For a while, the homosexual activists tried to ridicule the fears of the traditional values supporters that same-sex "marriage" would put us on the road to legalizing polygamy. But more and more stories are coming out that show this is, in fact, where we're headed. And it's harder and harder for them to deny the ultimate goal of their movement. After all, their more open radicals now include "P" in their acronmym ("GLBTQIP").
Yesterday's Washington Times ran a story by Cheryl Wetzstein, "The Marriage of Many" (Dec. 11). Note that the ACLU and Libertarian Party support polygamy. So it's coming our way ... unless we roll back the insanity of same-sex "marriage".
Polygamy has been outlawed in the United States since Colonial days, and despite the notable detour of America's home-grown Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it seems likely to remain so. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected polygamy in its 1878 decision in Reynolds v. United States, which said government can enforce anti-polygamy laws even if they run counter to people's religious beliefs. Utah's Constitution outlaws polygamy "forever" and, in 2001, the state's anti-polygamy laws were upheld when Thomas Green, a fundamentalist Mormon man with five wives, was sent to prison for bigamy and related crimes.
In recent years, the federal government and 40 states have passed Defense of Marriage Acts and/or constitutional amendments that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. But two 2003 court rulings changed the legal landscape on sex and marriage: The Lawrence v. Texas decision by the U.S. Supreme Court disallows states to criminalize private sexual behavior among consenting adults, such as sodomy between homosexual men. The Goodridge decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which legalized same-sex "marriage" in that state, says "the right to marry means little if it does not include the right to marry the person of one's choice."
Taken together, these rulings appear to support a right to polygamy by consenting adults, according to pundits such as conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer. "[I]f marriage is redefined to include two men in love, on what possible principled grounds can it be denied to three men in love?" Mr. Krauthammer has asked....
Polygamy is supported in principle by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Libertarian Party. In a 2004 commentary in USA Today, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said anti-polygamy laws are hypocritical and that Green's 2001 bigamy conviction was "simply a matter of unequal treatment under the law."
