Patterico's Pontifications

7/1/2015

Polygamist Family Applies For Marriage License

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:16 am



[guest post by Dana]

Given the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, it’s not surprising that a polygamist family in Montana has now applied for a marriage license:

Nathan Collier and his two wives, Vicki and Christine, said Tuesday that they are simply looking for equality.Nathan is legally married to Vicki, but also wants to legally wed Christine.

On Tuesday, Nathan and Christine traveled to the Yellowstone County Courthouse to see if they would be awarded the right to marry under the Marriage Equality Act.

Polygamy is illegal under Montana state law, and recognized as a misdemeanor offense.

“We just want to add legal legitimacy to an already happy, strong, loving family,” said Nathan.

As the two filled out their marriage application they were met with questions.

“There’s a spot on there where you put the dissolution date of your previous marriage and we put ‘not applicable,'” said Christine.

In fact, the couple was met with varied reaction from employees, who were caught off guard.

“So, are you legally married, you didn’t get divorced?” asked one clerk.

“We’ll have to deny that, let me go grab the other supervisor real quick so I can get confirmation but as far as I’m aware you can’t be married to two people at the same time,” said another clerk.

The Attorney General offered no comment about the marriage application request, but instead cited state law prohibiting the practice. And there has not yet been any official denial made.

–Dana

99 Responses to “Polygamist Family Applies For Marriage License”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (86e864)

  2. second.

    Denver Todd (7163dd)

  3. I smell a Supreme Court case in their future … chickens coming home to roost …

    KaiserDerden (399734)

  4. I can’t say I’m surprised, or even particularly interested. I’ve always thought that the Liberal dismissal of Conservative charges that after Gay Marriage, Polygamy would be next were ill considered. On the other hand, I’m far from sure why Conservatives are so worked up about it. In the present state of Divorce Law any man who marries more than one woman is asking to be pulled apart like a wishbone.

    C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd)

  5. If the Supreme Court were a court that applied precedent, then the trio will have their marriage recognized.

    Unfortunately, it isn’t. The Supreme Court is an unaccountable super-Congress.

    egd (1ad898)

  6. Well, I did think it would take a little longer to see it, actually.

    This is a no-win. I don’t see any logic in the court ruling no to this, so they rule yes or they rule no and make up something out of thin air.
    Can any one think of a good logical argument as to why the definition of marriage can be changed one way but not another, other than the whim of court?

    Were there any bets out on whether this would happen, since so many people said it wouldn’t?
    Or was the claim not that people wouldn’t try, but that the courts would not ok it? (for some vestige of tradition, for the moment).

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  7. Well, maybe slightly surprised; I wouldn’t have guessed Montana first.

    The totally unsurprised Dana (f6a568)

  8. Marriage is a cry to the universe that you don’t want to be alone. So make sure you always have a spare wife.

    nk (dbc370)

  9. This ongoing redefining will eventually give ‘puppy love’ a whole new meaning.

    cb (eb16db)

  10. I’m shocked! Why, who could have ever foreseen this development?

    Love is love. Has Jonathan Turley raced out to Montana to represent the happy family yet?

    I am going to take out a marriage license and write in Donald Trump’s name. Who has a right to deny me? I then will settle the annulment or divorce for a mere fraction of his net worth.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  11. They may have to deal with some long standing bigamy laws that vary from state to state–unless the Supreme Court decides they can make those laws go “poof”. .

    http://definitions.uslegal.com/b/bigamy/

    elissa (a14152)

  12. Marriage is a cry to the universe that you don’t want to be alone. So make sure you always have a spare wife.

    Great comment.

    SCOTUS will use that in their next opinion. 🙂

    Patricia (5fc097)

  13. The following is an example of an Alabama statute dealing with bigamy:

    A person commits bigamy when he intentionally contracts or purports to contract a marriage with another person when he has a living spouse. A person who contracts a marriage outside this state, which would be bigamous if contracted in this state, commits bigamy by cohabiting in the state with the other party to such a marriage.
    A person does not commit an offense under this section if:
    He reasonably believes that his previous marriage is void or was dissolved by death, divorce or annulment; or
    He and the prior spouse have been living apart for five consecutive years next prior to the subsequent marriage, during which time the prior spouse was not known by him to be alive.
    The burden of injecting the issues under this subsection is on the defendant, but this does not shift the burden of proof.
    Bigamy is a Class C felony.”

    elissa (a14152)

  14. I’m not surprised this happened, it was inevitable, but I thought maybe a married couple who are first cousins, and live in a state that currently doesn’t recognise their marriage, would be the first to file a challenge. I suppose the reason that happened is that there are only a few states that don’t recognise such marriages even when transacted in another state, and it may take time to find couples living there “in sin”, so to speak, and who are interested in regularising their marriages.

    Remember, in almost all the world, including about half of the USA, cousin marriage is legal and is considered perfectly normal. I must know at least 15-20 couples who are first cousins. Some of them live in states where they couldn’t legally have got married. But I don’t know any who live in states where their marriages are not recognised, even after the fact. So finding some plaintiffs for the case may be some work.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  15. elissa- are you raising the bigamy law issue as a legal technicality for them to deal with,
    or as a substantive argument as to why polygamy is not in the near future?

    In one way it doesn’t make any difference. They already blew the definition of marriage that was used by 95% of the world and over 95%+ of recorded human history out of the water. Whatever they do next is anyone’s guess, it sure doesn’t have to do with a logical argument based on definite presuppositions.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  16. Have they had any trouble finding a wedding cake?

    AZ Bob (7d2a2c)

  17. The two women should have gone instead. They probably would have breezed right through!

    Steven Den Beste (99cfa1)

  18. But, but, but … LOVE WINS!!! Right????

    Janetoo (0c6e40)

  19. @15 Both. Not in near future, md., hopefully never. The state laws on bigamy will be fought to be upheld by the states for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with religion or “freedom to love”. I’m not saying a few cases will not be tried by hopeful bigamists. But I do not believe there is, or will ever be, a nationwide clamor to legalize bigamy. Very few humans want to share their spouses including the affections, legal rights, and protections of their spouses with another extra human.

    elissa (a14152)

  20. It seems to me the courts seem to be happy to make things go “poof”, or “abracadabra” and make something new appear to take the place of the old.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  21. Very few people want to marry a person of the same sex, actually.

    Do you see a logical argument, independent of public sentiment, as to why polygamy should not be allowed? If so, please offer it or refer to it elsewhere, if you have the opportunity.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  22. Gonna marry my parrot if Pollygamy is legal…oh, wait, what?

