Tag Archives: Topic: Polygamy

Norbert Blum at WorldCrunch: In a society designed around individual liberty, has marriage become little more than a temporary link-up of working people choosing to spend some free time together? And the kids?

Christian Post: On Valentines’s Day, the Scientific American published an article claiming that polyamorists could “teach us a thing or two about love,” and the only reason to oppose it was bigotry because of outdated views about love and sexuality. (Rod Anderson comic)

The Rebel Yell: The Browns are like any average American family. If every family consisted of four wives and 17 children. The Browns are polygamists living in Las Vegas, trying to paint a modern picture of plural marriage. In an attempt to denounce the negative stereotypes of polygamy, from sexual abuse to forced marriage, the Browns have put their every move on camera.

HurriyetDailyNews: “If Atatürk did not establish this republic, would you occupy your position? What country’s citizen would you be? What number would you be among the wives of a sheik?” Genç told Şahin from his ranks April 25, Anatolia news agency reported.

LifeSiteNews: Just one week after the passage of gay ‘marriage’ legislation in New Zealand, it has been revealed that a group has been formed whose goal is to have group marriages recognised in law.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: As a lawyer in the same-sex marriage litigation at the Supreme Court who has spent a couple years working through all the implications of declaring a constitutional right to gay marriage, it became clear that such a declaration would also mean there is a right to polygamy.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: That’s the headline of a new article at Slate.

Ed Whelan at NRO: The only minor flaw that I see in the “slippery slope” argument is that polyamory may well be upslope of same-sex marriage. By contrast to the novelty of same-sex marriage, polyamory—or at least its polygamous version (one husband, more than one wife)—has a long history

Carson Halloway at Public Discourse: The oral arguments on Proposition 8 at the Supreme Court suggest that there is very good reason to believe that the declaration of a “right” to same-sex marriage will set us on the path to polygamy.

Noah Feldman at Bloomberg: To understand the mess that would result if the court struck down DOMA without finding a general right to same-sex marriage, consider what would happen if the federal government recognized marriages performed in states that allow gay couples to marry while continuing to deny marital status to couples in other states.

CNSNews: “Well, you’ve said — you’ve said in the cases decided by this court that the polygamy issue, multiple marriages raises questions about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy, issues with respect to taxes, inheritance, child custody, it is an entirely different thing,” Olson said. “And if you — if a state prohibits polygamy, it’s prohibiting conduct.

Robert P. George and Sherif Girgis and Ryan T. Anderson at CNN: But marriage is far more than your emotional bond with “your Number One person,” to quote same-sex marriage proponent John Corvino. Just as the act that makes marital love also makes new life, so marriage itself is a multilevel — bodily as well as emotional — union that would be fulfilled by procreation and family life. That is what justifies its distinctive norms — monogamy, exclusivity, permanence — and the concept of marital consummation by conjugal intercourse.

LifeSiteNews: Boris Dittrich, the homosexual activist called the “father” of the political movement in favor of Dutch gay “marriage”, has admitted that group marriages of three or more people, is the next, inevitable logical step in the dismantling of the western world’s traditional marriage laws.

Altmedia.net.au: With increasing attention brought to polyamorous relationships by members of of the Liberal Party, a formalised Polyamory Action Lobby (PAL) has been founded to combat the image of poly people as relationship bogeymen.

Doug Cook at MercatorNet: Australian activists for same-sex marriage have always insisted, that it will not lead to polygamy or polyamory. Never, ever, ever. Gay marriage is just like traditional marriage, except for the sex of the spouse. Activist Rodney Croome wrote last year that “studies show most LGBTI people want to be part of a two-person marriage, while partners in polyamorist relationships (most of which begin as heterosexual unions) say they don’t want their relationships recognised as marriages.” Former Greens leader Bob Brown described a push for polyamory as “nonsense”. | Hat tip: Ruth Institute

Mercury News: New introductions to the sections on eternal marriage and plural marriage emphasize monogamous marriage as the standard, says Valerie Hudson, a Mormon political science professor at Texas A&M University and co-author of “Sex and World Peace.” “In these new introductions, we see that ‘plural marriage’ (notice, not ‘plurality of wives’) is to be viewed as a principle and not as a commandment, and that the ‘standard’ of marriage is monogamy,” Hudson writes in an email.

