in engaging the enemy in a battle that cannot be won. Any attack on multiple simultaneous marriages is going to eventually wend its way to the SCOTUS, and faces the likely prospect of being knocked down as unconstitutional. Is that what you want? If so, "time's a-wastin'; let's git 'her done"!

To Ed H - It is harder to prosecute polygamists than it would seem. Since they are not married "under law" they are not in violation of the law. The argument could be made that the women are just mistresses and we know that society unfortunately doesn't have a problem with a man having multiple mistresses. Thus, the Attorney General is limited on what claims he can pursue.

Mr AG, what other laws (beside polygamy) are you not enforcing?
I'm sure the criminal element would like to know which other laws are "freebies".

What we want, Mr Kirkpatrick, is the law enforced.
If the Court overturns anti-polygamy laws then we can all obey the new law and move on.

What we do not want, Mr Kirkpatrick, is tens of thousands of people ignoring the law in broad daylight.

What we do not want, Mr Kirkpatrick, is an attorney general sworn to uphold (ALL) the law picking and choosing not to enforce laws.

What we do not want, Mr Kirkpatrick, is a subclass of children (not just lost boys and child brides, ALL children of illegal polygamy) living outside the protection of the law.

Is that clear?

Is that really too much to ask?

This "declaration" changes exactly NOTHING, for the following reasons:

1. It's very carefylly worded so that if the jurisdiction doesn't have a low enough age limit to accommodate the intended marriage, they'll just haul the girl to a different jurisdiction with a lower age limit.

2. As stated in the article, the age limit law only applies to LEGAL marriages. They can still "spiritually marry" any girl at any age they darn well please.

Let's all hope our prosecutors and police are smart enough to realize that, since such "spiritual marriages" aren't legal, then any sexual contact therein is NOT protected by marriage, and is therefore subject to statutory rape prosecution. Statutory rape doesn't care about consent of the minor, it only cares about age. Prosecuting older men who take girls under the age of 18 as "spiritual" second, third, fourth (etc) wives for statutory rape is the best way to eradicate this practice for good.

We hope that all polygamists will reexamine their policies and realize that their practices have devolved downward to the point of denying their people basic rights.
1. Choice of who to marry
2. Choice of when to marry...age 18 or above if at all possible
3. Choice to continue education beyond eighth grade.
4. Freedom of fear that they will be ousted if they are a boy and make a few mistakes. They should be kept, fed and educated at least until they can be on their own.
5. Freedom for girls to NOT marry old men

To Ed H

Seems to me that BC is right, the polygamists don't appear to be breaking any law, because they do not avail themselves of the laws of the state to marry, and therefore are not married as a matter of law, even if they believe they are married in the only way that matters to them, which is under their religion. Now, the state could try to write a law (or interpret existing common-law marriage principles) to ban these multiple relationships in addition to actual multiple marriages, but I'm not sure how you could do that without sweeping in many relationships from the broader society that -- while many of us might want to discourage them strongly -- few people anymore think ought to be actually illegal. I noticed, though, that the article says the Utah AG's office does bring polygamy charges when it can do that in conjunction with other sex crime charges, so perhaps BC and I are wrong. Does anyone know if the AG does in fact do that, and, if so, on what theory?

Talk about missing the point from the beginning! They are breaking the law by being polygamists in the first place. It's amazing how everyone so easily gets off onto tangents that smoke screen the original problem. If they weren't breaking the law in the first place, they wouldn't have underage marriages, because that's against the law... as is polygamy! They deserve due process in court, as everyone accused of crimes. But the fact still remains they are breaking the law and should therefore be prosecuted for that. Forget these la-mo public promises. They mean nothing coming from people who aren't living the law of the land. Show you are real men and choose one wife, stick with her, and leave the others alone OR go to jail.

Actually polygamists in theory fulfill all the rules for violating the law. The main problem is that since the people involved all support it, it is hard to get enough evidence to convict. Even with statutory rape cases involving underage brides, if the victim does not want to testify the state has a very hard case.
Actually though, I do want to see a new Atorney General in Utah. Even if I normally disagree with Ed's hate mongering, in this case he does have a point. I want this case forced to the supreme court of the United States. I do not know which way it will come down, but that way we will hopefully see polygamist who fully justify themselves on the Bible and maybe even Islamic and Homong polygamists come out of the woodwork. Maybe them people will finally realize that most polygamists in the US neither live in Utah nor justify their actions based on Doctrine and Covenants 132. The House of Yahweh people in Abilene clearly do not, although it is not clear if they actually practice polygamy.

To L.G. Kirkpatrick

I'm not sure you're right when you say that the Supreme Court would be likely to strike down anti-multiple-marriage laws as unconstitutional. The current court has been pretty respectful of states' rights generally. Yes, the court has in recent years upheld and even expanded precedents limiting the state's ability to regulate consensual sexual activity among adults. Marriage is a different thing, though, and states could argue it has far broader legal and social implications than merely shacking up (not least because marriage is a grant of rights from the state) and is therefore appropriate for state limitation provided the regulation is not arbitrary. My bet would be that the current court would uphold state laws banning polygamy (and gay marriage, for that matter) while striking down laws that tried to regulate sexual activity outside of marriage (including Texas's law defining an "informal" marriage that was specifically aimed at the FLDS in Eldorado). So I think Texas's anti-bigamy statute is safe, but so are the polygamists because they aren't violating that statute -- they're violating the "informal" marriage statute which probably isn't constitutional.