    Gazzer (be559b)

  23. they already have them in arizona city except for buck mormon warren jeeps he is in jail.

    motown (74b418)

  24. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA……….

    sorry, it’s either laugh or cry at what this once great country has become in my lifetime.

    redc1c4 (a6e73d)

  25. md- yes. and I just listed them in 11, 13, and 15. There are only so many worry beads that can be managed at one time. There are many more apparently imminent “changey” things which I worry about and that are much more important to me than the threat of mass polygamy. Like –the DOJ saying little boys who think they are transgender little girls must be allowed to use the girls’ bathroom at school. I have zero interest in discussing polygamy with you. But don’t let that discourage you from pursuing it with others, especially lawyers, if that’s one of your hot buttons.

    elissa (a14152)

  26. Time to start testmarketing hashtags. I myself really like #love>2 (love is greater than two) because it has a slight mathematical bent, but I can go with #free2B3 (free to be three) or #ittakes3 (a play on the old Mowtown song “It Takes Two”) or even a nod to the old Schoolhouse Rock cartoons #3IsaMagicNumber (yes it is, yes it is). And we should already start accusing those who want to keep marriage to the — cough, cough — traditional two people of being “haters” and “bigots.”

    And we’ve got something else coming up in the works that will really be a game-changer you homophobes and duoaphobes.

    #love>2

    JVW (8278a3)

  27. It will never happen because that’s, like, icky. — The Left.

    John Hitchcock (8a91e5)

  28. Like –the DOJ saying little boys who think they are transgender little girls must be allowed to use the girls’ bathroom at school.

    I agree. And I’m not at all worried about mass polygamy, no more than I am worried about mass (or one) SSM’s, that’s not my point.

    My point is that it is all part of the same thing, the abolition of sexual standards. Once the only clear wall was destroyed, there is no reason to build a speed bump anywhere else, except the whim of political expediency.
    There were thousands of years of history and billions of people precedent for what marriage is, and in the end it didn’t matter. Polygamy, even if it is really multiple marriages between one person and multiple others, has much more sociological credence in the history of mankind. To outlaw polygamy, from a history of the world point of view, and current state of the world point of view is a much stranger thing than allowing SSM.

    I’m very surprised you brought the concept of “mass” as in numbers into the discussion. It has never been about my little family being overwhelmed by some mass stamped of SS couples, it has always been about the ability for an individual to have legitimacy for their sexual morals in the public sphere. That’s gone now. Today I have no right recognized by law to voice my opinion of sexual morality at a school board meeting. If you lived in MA or CA or parts of CO and VA you’ve already lost having a say about little boys sharing the bathroom with little girls, or big boys sharing showers with big girls after field hockey practice.

    You/we already lost the battle. The only question is whether Appomattox is on the horizon.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  29. Since the goal is to destroy Christianity and Morality, the left will happily work together with the ultimate moral authority of Islam to git ‘er done.

    I predict poly-marriages inside of 4 years.

    luagha (e5bf64)

  30. I’ll hedge that: In at least some states of the US.

    luagha (e5bf64)

  31. That’s been my point all along. The underlying issue has always been the legal/governmental endorsement of homosexuality and SSM. It is no longer an issue of personal morality when it comes to public dialogue, it is a settled issue. To say one disagrees with the proposition that homosexuality and heterosexuality now is as defensible in public as calling someone a n-word. In some locations to say a transgender 8 yo needs therapy not encouragement is legally treated with the same contempt.

    Who is anyone to judge anything? Does an “alternative lifestyle” need to be protected if it is 5% of the population? 2%? 0.05%?

    The only standard is that one isn’t allowed standards.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  32. disagrees with the proposition that homosexuality and heterosexuality are equal now

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  33. For the record, I wouldn’t put it past someone to do this as a prank of some sort, but it seems there is a history for these 3.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  34. MD,

    “The only standard is that one isn’t allowed standards.”

    Well, if marriage was at least as hard to get out of as, say, a cellphone contract, THAT wouod,constitute a standard.

    And one I’d like to see. If Marriage isn’t a sacrament that the government has butted in on, then it is a contract, which it is the duty of the State to enforce.

    So: same sex, multiple spouses, whatever you want the only involves adult volunteers. But once you contract it, you live up to the contrct or everybody else grabs a limb and makes a wish.

    C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd)

  35. I feel sorry for SSM advocates who were sure this wouldn’t happen. They have been deceived by their own over-confident, oversized egos or by people who were happy to mislead them. It will be hard for them to admit they were wrong so I don’t expect many people to do that, unfortunately.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  36. Kudos to Dana for seeing this story so quickly and blogging about it.

    Ironically, Politico Magazine published an article on June 15 that said polygamy isn’t the next step. Today Politico.com is running an article that says it is. I don’t view this as hypocrisy to address both sides of the issue, but it’s more evidence of how quickly things can change.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  37. It’s hilarious to read SSM advocates object to plural marriage because it limits the number of people available to marry.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  38. Well, if they’d established SSM by statute, instead of declaring #LoveWins a Constitutional right, this wouldn’t have happened.

    But I have never yet met an advocate of SSM who doesn’t think polygamy should be legal. Including myself.

    The only reason to deny polygamy has been tactical. Once the Supreme Court got their minds right, now they’re coming out and saying, hey, maybe polygamy SHOULD be legal.

    Ann Althouse has been a recent offender–her commenters (including me) were saying this for years, and she didn’t think it was worth even looking into until Jonathon Rauch wrote about it and she said, oh, these are some good arguments that I never bothered to think about until now.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  39. That greasy ramp ahead that looks like it leads to a pit full of flames and demons
    dancing around?

    That’s not the slippery slope it looks like.

    No that’s just the law of the land, settled science and we’re powerless to change it.

    Oh and the way back? That’s closed. And stopping and refusing to continue forth?

    That’s against the law also.

    Now climb into the railroad car like a good slave and don’t give us any more trouble.

    jakee308 (c37f85)

  40. 35.I feel sorry for SSM advocates who were sure this wouldn’t happen. They have been deceived by their own over-confident, oversized egos or by people who were happy to mislead them.

    DRJ- I don’t feel sorry for anyone as I think it was obvious, and to those for whom it wasn’t there were plenty of us who said it was, and the logic for this progression was there all along and the arguments saying it wouldn’t happen were logically inadequate;

    that said, I do not blame everyone for being in on the deception, as in general the ability to think critically and logically is largely gone, except where people retain it in regard to some limited field of study.

    How many people really didn’t think it would happen and how many people were following Alinsky’s patron spirit Lucifer and willfully deceiving and involved in disinformation propaganda, I have no idea.
    After all, even “Uncle” Walter Cronkite, who hosted children’s history/news shows on Saturday morning was willfully deceiving the American public.