OnIslam.net: An Indian court has ruled that polygamy is not encouraged by the Noble Qur’an, but only allowed under certain circumstances, saying the practice does not fit modern democracies, The Indian Express reported Tuesday, January 1.

Religion Clause Blog: According to yesterday’s Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s newly-elected attorney general, John Swallow says he will continue the policy of his predecessor Mark Shurtleff and will not bring criminal charges against consenting adults in plural marriages if they have not violated any law other than the state’s polygamy ban. It is estimated that 38,000 people live in polygamous communities in Utah

AP: Bigamy is a criminal offense in China, while rules restrict most couples to just one child.

ABC (AP): Texas wants to take ownership of Warren Jeffs’ polygamist ranch where the convicted sect leader and his followers sexually assaulted children, state prosecutors said Wednesday.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: It’s enough to make your head spin with the implications. What would a “divorce” look like? Can you divorce one partner but not others? What about child custody? For that matter, how many of the adults in the marriage have parental rights over the children? So we’re in a brave new world when it comes to the very definition of what we call a family. It will be interesting to see if all of these other proposed family units make Americans rethink whether we want to redefine the institution of marriage at all.

AP: Utah seized control of the community trust in 2005 amid allegations of mismanagement by church officials, including now-jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs.

LifeSiteNews: They used to call them “swingers.” Not anymore. These days, like most “alternative lifestyle” groups, they’ve adopted a new, more clinical-sounding description – polyamorist – and incorporated it into the names of a small but growing number of advocacy and social networking organizations.

AP: Prosecutors cited the need for judicial economy, noting that Jeffs is already serving a life prison sentence.

StCatherinesStandard.ca: Saudi millionaires who flout Canadian laws by arriving with multiple wives will be kicked out if immigration authorities find they lied about their polygamous relationships.

LifeSiteNews: As three states face ballot questions on whether to uphold the traditional definition of marriage between two members of the opposite sex, some in the national intelligentsia are looking forward to the next victory of the sexual revolution: polygamy.

John Witte, Jr. at Washington Post: Given these four factors, nature has strongly inclined rational human persons to develop enduring and exclusive sexual relationships, called marriages, as the best form and forum of sexual bonding and reproductive success. Faithful and healthy monogamous marriages are designed to provide for the sexual needs and desires of a husband and wife. They ensure that both fathers and mothers are certain that a baby born to them is theirs. They ensure that husband and wife will together care for, nurture, and educate their children until they mature. And they deter both spouses from destructive sexual behavior outside the home

Christian Institute: Canada, which has allowed same-sex marriage, is now embroiled in a row over a poster which promotes polygamy in schools. The poster declares: “Love has no gender” and shows a variety of relationships including an image of one man and two women, and two men and one woman. Toronto District School Board has tried to defend the poster, but has come under fire for being “blind” to its effect.

Eugene volokh reports on pending litigation in Utah at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Chicago Tribune: Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, whose wedding plans appeared to have been thwarted when a court ruled he was already wed to a former flame, pressed ahead with his marriage on Saturday under a custom that permits polygamy.

John G. Turner at the Huffington Post (8/27): Many of the women in Young’s life, such as Augusta Adams, Lydia Farnsworth and Zina Huntington, were equally bold. They made choices that severed old bonds, opened up new possibilities and perhaps inevitably brought them a measure of grief in the process. Given such audacity, Brigham Young’s life — and his marriages — necessarily produced a heady mixture of failure and success, but it was never dull.

Fox13Now: Jonathan Turley, the lawyer for Kody Brown and his wives Meri, Christine, Janelle and Robyn, reminded the court that unlike other polygamy cases that involved minor children in plural marriages — the Browns are all consenting adults.

allAfrica.com: Rokhaya*, a 23-year-old university graduate who earlier this year was forced to marry a 48-year-old rich man, agrees: “Polygamy is hell and a pack of lies.”

