http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/basham200504180745.asp


Pushing for Polygamy

Multiple marriage isn't such a distant step away from gay marriage as
many pretend.

By Megan Basham

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/basham200504180745.asp


Pushing for Polygamy

Multiple marriage isn't such a distant step away from gay marriage as many
pretend.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/basham200504180745.asp


Pushing for Polygamy

Multiple marriage isn't such a distant step away from gay marriage as
many pretend.

By Megan Basham


Los Angeles Daily News guest editorialist Jonathan Drober recently
echoed the view popular among gay-marriage proponents that polygamy is
a canard of anti-gay-marriage family groups and that legal recognition
of same-sex unions in no way promotes acceptance of plural matrimony.
"No one is seriously posing simultaneous multiple marriages. We plan on
keeping them traditionally serial - one spouse at a time," Drober
wrote.

Perhaps he should have mentioned that to the Arizona and Utah residents
who attended a town-hall meeting concerning two communities in those
states a few days later.

On March 3, Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff and Arizona attorney
general Terry Goddard held a joint summit in St. George, Utah, to deal
with allegations of abuse, molestation, incest, and fraud coming from
within the twin border cities of Hildale and Colorado City.
Approximately 10,000 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) reside in the country's largest
polygamist communities and for decades (thanks to a disastrous police
raid in 1953) have remained largely beyond the short appendages of
local law. The government offensive on the area that was then called
Short Creek turned out to be a public-relations nightmare in which the
press depicted the state as a malicious invader that ripped screaming
children from the arms of their parents and separated loving husbands
from their devoted wives. The event was defining enough that even 52
years later Goddard made a point of opening the conference by calling
the Short Creek raid a "shameful mistake" and asking polygamists
present to "let the past be the past." From that time on, both Utah and
Arizona's tacit polygamy policy remained "don't ask, don't tell."

Recently though, reports of child brides giving birth in county
hospitals, absconders seeking legal restitution, high rates of
deformity resulting from incest, and rampant welfare and tax fraud have
become too great for authorities to ignore. Now, as the attorneys
general's offices seek to "build bridges" that will provide victims of
the polygamist system the means to report abuse, they are making it
clear they have no intention of indicting an "alternative lifestyle
choice" even if it is the breeding ground for all manner of crime.

Of the more than 350 people who packed out the Holiday Inn ballroom for
the two-hour public session, a large portion were practicing
polygamists, and Shurtleff made it clear to them that while his office
will investigate underage "spiritual marriages," as the FLDS calls
them, it will not target their personal beliefs by prosecuting multiple
unions involving persons over the age of 18. This assurance came in
spite of the fact that under Utah law plural marriage between
individuals of any age is a felony. For Arizona's part, Goddard echoed
Shurtleff, stating, "We're here to address a very specific focus; we're
not interested in condemning a lifestyle." Yet when both Shurtleff and
Goddard pledged to those present that "they [would] not sit back and
let people commit crimes," one polygamy opponent responded, "I'm
confused, is polygamy not a crime?"

Perhaps it is a crime according to federal law, state law, and many
states' constitutions - but not according to recent court decisions
that necessitate endorsement of any kind of sexual arrangement. What
this woman failed to take into account is that, crime or no, multiple
marriage is now being characterized as a "life choice." And as Carol
Smith of the Women's Religious Liberties Union, a pro-polygamy group,
explained, "You can't discriminate against us because of our life
choices."

Carolyn Spinelli, who moved to the southwest from New Jersey six years
ago, is not a polygamist herself, but feels that a polygamous lifestyle
can be a positive option for some if fanatical FLDS leaders are taken
out of the equation. "If you would just open your mind," she said to
the crowd, "polygamy is a wonderful thing." "Believe it or not there's
a lot of happy women, and there are a lot of them here today," said
another who declined to reveal whether she was one wife in a group of
many.

For the most part, these sentiments were applauded by most of the
single-marriage practitioners in the room, with many claiming they
showed up "to extend a hand of acceptance." Their beef, they said, was
not with the polygamists' lifestyle, but with the strain their multiple
offspring put on the public coffers. One woman offered that polygamy
wouldn't be a problem at all if the states would "cut back all this
welfare and they [the polygamist parents] had to support all these
children."

Other non-FLDS residents looked to pop-culture icons to support their
polygamous neighbors. Drawing the precise correlation gay-marriage
supporters claim is nothing but the hysteria of bigots, one woman
cheerfully used her turn at the mike to assert this bit of common
logic: "If Rosie O'Donnell can adopt children and that's legal, I mean
c'mon. If two consenting adults want to have a family, three consenting
adults, four... That's fine." In fact, the heartiest approval of the
session came when one individual suggested that the best way to deal
with polygamy's legal problems would simply be to decriminalize
polygamy.

On February 3, 2005, former Hildale police officer Rodney Holm argued
to have his 2003 conviction for bigamy and sex with a minor overturned
partly on the basis that it violated his privacy rights. Holm's
attorney Rodney Parker argued that in light of the Supreme Court's
decision striking down sodomy laws, the Utah court should find that
32-year-old Holms had a constitutional right to take his 16-year-old
sister-in-law as his third "spiritual wife." To that effect, Parker's
brief stated, "Current demographics, domestic relations law, and
religious diversity all accommodate plural marriage. Popular departure
from traditional marriage has made our domestic laws on cohabitation
and fornication anachronistic." A decision in this case is expected
shortly.

In another Utah case utilizing Lawrence v. Texas early last year, the
ACLU filed suit on behalf of G. Lee Cook, a Salt Lake City polygamist
who wanted his multiple marriages to be legally as well spiritually
valid. Steven Clarke, the ACLU's Salt Lake City legal director,
publicized his chapter's endorsement of this position by stating,
"Talking to Utah's polygamists is like talking to gays and lesbians who
really want the right to live their lives, and not live in fear because
of whom they love. So certainly that kind of privacy expectation is
something the ACLU is committed to protecting." Ultimately, the court
rejected the reasoning in this case, but the citizens of Hildale and
Colorado City have not. Nor have those on the cutting edge of family
law who seek to undermine marriage by opening it up to same-sex
couples.

David Chambers, a professor of law at the University of Michigan, wrote
in The Michigan Law Review that those who support plural marriage ought
to also support gay marriage. He argued that rather than reinforcing a
two-person definition of marriage, gay marriage would make society more
accepting of further legal changes: "By ceasing to conceive of marriage
as a partnership composed of one person of each sex, the state may
become more receptive to units of three or more." Similarly,
Alternatives to Marriage Project activist and University of Utah law
professor Martha Ertman noted in The Harvard Law Review that legal and
social opposition to polygamy is decreasing and that increasing
acceptance of homosexual partnerships is slowly (and, to her mind,
rightly) resulting in the final destruction of the traditional marriage
ideal.

The primary tactical difference between polygamist communities and
gay-marriage activists is that the former have traditionally neither
sought nor desired government recognition or even government
involvement (with, of course, the exception of public assistance). But
as the ideology of those on the frontlines of the gay-marriage debate
trickles down to cloistered FLDS communities, they too are beginning to
push for unqualified endorsement in the eyes of the law. And why
shouldn't they, now that gay couples are starting to make great strides
in the same direction? They may not be progressive lawyers authoring
treaties in law reviews, but Hildale and Colorado City residents
certainly understand the logic of their case.



- Megan Basham is a freelance writer in Phoenix, Arizona, and a
current Phillips Foundation fellow.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/basham200504180745.asp


Pushing for Polygamy

Multiple marriage isn't such a distant step away from gay marriage as
many pretend.