    I am on the border of lapsing into a state of political cynicism (again). Virtually nobody can be trusted to say what they mean and do what they say. There are a few who have not yet totally trashed their respectability, God’s strength be with them.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  41. DRJ (1dff03) — 7/1/2015 @ 3:06 pm

    Who knows, maybe it was purposefully trying to influence the public debate and the thinking of the SCOTUS. IDK.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  42. And now it begins… It’s on!

    “A technician has been killed by a robot at a Volkswagen plant near Kassel, Germany.

    A 21 year old external contractor was installing the robot together with a colleague when he was struck in the chest by the robot and pressed against a metal plate. He later died of his injuries, reports Chris Bryant, the FT’s Frankfurt correspondent.

    Prosecutors have opened an investigation into how the accident occurred.”

    http://www.ft.com/fastft/353721

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  43. happyfeet (God bless him) couldn’t be reached for comment.

    JVW (aa050c)

  44. Liberals are constantly misleading their followers, MD. I feel sorry for the true believers that will have to change their tunes, now that the goalposts will be moving again.

    DRJ (1dff03)

  45. From the Supreme Court majority opinion [with relevant substitutions]:

    The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition, but rights come not from ancient sources alone. They rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era. Many who deem same-sex [multi-partner] marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.
    But when that sincere, personal opposition becomes enacted law and public policy, the necessary consequence is to put the imprimatur of the State itself on an exclusion that soon demeans or stigmatizes those whose own liberty is then denied. Under the Constitution, same-sex [multi-partner] couples [groups] seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples [dual partners], and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right.

    The right of same-sex couples [multiple partners] to marry that is part of the liberty promised by the Fourteenth Amendment is derived, too, from that Amendment’s guarantee of the equal protection of the laws…

    The logic (such as it is) holds. If the deciding issues are “disparagement [of] their choices” and “diminish[ing] their personhood”, welcome to Polygamy City.

    navyvet (c33501)

  46. This
    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/07/the-road-ahead-for-believers-not-so-gay.php

    Choose who you follow, depend upon, worship.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  47. “Embraceable Ewe”

    Embrace me, my sweet embraceable ewe
    Embrace me, you irreplaceable ewe

    Just one look at ewe
    My heart grew tipsy in me
    Ewe and ewe alone
    Bring out the gypsy in me

    I love all the many charms about ewe
    Above all, I want these arms around ewe

    Dont be a naughty baby
    Come to papa, come to papa do
    My sweet embraceable ewe

    [brief interlude… use your imagination]

    I love all the many charms about ewe
    Above all, I want my arms around ewe

    So dont ewe be, a naughty baby
    Come to papa do
    My sweet embraceable ewe!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  48. Bans on polygamy should be harder to defend than bans on same-sex marriage. The ban on polygamy doesn’t even have all that history behind it. Most societies through most of history have allowed men to be in more than one marriage at a time; each marriage, however, had to be with one woman. So if they’ve now said states have to allow same-sex marriage I can’t imagine how they can defend states not allowing plural marriages, or cousin marriages. (Closer incest may still be defended, but I’m not sure how. But at least it’s a fairly universal ban, through almost all societies and at almost all times.)

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  49. For all those who inquired, an explanation of why a right to polygamy is not just like a right to SSM:

    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/polygamy-not-next-gay-marriage-119614.html#.VZR6_vlViko

    To summarize – polygamy, historically, has been misogynist.

    And changing marriage to include large groups of people raises practical problems (what’s the upper limit? Can the population of Tijuana marry some guy in Detroit? and how would that play out as regards divorce, probate and immigration?) that are not involved with keeping marriage to two people only.

    Northener (200450)

  50. Closer incest may still be defended, but I’m not sure how.

    In point of fact, since one of the tenets of the argument in favor of gay marriage was that procreation should no longer be considered essential to the marital union, I don’t see how the Court could deny a father and daughter who desire to marry providing they pledge not to conceive children.

    JVW (8278a3)

  51. It has never been about my little family being overwhelmed by some mass stamped of SS couples, it has always been about the ability for an individual to have legitimacy for their sexual morals in the public sphere.

    Well said, MD. They have simply conjured up a new taboo.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  52. Politico can’t make up its mind about polygamy:
    http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/gay-marriage-decision-polygamy-119469.html#.VZFYx1J1y6k%22%3E

    But it has made up its mind about Christians (nice to know this guy writes for Scientific American, too)
    And now, four decades after the APA determined that homosexuality is not a mental illness, many Christian preachers, writers and theologians still think nothing of tormenting the LGBT community by telling them that their desire to love another person of the same sex is an “abomination” (quoting the biblical book of Leviticus, chapter 20 verse 13) and a disease that can be “cured” through “treatment” known as reparative therapy. Religious extremists who have continued to press for such therapies (they are thankfully disappearing now) fail to understand that being gay is like being left-handed—it’s not something that requires an intervention.
    Many Christians actually believe they are being charitable by proclaiming that they “hate the sin, not the sinner,” which is not dissimilar to what Christians declared just before torching women as witches in order to save their souls, or when Christians called for pogroms against Jews for being Christ-killers.

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/gay-rights-and-the-moral-arc-119617_Page2.html#ixzz3egeNKY00

    So relieved and enlightened that we now “know” that being gay is like being left handed!!!
    (Beg the question, much?? because the APA and SCOTUS said so??)

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  53. A quote from the article I linked above:
    To be clear: our lack of legal recognition of group marriages is not the fault of the marriage equality movement. Rather, it’s that the tactics of that movement have made getting to serious discussions of legalized polygamy harder. I say that while recognizing the unprecedented and necessary success of those tactics. I understand the political pragmatism in wanting to hold the line—to not be perceived to be slipping down the slope. To advocate for polygamy during the marriage equality fight may have seemed to confirm the socially conservative narrative, that gay marriage augured a wholesale collapse in traditional values. But times have changed; while work remains to be done, the immediate danger to marriage equality has passed. In 2005, a denial of the right to group marriage stemming from political pragmatism made at least some sense. In 2015, after this ruling, it no longer does.
    Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/gay-marriage-decision-polygamy-119469.html#ixzz3eggsqLVs

    The author is described as “an academic”.

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b)

  54. elissa@19
    ” Very few humans want to share their spouses including the affections, legal rights, and protections of their spouses with another extra human.”

    Very few men want to share their life with another man. Very few women want to share their life with another woman. The best estimate of homosexual preference is 1%-3% of the population, and a large number (majority?) of male homosexuals are not interested in anything permanent. Those numbers didn’t kill SSM.