International Business Times: France’s most senior-ranking Catholic Church official, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, has warned that the legislation permitting same-sex marriage would lead to complete “breakdown in society,” suggesting it would lead to polygamy and possibly incest.a

Gatestone Institute: The same week that Republican convention delegates unanimously voted for a platform provision stating that judges should not consult foreign law or customs to guide them in interpreting American law, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled on the convoluted case of a bogus Muslim marriage which set the stage for a potentially bigamous Muslim marriage.

LifeSiteNews: A three-person civil union was accepted by a notary in Brazil who argued “what we considered a family before isn’t necessarily what we would consider a family today,” reports the BBC.

Al Arabiya: The head of a Tunisian Islamist organization called this week for his country to legalize polygamy as part of a post-revolution initiative to cancel all laws that contradict Islamic principles.

BBC: A notary in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo has sparked controversy by accepting a civil union between three people.

Nathan Cherry at the Engage Family Blog: The bottom line is simple, if the government redefines marriage once for one group, it will be forced to redefine it again for other groups or be accused of the same discrimination it now accuses traditional marriage supporters of harboring. There is no way around this concrete conclusion. So, the only way to avoid a spiral downward into moral decay that will ultimately bring our society down is to preserve the only true definition of marriage.

Michael Brown at Townhall: The lesson from all this is simple: If we don’t draw an absolute line in the sand and declare on a national level that marriage is the union of one man and one woman only, this sacred and most foundational human institution will soon become so malleable as to be totally unrecognizable. And so, we either do the right thing today or we face the radical consequences tomorrow. Which will it be?

Mike Hendricks at McCook Daily Gazette: You knew it was coming.
With gay marriages becoming legal in several states, it was just a matter of time before other people involved in non-traditional relationships wanted theirs legalized too and that is reflected in a story in the Aug. 6 edition of Time magazine titled, “I Do, I Do, I Do.”

Washington Examiner reports and embeds video.

Telegraph: Officials have admitted that polygamous households, of which there are an estimated 1,000 in Britain, could be handed more money under reforms to the welfare system.

Deseret News: A federal judge wants to know whether Utah County’s assertion that it would not prosecute the polygamous family featured in “Sister Wives” is a ruse to avoid a legal challenge of the state’s bigamy law.

OnIslam.net: The largest mosque in the Australian state of Victoria has sparked a controversy by calling on Muslim women to encourage husbands to take polygamous wives instead of divorce.

AP: Authorities in a pair of polygamous Utah-Arizona border towns have supported a campaign of intimidation against the unfaithful, denying them housing and municipal services and allowing members of the dominant religious sect to destroy their crops and property, the U.S. Justice Department said in a lawsuit.

NY Times: With her father sitting nearby, 16-year-old Jenan Merza struggled to explain why she was lying in bed recovering from a gunshot wound.

NPR (includes audio): When people debate gay marriage, some argue that it could lead to legalized polygamy. Host Michel Martin asks how, and if it would even matter. She speaks with Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund and Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution.

Christopher Kaczor at Public Discourse: Recent empirical research suggests that, in virtually every respect, polygamy is socially detrimental—to society in general, to men, to women, and to children.

Examiner.com: Winston Blackmore is no stranger to money disputes. The final decision in his latest dispute lies in the hands of a federal tax judge. Blackmore, the head of a polygamous group in Bountiful, B.C. claims to be eligible for the same tax exemption granted to the Hutterites.

Choudhury, Cyra Akila, Between Tradition and Progress: A Comparative Perspective on Polygamy in the United States and India (May 3, 2012). University of Colorado Law Review, Vol. 83, No. 4, 2012. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2050671

Is Polygamy Inherently Unequal?
Gregg Strauss
Ethics , Vol. 122, No. 3 (April 2012), pp. 516-544
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Article DOI: 10.1086/664754
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/664754

Pro-Polygamy.com: In early 2012, the second series of professional speeches was released for the National Polygamy Rights Movement for Consenting Adults, followed by an extra, special video on the third anniversary of a historic speech from 2009 presented at a political Public Hearing.

Daily Monitor: It is every child’s dream and wish to grow up in a family with two loving parents to care for them and to look up to. However, that has not been possible for many children, especially here in Africa where the tendency of polygamy is wide spread and many homes are composed of step mothers and fathers.