To RL

As BC and I have noted above, it doesn't seem on the face of it that the polygamists *are* breaking the law unless, of course, the "spiritual" bride is underage. They seem to be pretty careful about structuring their relationships to comply with the limitations on multiple legal marriages. I was struck, for example, when Larry King had a number of FLDS on his show one evening and when he asked one of them how long she had been married to the father of her children she immediately said "We're not married." I thought "That's got to be tough, to say in front of millions of people that you're not married to the man who has fathered your children, when you believe that sex outside of marriage is a mortal sin and you belive you are married in the only way that counts, but you know that you're not married under the law and can't be." Her willingness to immediately say that seemed to show that they have thought at least that part of it through pretty carefully to try to comply with the law.

Have you ever broken the speed limit or tasted a grape in the grocery store? Then you are breaking the law. The issue becomes, which is the more important problem to solve: Underage marriage and abused spouses not coming forward or defining marriage which already seems to be the case with legal gay marriage already acceptable in a couple of states? While you seem against polygamy, you ignore that adultery is also illegal but takes place with nary a glance and no public outcry to convict those guilty.

To John Lambert

Eureka! Someone on the board who seems pretty well informed! But your post left me tantalized -- *how* is it that the polygamists fulfill all the rules for violating the law, even in theory? I guess there must be some way because the Leavitts did manage to convict Tom Green of polygamy, and I simply never followed the issue closely enough to know what the legal theory was. Is it some sort of common-law marriage approach, that could in principle apply to other relationships (such as the inner-city promiscuity frequently cited on this blog) except that they usually aren't stable enough to actually result in a marriage under common law? Obviously I ought to just research it myself, but life is short and you seem like someone who would know.

This is a case of rolling up all polgyamists into one big group. I see absolutely NO REASON any group of people has to come out and say anything because some other group is a bunch of idiots.

I belong to an INDEPENDENT Baptist church. We believe in Psalms 149:3 Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. Thus, in my church, we are allowed to dance.

Just because other Baptist churches have come out and said "WE DON"T DANCE" is no reason for my church to make some official, public declaration saying "WE DANCE".

If your group is NOT doing anything WRONG, coming out and yelling "HEY, WE AREN'T DOING THAT JUNK SOMEONE ELSE IS!" should not be necessary.

In Texas they have common law marriage. The polygamists are guilty of breaking the law. They choice to break the law. Since the law enforcement now has the Bishop's list, they can prove polygamy.Thus, common law marriage. The polygamist are teaching their children that it is fine to break the law. Polygamist should move to another country where it is acceptable.

If we're going to legalize gay marriage, and I think we are, maybe we will have to re-think this issue.

My state representative in AZ recently wrote me that she will not support any ban on gay marriage, nor will she support a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman (she's a Jewish Democrat, for anyone who cares) because "Arizonans are independment minded people who won't allow the government to interfere with people's private lives."

If that is so, perhaps we should just legalize polygamy--it a a marriage practiced in many cultures all over the world, including by the Episcopal father of a Nigerian chieftan friend of mine.

The issue of polygamy is NOT the same as the issue of forced marriages, child brides, etc. Maybe we should just recognize that and put our resources to fighting the under-the-age-of-consent practices.

The FLDS have gotten away with this because these marriages are NOT legal marriages, but "spiritual" ones, which can't effectively be regulated by law unless you want to regulate ALL sexual relationships of underage girls everywhere--something that many segments of society would never support and the prosecution of which would cost the national debt and more.

Well, well, it appears that the so called "Safety Net" committee and Principle Voices are advocating that all Mormon Fundamentalists bow down to man's new marriage age laws (they keep changing them higher and higher), in contrast to God's laws and allowances as found in the Bible and other scriptures (i.e. menses/puberty). Just as the LDS did in bowing down to the state and changing its doctrine advocating plural marriage/polygamy. Step by step, with religious liberties being sacrificed to the State. State OVER Church.

Gays have far more rights than Mormon Fundamentalists do.

While the marriage rules are expanding to include gay marriage, I'm not sure the Supreme Court will extend them to polygamy. Scientists can prove that homosexuality is an occurrence of nature, therefore it is apparent that homosexuals are entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals. The idea of civil unions come across as a "separate but equal is inherently unequal" idea.

Polygamy seems to come with a lot of other criminal behavior. It seems that some of the religions that practice polygamy feel they are above the law in many matters whereas homosexual men appear to be less likely to engage in criminal behavior than heterosexual men.

There has been extensive adverse publicity regarding polygamy. Two anti-polygamy books are now on the New York Times best seller lists and there are plans to produce two anti-polygamy movies. The public has witnessed statutory rape of polygamous girls, forced marriage of girls to old men, boys kicked out of their families for minor infractions, brainwashing or extreme indoctrination, victims denied their day in court due to pressure from polygamist members, women and children reassigned to new men and family members prohibited from associating with other family members who have abandoned polygamy.

Most likely polygamy isn't illegeal - the State just won't give them the chance to prove it. There maybe laws and the books - but those laws are unconsitutional. There are still laws on the books against gay sex, but it's legal because the have been ruled unconsitutional.

No one wants to prosecute polygamy because they know it is more than likely that the Supreme Court will find the laws unconsitutional. (Yes, there was an old decision, but recently the Court held that they would probably overturn polygamy laws).

That don't want people to be free - so the just don't prosecute it. That keeps people in fear and allows others to call them criminals. This is unfair and unethical.

By the way, I heard people say it's illegeal unless the Supreme Court overrules it. That's not how it works.
I do hope Texas does prosecute for polygamy - that way the law will be overturned.