    I think you underestimate the number of people who would be open to a polyandrous relationship if it was socially acceptable, especially “traditional” MFFF… polygamy. There may well be the equivalent percentage (1%-3%) or more.

    bud (30d398)

  55. Back in 2005, Mark Henkel of the Christian polygamy group, TruthBearer.org, claimed that they were next (after SSM). They have been waiting their turn, so to speak. This is the next civil right according to polygamists.

    And, as Charles Krauthammer asked: “[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?”

    Dana (86e864)

  56. “[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?”

    Anthony Kennedy is too old for a menage a trois.

    nk (dbc370)

  57. 29. Since the goal is to destroy Christianity and Morality, the left will happily work together with the ultimate moral authority of Islam to git ‘er done.

    I predict poly-marriages inside of 4 years.

    luagha (e5bf64) — 7/1/2015 @ 2:01 pm

    Destroying Christianity and Morality are only intermediate goals. As is, at a later stage, to destroy the Constitution as a brake on government action.

    Really, the goal is to destroy the idea that there is any independent reality, only what the government creates.

    Marriage represents something natural that existed prior to government, and upon which government stands. And Leviathan can not allow this situation to continue. Marriage and family have to be destroyed and turned into creations of government, because if government is a creation of a society that depends upon marriage for stability that means there are limits to government.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  58. “You believe reality is something objective,” says O’Brien to Winston, but “reality …only in the mind of the Party…Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth.”

    Reality can not exist independently of ideology in this Obamanation of a country.

    On a more cheerful note a lot of you may not be aware of just how far down the road toward polygamy we’ve already gone. This is from 2013:

    http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/federal-judge-strikes-down-utah-law-against-polygamy-or-at-least-part-of-it/

    A Federal District Court Judge has struck down a Utah law against polygamy and “religious cohabitation” as unconstitutional in a case that is sure to add fuel to the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage, the proper role of the judiciary, and the proper role of government at any level in the private lives of free people:

    …George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, who has been representing the Browns in this case since the case was filed in the summer of 2011, broke the news of the decision on his own blog last night:

    …Finally, the fact that even where it is a crime adultery is never prosecuted while the threat remains that Utah residents who live as a Browns do and hold a religious belief that they are “married” in some sense will be prosecuted by the state because they have a religious belief that their relationship is a kind of marriage. As Judge Waddoups notes, correctly I would submit that would seem to be a direct violation of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the 14th Amendment and of the precedent established by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas when it stated the following (emphasis mine):

    To say that the issue in Bowers was simply the right to engage in certain sexual conduct demeans the claim the individual put forward, just as it would demean a married couple were it to be said marriage is simply about the right to have sexual intercourse. The laws involved in Bowers and here are, to be sure, statutes that purport to do no more than prohibit a particular sexual act. Their penalties and purposes, though, have more far-reaching consequences, touching upon the most private human conduct, sexual behavior, and in the most private of places, the home. The statutes do seek to control a personal relationship that, whether or not entitled to formal recognition in the law, is within the liberty of persons to choose without being punished as criminals.

    This, as a general rule, should counsel against attempts by the State, or a court, to define the meaning of the relationship or to set its boundaries absent injury to a person or abuse of an institution the law protects. It suffices for us to acknowledge that adults may choose to enter upon this relationship in the confines of their homes and their own private lives and still retain their dignity as free persons. When sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring. The liberty protected by the Constitution allows homosexual persons the right to make this choice.

    (….)

    The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter. The case does involve two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government. “It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.” Casey, supra, at 847. The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual.

    This logic would seem to me to be as equally applicable to the Browns as it was to Mr. Lawrence in the Texas case. If they wish to live together in the manner that they do, and as long as the relationship is completely consensual than it strikes me that it really isn’t any business of government at any level. These are all adults that we’re dealing with here, and based on the record there doesn’t seem to be anything about their relationship that has been harmful or abusive either to the adults involved or to the seventeen children that have resulted from the relationship. None of us are any obligation to morally approve of the relationship, of course, but moral disapproval in and of itself should not be a sufficient basis to make something a crime or to forbid it from happening. The Browns are choosing to live together in this manner, it appears to work out just fine for them, and there doesn’t seem to be any rational reason why how they chose to live should be considered a crime.

    Does this mean that the Browns should be permitted to take the next step and established a legal polygamous marriage that would be entitled to the same legal benefits that two-person marriage is throughout the United States? That is, admittedly, a more difficult question. Recognizing a marriage legally ends up creating a whole host of rights and obligations under state and Federal law that may not translate well to multiple person marriage. That, however, is a practical observation rather than a principled one.

    Having agreed that #LoveWins when imposing SSM the court can have no principled objection to polyamorous marriages. Yes, they pose difficulties in terms of divorce laws and inheritance but it isn’t as if other countries that allow this sort of marital arrangement have found those impossibly difficult to deal with. Neither should the liberal wing of the court that has just decreed SSM a constitutional right, given their eagerness to also cite foreign laws.

    Any judiciary that can invent SSM out of the equal protection clause can do anything. So get to work, SCOTUS, chop chop!

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  59. To summarize – polygamy, historically, has been misogynist.

    So? What’s wrong with misogyny? Surely the government has to treat all viewpoints equally; racism, homophobia, misogyny, they’re all just as good as anti-racism, homophilia, and feminism. If the government is allowed to pick and choose among these views, then why can’t it choose homophobia, and ban sodomy, let alone same-sex marriage? So why should polygamy’s misogynist history mean it’s not a fundamental right, just like gay marriage?

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  60. Many Christians actually believe they are being charitable by proclaiming that they “hate the sin, not the sinner,” which is not dissimilar to what Christians declared just before torching women as witches in order to save their souls, or when Christians called for pogroms against Jews for being Christ-killers.

    Um, it’s very dissimilar. No Christian ever declared anything even remotely similar to that, in those situations.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  61. Polyandry, one woman several “husbands”, is misogynistic and it’s practiced in societies, like Tibet, with a high rate of female infanticide. I fail to see how wanting a bunch of women around the house (polygamy) stems from hatred of women.

    nk (dbc370)

  62. I think the thing that I enjoy the most so far is the SSM supporters sounding precisely like SSM opponents now.

    They’ve gone from “How dare you try to limit the definition of marriage!” to “Of course marriage is only between two people.”

    or

    “The marriage laws will have to be changed to accommodate Our Love! It’s not that hard.” to “Our system just isn’t set up to accommodate 3 or more people.” (Love apparently can’t win over administrative convenience.)

    or

    “No, we don’t just want to enter into a civil contract with the person we love.” to “They can just enter into a contract with that third person.” #LoveIsBenefits

    Of course not enough people are going to want to engage in plural marriage, even though only a tiny fraction of the population wants to enter into SSM. Nevermind the fact that the world’s fastest growing religion is pretty cozy with the idea. And of course if you had asked even members of the gay community if there would be SSM, they’d have laughed you off. “Nobody wants that, it’s just an anachronistic institution for breeders.”