David J. Rusin at National Review: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum got jeered for comparing the legalization of same-sex marriage to that of polygamy, but, whether or not the comparison is rationally sound, thoughts of the former’s facilitating the latter bring a smile to many Islamists. If the definition of marriage can evolve in terms of gender, some Muslims ask, why not in terms of number?

David J. Rusin at Islamist Watch (also at National Review): Presidential candidate Rick Santorum got jeered for comparing the legalization of same-sex marriage to that of polygamy, but, whether or not the comparison is rationally sound, thoughts of the former’s facilitating the latter bring a smile to many Islamists. If the definition of marriage can evolve in terms of gender, some Muslims ask, why not in terms of number?

AllAfrica.com: A NEW bill on marriages will spell the end of polygamous marital arrangements, if it goes through as it now stands.

Washington Post: Although the candidates are noted for their innate caution, their family histories evoke a kind of exceptionalism that defines the United States — not in some gauzy and false way, but in the reality of a national fabric woven from exotic threads. Where to start? How about polygamy?

GLAD: In a case involving a man who married in Massachusetts without dissolving his Vermont civil union to a different man, GLAD will argue before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) that the marriage should be considered void.

AP: A West Texas jury has found a former lieutenant to polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs guilty of bigamy . . .

Vancouver.24hrs.ca: The B.C. government has given a special Crown prosecutor the power to lay possible polygamy charges in the RCMP’s ongoing investigation into the closed fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful, B.C.

Chicago Tribune: The former leader of a polygamist sect charged with marrying two women on the same day will go on trial in Texas on Wednesday, putting a spotlight on the rarely prosecuted crime of bigamy.

NHPR (includes audio): And today, communities of women are championing polyamory as an alternative lifestyle. Libby Copeland traces the pro-female history of polyamory for Slate.

Christian Institute: British Muslim men reportedly bring about 12,000 brides to Britain each year, leaving UK-born Muslim females struggling to find a husband.

Futurity.org: Published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the study says that by shifting male efforts from seeking wives to paternal investment, institutionalized monogamy increases long-term planning, economic productivity, financial savings, and child investment.

The Salt Lake Tribune: A bill advancing in the Arizona Legislature would abolish the police department in Colorado City, a northern Arizona community where state Attorney General Tom Horne says officers who are followers of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs flout the law.

The Austin Daily Herald: A Hollandale man has been charged with marrying a woman even though he is already married to another. Wayne Allen DeMay, 41, faces one felony count of bigamy in Freeborn County District Court.

Religion Clause: In Brown v. Herbert, (D UT, Feb. 3, 2012), a Utah federal district court held that members of an openly polygamous family (subjects of the television show Sister Wives) have standing to bring suit against the County Attorney to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s Anti-Bigamy Statute.

Slate Magazine: History suggests that it is. A new study out of the University of British Columbia documents how societies have systematically evolved away from polygamy because of the social problems it causes. The Canadian researchers are really talking about polygyny, which is the term for one man with multiple wives, and which is by far the most common expression of polygamy.

CBC News (includes video): A Montreal couple and their son were convicted Sunday of first-degree murder in the deaths of four family members in a case the judge called “despicable,” “heinous” and stemming from “a completely twisted concept of honour.”

The Christian Institute: A pagan woman who lives with her lover and his wife, but denies it is a polygamous arrangement, has won a ‘right to family life’ immigration case.

Telegraph: Ministers are to bring to an end an “absurd” benefits regime which has seen husbands with multiple wives able to claim extra welfare payments.

Religion Clause: Blackmore claims that Bountiful split from the U.S. based FLDS church in 2002 and that its residents make up a separate religious congregation so that income from businesses in the community should be spread for tax purposes over all the residents. Canadian tax officials, on the other hand, say that Blackmore is merely the patriarch of a large polygamous family

Religion Clause Blog: Now according to yesterday’s Globe and Mail, Vancouver lawyer Peter Wilson has been named new special prosecutor by the British Columbia Criminal Justice Branch to look into sexual offenses against minors in the FLDS town of Bountiful. However his mandate does not include looking into polygamy charges.

Winnipeg Free Press: The B.C. government has several options to take last month’s B.C. Supreme Court ruling upholding Canada’s ban on polygamy to a higher court to give it more weight, even though one appeal deadline expires on Friday.