Polygamists Use Gay Marriage as a Defense or Right

The infamous polygamist Kody Brown family of the TV show “Sister Wives” has done what conservatives (particularly Mormons) have feared would happen ever since the gay marriage debate began to take hold. They used the same-sex marriage rulings to argue the legality of polygamy.  

The Browns have used this argument before in lower courts with some success. That includes the U.S. Supreme Court case of Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the court upheld the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry, and Kitchen v. Herbert, the case that brought same-sex marriage to Utah. Turley also cites a Supreme Court case that decriminalized all gay sex as sodomy, Lawrence V. Texas.

In short, the Browns’ lawyer is arguing for the decriminalization or rejection of morality legislation. For the same reasons homosexuality was considered immoral and illegal, polygamy has as well. Now that the gay marriage contingent has convinced the world that this was an archaic belief, the polygamists want to make the same argument. If the argument on behalf of gay marriage is that any two people who want to be married should be allowed to do so, why can't polygamists legally marry? Polygamists don't marry one wife to another. They marry the woman to the man. It's still just a marriage of one woman to one man, but the man happens to also be married to another woman. If all parties are clear on the facts, using the gay marriage defense, why shouldn't it be legal? 

"From the rejection of morality legislation in Lawrence to the expansion of the protections of liberty interests in Obergefell, it is clear that states can no longer use criminal codes to coerce or punish those who choose to live in consensual but unpopular unions," Turley wrote in his answer to Utah's appeal.

When U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups overturned Utah's ban on polygamy in December 2013, same-sex marriage wasn't mentioned in the ruling. The Browns want the want the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold Waddoups' ruling. The state has argued that polygamy is inherently harmful to women and children and that the Browns have not suffered from the law, because they haven't been prosecuted. (They were just threatened with lawsuits and run out of the state.)

It's an interesting legal argument. Why shouldn't polygamy be legalized? 

Family Roots

Last week Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, a democrat, said,
“[Romney’s] family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico, but then he’d have to talk about his family coming from a polygamy commune in Mexico, given the gender discrepancy. [....Women are] not great fans of polygamy, 86 percent were not great fans of polygamy. I am not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle, but his father was born into [a] polygamy commune in Mexico.”

What he said tonight on Anderson Cooper 360
AC: You raised a lot of eyebrows in a comment to the Daily Beast saying that Romney's family comes from a polygamist commune in Mexico. Is that fair game? Is that fair to talk about?
BS (hey, it isn't my fault those are his initials): People took it way off base. I didn't say anything about any religion. I just said, as you mentioned earlier, that the Mormon religion hasn't accepted polygamy in 120 years. Mitt Romney, and his family, that I know of, doesn't accept polygamy today. The concern is that he took far right turns during the primary, including with immigration. And his opponents criticized him... (he then goes off on self-deportation).
AC: But in this interview you mention 6 or 7 times that his family was born into a polygamy commune in Mexico, repeatedly mentioning that. It was Romney's great-grandfather that practiced polygamy in the 1800s. Is that fair to raise that? Because Democrats were outraged when people brought up Obama's grandfather.
BS: People are taking this far away from what I was discussing. Romney currently has a problem with Latino voters. It is ironic that his father comes from Mexico. He should embrace his roots.
AC: But you were saying he had a woman problem because he doesn't want to talk about Mexico because of polygamy connection.
BS: He has both a gender gap and he has a Latino gap. Probably bigger than anyone who has run for president in recent years. The point is, now how can he reach to the middle?

INTERJECTION- why the heck is a Democrat governor from Montana even talking about the ways a GOP candidate should appeal to the middle, and complaining that he took "right turns?" Ironic that most Republicans cite Romney being too middle and moderate for their taste. Again, I ask, why is this guy offering advice?!

Ralph Reed then joined the conversation, really taking Schweitzer to task for bringing up religion, and called the dog and grandparent issues in the campaign silly. Cooper again brought in some tough questions, and Schweitzer responded by getting very defensive, and called Reed "cowboy," and continued to claim he wasn't making religious references. To which Reed said if comments like that keep up it would come off as a whisper campaign by the Obama side.

What do you think? You obviously know what I think.


Also worth pointing out, while CNN/AC360 may have come down tough on Gov Schweitzer, they also did a several minute piece from Mexico, talking to Romney's distant cousins, who have never even met him. And really dug in on polygamy roots and Mormon colonies. 

And the Ridiculist was awesome. The Family Research Council saying the "break up" of Mike and Ike candy is the divorce of a gay marriage? We are talking about candy, right? Two faceless pieces of candy are now in a gay marriage? Talking about taking something too far.