    Burn the Witch (4f59cf)

  63. Next up…..

    Incestuous marriages for insurance coverage (Can’t say I’ll feel sorry for all the Lefty big businesses cheering on SSM)

    Incestuous marriages for pervs…… Who knew Woody Allen was a forward leaning progressive thought leader?

    Age busting marriages for the man/boy pervs …. (ain’t got a snide comment for this sickness)

    And the Left say they are the “deep and nuanced” thinkers…..Most wouldn’t know what comes next after 1,2,3…

    doesky2 (753cb8)

  64. I really enjoy being right! Any one who didn’t see this one coming had better get their head out before they smother.

    Bar Sinister (b48c12)

  65. When life hands you lemans ….

    lem·an
    ˈlemən/
    nounarchaic
    noun: leman; plural noun: lemans

    a lover or sweetheart.
    an illicit lover, especially a mistress.

    nk (dbc370)

  66. 6. …This is a no-win. I don’t see any logic in the court ruling no to this, so they rule yes or they rule no and make up something out of thin air.
    Can any one think of a good logical argument as to why the definition of marriage can be changed one way but not another, other than the whim of court?

    MD (Back) in Philly (f9371b) — 7/1/2015 @ 11:58 am

    No. Other than “because we say so” their is no logical argument to restrict marriage to only two people. In order to extend marriage to same sex couples Kennedy and liberal wing of the court had to destroy the decision in Washington v. Glucksberg (1997). That would have prevented SSM, because it provided a test for courts wishing to invent new unenumerated rights. The courts had to determine, based upon a “careful description” of that unenumerated right, if it was deeply rooted in the history and tradition of the United States.

    A careful description of what is included in the right to marry is that has always been between a man and a woman. It has never, in our entire history, been anything else. So Kennedy in his opinion simply said the Glucksberg standard no longer applies. Because that would allow history and tradition to control what he can proclaim to be a fundamental right.

    Ain’t no way Kennedy is going to allow that to happen.

    7. Well, maybe slightly surprised; I wouldn’t have guessed Montana first.

    The totally unsurprised Dana (f6a568) — 7/1/2015 @ 11:59 am

    It won’t be Montana first. There’s a case from Utah that may get their first, if the district court judge’s decision is still being contested. A US district court judge, Judge Clark Waddoups, declared a Utah statute partially unconstitutional. Utah because of its unique situation banned not only polygamy but also unofficial polygamous relationships. Apparently it’s common in Utah for Mormons to practice “spiritual marriages.” So a man may only be legally married to one woman but “spiritually” married to many.

    I’m not going to provide a link because I can’t. I search on Utah, Brown v. Buhman, and Waddoups and it took me to a pdf file so I don’t know the link. But there’s no reason anybody else can’t do the same.

    The interesting thing is anticipates exactly this SSM decision. Because it relied of course on the Lawrence and Windsor decisions. And the conclusion is simple; the state can not interfere in anyone’s private sex life. It also parallels those decisions in another way. Just as Kennedy excoriated critics of SSM as irrational bigots in the Windsor decision, so does Waddoups in his decision.

    …The court notes that 133 years after Reynolds, non-Mormon counsel for Plaintiffs have vigorously advanced arguments in favor of the right of religious polygamists to practice polygamy (through private “spiritual” marriages not licensed or otherwise sanctioned by the state, a relationship to which the court will refer as “religious cohabitation”) that would have perhaps delighted Mormon Apostles and polygamy apologists throughout the period from 1852 to approximately 1904. To state the obvious, the intervening years have witnessed a significant strengthening of numerous provisions of the Bill of Rights, and a practical and morally defensible identification of “penumbral” rights “of privacy and repose” emanating from those key provisions of the Bill of Rights, 9 as the Supreme Court has over decades assumed a general posture that is less inclined to allow majoritarian coercion of unpopular or disliked minority groups, especially when blatant racism (as expressed through Orientalism10/imperialism11), religious prejudice, or some other constitutionally suspect motivation, can be discovered behind such legislation.

    It is worth noting the entrenched nature of an orientalist mindset among ruling elites during the time period when Reynolds was decided, an attitude that surely reached Congress and the United States Supreme Court as well, as discussed below. 12 Professor Edward Said situated British, French, and American views of Middle Eastern, African, and Asian cultures and society (collectively, the “Orient”) in their cultural and imperial contexts, arguing that an ideology of the racial inferiority of the latter peoples emerges in the resulting “Orientalism” of the West, which, though idealizing the “Orient” in the arts as both exotic and romantic, see Said, supra note 10, at 98-99, also simultaneously denigrates it as socially and racially inferior, id. at 14-15, 92-110.13 Said posited that “so far as the West was concerned during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an assumption had been made that the Orient and everything in it was, if not patently inferior to, then in need of corrective study by the West.” Id. at 40-41. Indeed, “[t]he Orient was viewed as if framed by the classroom, the criminal court, the prison, the illustrated manual. Orientalism, then, is knowledge of the Orient that places things Oriental in class, court, prison, or manual for scrutiny, study, judgment, discipline, or governing.” Id. at 41.14 Thus, Said located “the essence of Orientalism” in “the ineradicable distinction between Western superiority and Oriental inferiority.” Id. at 42.

    …For the Reynolds Court, the comparison with non-European peoples and their practices is precisely what made the Mormons’ practice of polygamy problematic.

    So there you go. Just like with SSM, if you oppose multiple marriages you’re a bigot.

    And bigamy laws, like sodomy laws, are just expressions of mindless hatred.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  67. The reason I think you and others need to calm down Steve57, is that there is a yuge difference between the few underfunded and unappreciated outlier multi-partner pioneers looking for attention who want to force/legitimize polygamy– and the powerful, political, massively funded media and Hollywood driven gay mafia who sucessfully championed gay rights. The word “marriage” may at the forefront of both “causes” but otherwise they could not be more different or come from a more different place. And you can call it hypocritical and illogical all you want, but the gay community and their equality supporters are highly offended by the idea of “fringe group” polygamists horning in on their normalcy parade –and they are being quite huffy and vocal about it. They’re certainly not going to push for polygamy. I don’t see an up-swell of regular Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, or Greens rushing to contribute money for polygamy advocacy, or their candidates vying to run on a Polygamy equality policy, either. So, who exactly do you foresee the champions of polygamy to be?

    Do you see any, any indication that a political juggernaut or media narrative is coalescing around polygamy? The states have significant laws and protections on the books against bigamy/polygamy. Neither the states or the Supreme Court are going to be convinced to delve into polygamy without incredible public pressure to do so–and I can’t envision that pressure is ever going to be there like it was bought and paid for by the gay community.
    Here’s Salon:
    http://www.salon.com/2015/07/02/no_sister_wives_family_polygamy_is_not_the_new_marriage_equality_fight/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

    elissa (b17622)

  68. 67. And you can call it hypocritical and illogical all you want, but the gay community and their equality supporters are highly offended by the idea of “fringe group” polygamists horning in on their normalcy parade –and they are being quite huffy and vocal about it. They’re certainly not going to push for polygamy.

    Like Kennedy’s assurances about Lawrence not leading to gay marriage, that is just a lie.

    How could you be so heartless, elissa, to deny bisexual couples the right to marry who they love?

    If two bi women fall in love and marry, why do you want them to live a lie if they meet a man they want to take into their loving embrace?

    Why do you hate bisexuals, elissa?

    Do you see any, any indication that a political juggernaut or media narrative is coalescing around polygamy?

    elissa (b17622) — 7/2/2015 @ 6:44 pm

    Did you see any political juggernaut or media narrative coalescing around SSM 15 years ago?

    No, back then the SSM advocates had to deny they were aiming for anything more than civil unions, and only right wing loons like Scalia were predicting gay marriage.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  69. http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/married-lesbian-throuple-doll-kitten-and-brynn-young-from-massachusetts-are-having-a-baby/story-fnet09y4-1226894843171

    Why do you hate Doll, Kitten, and Brynn, elissa?

    They deserve to be happy, and the government shouldn’t stand in their way.

    According to SSM advocates.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  70. 67. …And you can call it hypocritical and illogical all you want, but the gay community and their equality supporters are highly offended by the idea of “fringe group” polygamists horning in on their normalcy parade…

    elissa (b17622) — 7/2/2015 @ 6:44 pm

    Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to offend the SSM traditionalists who are shocked by people wanting to redefine marriage in ways that run counter to thousands of years of orthodox beliefs about the sanctity of marriage.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  71. Steve57 (4c9797) — 7/2/2015 @ 5:25 pm

    Any invocation of Said should be automatically suspect.

    kishnevi (93670d)

  72. kishnevi @71, normally you’d be right. But we are living in a really stupid period of time.

    And I denounce myself for implying that anything is normal.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  73. elissa- you have good points about the political feasibility of polygamy at the present,
    but in one way, that was part of my “no win” statement. The only reason to not protect polygamy is political expediency, not the rule of law based on laws and legal precedent.

    I think it can be argued that SSM is much more an attack on the Judeo-Christian basis of western culture and a more significant attack on natural philosophy as seen in the history of the world than polygamy. Polygamy at least recognizes the fundamental complementariness of male and female.

    I am actually not worried one bit about whether polygamy is legalized and whether there are 100,000’s of polygamous marriages in the first 24 hours. My interest in the topic is only to the degree the handling of it reveals a fundamental dishonesty in the arguments for SSM.
    (I am not arguing that some legal recognition should not have been done if the country wanted that, I am objecting to the de facto change in the definition of marriage by legal pronouncement).

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  74. The Utah case just said that if there was no marriage license for the subsequent unions, it was not bigamy under the State’s bigamy statute. The opinion was a little incoherent because the judge had to twist the law like a pretzel to find federal jurisdiction.

    Seriously, Steve, do you think one man-several wives polygamy is as unnatural as male-male or female-female Obergefells? It’s nice that you’re standing up to anachronistic patriarchical practices, though.

    nk (dbc370)

  75. And, to reiterate, my argument long ago was that legalization of SSM as the equivalent of hetero forces a legal recognition of what was once a question of individual sexual morality, a legal definition of “normal” contrary to the convictions of many. If it is true that SSM advocates do not want equal treatment for polygamists, then again it clarifies the issue as not wanting equal treatment, but wanting legal affirmation of their choices.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  76. nk, I’m not sure Steve57 thinks polygamy is as “unnatural”, but is interested in the justification arguments for one and not the other, as I discussed above.
    But we’ll see what he says.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  77. MD @73, exactly.

    If we are reduced to arguing whether or not the polyamory movement has the same political clout, funding, media narrative support, etc., as the SSM movement had, then that is simply a roundabout way of admitting there is no rational basis for the SCOTUS to treat multiple marriage any differently than same sex marriage.

    With adequate pressure, the SCOTUS would treat polyamorous marriage the same way as SSM.

    So, we might not see the Kennedy et al decreeing that due to our inherit right to define the “sweet mystery of life” (to paraphrase Scalia) multiple marriages are not the law of the land this minute or next week, that’s only because the movement doesn’t have the political muscle at the present.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  78. They invent new memes out of whole cloth, and then we wonder could we have been more reasonable.

    narciso (2c05aa)

  79. that’s only because the movement doesn’t have the political muscle at the present.

    Not only that. It’s mainly because most men don’t have the wealth or leisure not to mention the stamina.

    nk (dbc370)

  80. Well yes there’s that too, but of cair starts pressing the point.

    narciso (2c05aa)

  81. 74. The Utah case just said that if there was no marriage license for the subsequent unions, it was not bigamy under the State’s bigamy statute. The opinion was a little incoherent because the judge had to twist the law like a pretzel to find federal jurisdiction.

    No, the court didn’t have to twist anything like a pretzel. The court ruled Utah’s bigamy law unconstitutional because it outlawed private, consensual sexual conduct. Similar to the Lawrence decision r.e. sodomy.

    The Utah bigamy law prohibited people from willingly living together as if they were married, presenting themselves as married, even though they weren’t all legally married to each other.

    The judge simply ruled that thanks to 100 years of the SCOTUS discovering all sorts of emanations from constitutional penumbras Utah couldn’t do that.

    Seriously, Steve, do you think one man-several wives polygamy is as unnatural as male-male or female-female Obergefells? It’s nice that you’re standing up to anachronistic patriarchical practices, though.

    nk (dbc370) — 7/2/2015 @ 7:35 pm

    I’ll take that as a compliment.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  82. Yeah, Steve57, I knew you’d miss the point. Hey, if you choose to think a majority of victorious ssm activists care about polygamists’ “rights” that’s OK with me. If you think there is any reason or benefit whatsoever for ssm advocates to stick their necks out and jump on the polygamy bandwagon en masse, please share what you think those benefits or advantages might be. If you think there are powerful multi-millionaire backers for polygamy like there were for ssm, please share who they are. If you think even one political party or the rank and file heterosexual American is primed to champion polygamy, have at it. I believe you would do yourself and others a nice favor to think this whole thing through carefully and rationally before you expend much more energy on it.

    MD in Philly, I appreciate your comments and think you get my point, as I do get yours. I would only remind in small response to your comment @73, that the not-insignificant laws on all the states’ books regarding bigamy pose a barrier to legalizing polygamy because they’re pretty different than any former existing laws (or lack of laws ) on the books that related to same sex marriage. So I think the likelihood of polygamy becoming lawful is nearly nil–both because of lack of political interest AND because the current rule of law regarding bigamy would be much harder to overturn with Kennedy-like smoosh.

    elissa (b17622)

  83. 79. that’s only because the movement doesn’t have the political muscle at the present.

    Not only that. It’s mainly because most men don’t have the wealth or leisure not to mention the stamina.

    nk (dbc370) — 7/2/2015 @ 7:50 pm

    How do you know until you trade in your 36 y.o. wife one two 18 year olds?

    Besides, that’s why I brought up the lesbian throuple. Which has nothing to do with men’s wealth, leisure, or stamina. I don’t understand why people think the case that will prompt the SCOTUS to declare multiple marriages the law of the land is going to necessarily look like something out of Lawrence of Arabia.

    It could, which is why I brought up the Utah case. On the other hand it might not. Which is why I brought up the Mass. lesbian threesome.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  84. The next wave of madness abetted by the knaves and fools of the bar and the academy, is impossible to completely project, although scalia’s been prescient till now.

    narciso (2c05aa)

  85. 82. …Hey, if you choose to think a majority of victorious ssm activists care about polygamists’ “rights” that’s OK with me. If you think there is any reason or benefit whatsoever for ssm advocates to stick their necks out and jump on the polygamy bandwagon en masse, please share what you think those benefits or advantages might be…

    elissa (b17622) — 7/2/2015 @ 8:01 pm

    You know me, elissa. I’m always happy to oblige.

    And the reason would be, tada! The heterosexual model of marriage is just too durned uptight and restrictive.

    http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/you-will-be-assimilated_969581.html?page=2

    …Remember when proponents of same-sex marriage mocked people who suggested that creating a right to same-sex “marriage” might weaken the institution of marriage itself: How could my gay marriage possibly affect your straight marriage? Those arguments have outlived their usefulness, too. Here’s gay activist Jay Michaelson last year in the Daily Beast:

    Moderates and liberals have argued that same-sex marriage is No Big Deal—it’s the Same Love, after all, and gays just want the same lives as everyone else. But further right and further left, things get a lot more interesting. What if gay marriage really will change the institution of marriage, shifting conceptions around monogamy and intimacy? . . .

    [T]here is some truth to the conservative claim that gay marriage is changing, not just expanding, marriage. According to a 2013 study, about half of gay marriages surveyed (admittedly, the study was conducted in San Francisco) were not strictly monogamous.

    …What would happen if gay non-monogamy—and I’ll include writer Dan Savage’s “monogamish” model, which involves extramarital sex once a year or so—actually starts to spread to straight people? Would open marriages, ’70s swinger parties, and perhaps even another era’s “arrangements” and “understandings” become more prevalent? Is non-monogamy one of the things same-sex marriage can teach straight ones, along with egalitarian chores and matching towel sets?

    …Slate’s Hanna Rosin agrees, suggesting that gay marriage won’t just change “normal” marriage, but will do so for the good:

    The dirty little secret about gay marriage: Most gay couples are not monogamous. We have come to accept lately, partly thanks to Liza Mundy’s excellent recent cover story in the Atlantic and partly because we desperately need something to make the drooping institution of heterosexual marriage seem vibrant again, that gay marriage has something to teach us, that gay couples provide a model for marriages that are more egalitarian and less burdened by the old gender roles that are weighing marriage down these days.

    …But if you had bothered to read the fine print, you would have seen it. Changing marriage beyond recognition has long been a stated goal of the organization Beyond Marriage, which is a collection of several hundred gay-rights lawyers, law professors, and activists. They argue that same-sex marriage is merely the first step on the path to redefining the family itself. Ultimately, they want legal protection for a host of other relationships, including, as they delicately put it, “Queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple, in two households” and “committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner.” This group is not a collection of cranks: It includes professors from Georgetown, Harvard, Emory, Columbia, and Yale. The Beyond Marriage project has at least as much elite support today as the entire same-sex marriage movement had in 1990…

    I highlighted the last sentence because, amusingly, the “Beyond Marriage” project actually was pretty well organized and well funded in the early ’90s. I don’t expect you to take my word, but in an article in The Nation published in 1993 and therefore not available online, SSM activists openly advocated for a “cosmological” change in marriage. I.E. it would no longer conform to the heterosexual monogamous norm, but the homosexual multiple partner norm.

    I won’t bore you with another rendition of how Masha Gesson talked about the SSM movement being a big lie to destroy marriage at the Sydney Writer’s Festival in 2010. But I will bore you with this.

    http://www.ruthblog.org/2014/06/25/masha-gessen-five-parents/

    I had Masha Gessen’s dream of five parents… and it sucked

    Around March of 2013 I came across the words of a prominent LGBT activist named Masha Gessen:

    I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage.

    She also would like to live in a legal system that is capable of giving those five parents of her three kids the legal protections of marriage, should against her wishes marriage continue to exist.

    You simply haven’t been paying attention, elissa. I’m not saying anything about multiple marriages that SSM advocates haven’t been saying for 25 years.

    But then, they count on the fact that people haven’t been paying attention. If I were them, and I had adopted their strategy of destroying or redefining marriage incrementally, I’d be lying about how offended I am at the thought of polygamy, too.

    Lying works. It’s worked for the SSM advocates for a quarter of a century. I take from your comment that it won’t stop working any time soon.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  86. there is a yuge difference between the few underfunded and unappreciated outlier multi-partner pioneers looking for attention who want to force/legitimize polygamy– and the powerful, political, massively funded media and Hollywood driven gay mafia who sucessfully championed gay rights

    Where did the “gay mafia” get their massive funding and organization? The sources are not interested in gay people or polygamists, they’re interested in destroying Western culture. They can make polyamorists the same juggernaut that they made gay people.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  87. I doan think David Geffen is interested in destroying western culture. I think David Geffin was interested in mainstreaming gay life including marriage. I doan think Elton John is interested in destroying western civilization. I think he’s interested in mainstreaming gay life including gay marriage. I doan think Ellen is interested in destroying weatern culture. I think Elen is interested in mainstreaming gay life including gay marriage. I could go on.

    Of course YMMV.

    elissa (b17622)

  88. If you think there are powerful multi-millionaire backers for polygamy like there were for ssm, please share who they are.

    The same ones who backed SSM. Why did they do that, since most of them are not gay?

    the not-insignificant laws on all the states’ books regarding bigamy pose a barrier to legalizing polygamy because they’re pretty different than any former existing laws (or lack of laws ) on the books that related to same sex marriage.

    In what way are they different? On the contrary, when the gay rights campaign started every state had laws not only restricting marriage to mixed-sex couples, but actually making sodomy a crime. Polygamists have less of a barrier to overcome, since there are no laws anywhere against their living together, and the laws against their marriages being recognized start out with a presumption of illegitimacy that judges will have to struggle to overcome. Eventually they’ll stop struggling.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  89. Gefen, John, and DeGeneres is not where the impetus came from. It’s not where most of the funding came from either. Nor did they come from Hormel. All of those came along later, and got on the bandwagon.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  90. elissa @87, of course not.

    A lot of people have been lied to. The thought leaders behind SSM wouldn’t have gotten anywhere had they told people up front what they were up to.

    The English major in me has trouble getting the words “least restrictive” to jibe with “federal mandate.”

    One of the finest books ever written about politics is The Once and Future King, in which young Arthur, not yet king, is transformed by Merlin into various kinds of animals in order to learn about different kinds of political arrangements: Hawks live under martial law, geese are freewheeling practitioners of spontaneous order, badgers are scholarly isolationists, and ants live under totalitarianism, with T. H. White famously rendering their one-sentence constitution: “Everything not forbidden is compulsory.”

    There is a great deal of political and moral real estate between those libertarian geese and totalitarian ants — at least there should be, in a healthy, liberal society. But we do not enjoy, at the political and legal levels, a healthy, liberal society. Rather, we are a society that goes from forbidden to compulsory in record time, and vice versa.

    Consider the case of the legal and social standing of homosexuals. Until just over a decade ago, homosexual intercourse was a crime in many jurisdictions. Then in 2003, the Supreme Court overturned the sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas, which was in my view a bad decision with a good outcome. That same year, California considered a civil-union law, which was the source of some controversy. Opponents argued that it was a step toward the much more serious issue of gay marriage, and Democrats rejected that as a red herring: “Nobody is talking about gay marriage,” said John Longville, a Democratic assemblyman, “except the people who are trying to wave it around as a straw-man issue.” Within five years, that straw man was flesh and blood. Along the way the conversation changed from whether states could legalize gay marriage to whether states could prohibit it, and from whether the federal government should recognize same-sex marriage to whether it could refuse to do so. The Democratic governor of Kentucky says that he desires the Supreme Court to “bring finality and certainty to this matter,” which, given his party affiliation, is a way of saying without saying that he wants a national legal mandate for gay marriage. And the matter already has progressed to the point at which we as a nation, having only recently legalized gay marriage, are debating the question of whether bakers and photographers should be locked in cages if they decline, for their own moral or religious reasons, to participate in gay weddings…

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374115/right-not-be-implicated-kevin-d-williamson

    You are free to believe that in 2003 “Nobody [was] talking about gay marriage…except the people who [were] trying to wave it around as a straw-man issue.” You are also free to believe SSM advocates are offended by thought of polyamorists piggybacking on the success of the SSM movement, that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance period, and Barack Obama will walk away from the table rather than get a bad nuke deal with Iran.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  91. Be careful in your long slow scary journey from SSM into Polygamy hell. Send a postcard with a brief message if you are able!

    elissa (b17622)

  92. I’m puzzled why various fans of SSM are, in turn, so bothered by and opposed to polygamy. Such contradictory emotions deserve scrutiny.

    I imagine a larger percentage of social traditionalists (ie, right-leaning types) wince a bit less — just a bit less — at the image of a guy with two or more wives versus the image of a guy with another guy, in the role of husband or boyfriend. By contrast, a larger percentage of social non-conformists (ie, left-leaning types) respond in the opposite direction.

    Non-monogamy among male heterosexuals (and homosexuals too) is a well-known, innate dynamic of guys. So most males in general are sexually interested in a variety of females, which is why the temptation to have multiple partners is a given. Quite simply, there are far more guys like that than there are guys who are socially, sexually into other guys. But the left, in its infinite wisdom, doesn’t want to accept that reality or pretends human nature won’t be warped by the formal recognition and approval of SSM.

    Liberals (certainly if they’re romantic-dreamy-eyed liberal women) love playing with fire (“no justice, no peace!”), but will lazily and hypocritically want others to clean up the ashes.

    Mark (a11af2)

  93. Fine. All you guys can claim that you’re going to be conscientious objectors in the polygamy revolution. I’ll just admit honestly that I’m 4F.

    nk (dbc370)

  94. 91. Be careful in your long slow scary journey from SSM into Polygamy hell. Send a postcard with a brief message if you are able!

    elissa (b17622) — 7/2/2015 @ 9:32 pm

    I’m always careful.

    By the way, can you give any objective rationale left that would prevent the court from declaring multiple marriage the law of the land?

    You haven’t so far.

    It may happen. It may not. But the only reason it may not is 5 of 9 judges find it “icky.”

    For now.

    Steve57 (4c9797)

  95. Milhouse (a04cc3) — 7/2/2015 @ 9:15 pm

    Where did the impetus and funding come from?

    Polygamy is not the cause most SSM advocates would interest themselves in. Too much identified with the bogey of Leftist social thought, patriarchy. And the most visible advocates are white Western states residents who come out of American Protestantism (culturally.. I realize most of them are Mormon offshoots). The Left will not go to bat for them.

    My uninformed opinion suggests the age of consent might be the next campaign focus.

    kishnevi (93670d)

  96. You are certainly passionate about the issues you care about, I’ll give you that, Steve57, even if the connectivity you attempt to draw between the issues and the conclusions you therefore reach are sometimes rather tenuous.

    ==By the way, can you give any objective rationale left that would prevent the court from declaring multiple marriage the law of the land? You haven’t so far.==

    “rationale that would prevent the court?” Oh, Steve57, even you should know that it is not up to me to disprove your theoretical negative! If that’s your tactic that’s quite probably the weakest of all courtroom or debate arguments to employ.

    Have a nice weekend.

    elissa (b17622)

  97. Polygamy is not the cause most SSM advocates would interest themselves in. Too much identified with the bogey of Leftist social thought, patriarchy.

    Polyamory is very popular in the same circles, though. That’s “modern” polygamy, not icky religious polygamy.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  98. In any case, the object is to destroy the culture, not to achieve the specific changes along the way.

    Milhouse (a04cc3)

  99. elissa @96, I wasn’t asking you to prove a negative. I went through the litany of precedents the court had to destroy to arrive at the SSM decision.

    I was curious if you knew of any that were left.

    Guess not.

    Steve57 (4c9797)


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