Polygamy Case Meant to Challenge Utah's Ban
None by KCPW
(KCPW News) Polygamists prosecuted for violating Utah's ban on the practice generally get convicted for other offenses, such as incest or rape of a minor. Attorney Brian Barnard says that's because the actual polygamy ban violates the First Amendment:"If the matter is presented purely as consenting mature adults who seek to practice polygamy in order to secure eternal salvation based upon their religious beliefs, I think the United States Supreme Court will strike down Utah's ban," says Barnard.
Barnard has decided to force the issue by bringing the case of a married couple and their intended bride to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. His clients were denied a marriage license in Salt Lake County on the grounds of Utah's polygamy ban. He hopes the case will result in Utah's statute being struck down. Furthermore, he says the wording in Utah's law prohibits a married person from living with someone to whom they are not married:
"The crime of polygamy can be committed unknowingly by people because if husband and wife are estranged and husband goes and moves in with his girlfriend, he is committing the crime of polygamy," says Barnard.
Written court briefs in Bronson vs. Swensen were submitted this week in Denver.
Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW
1. Common Guy said:
I thought the polygamy ban was nation wide not just Utah and that the federal government forced it many years ago to force the LDS church to conform in order for Utah to become a state. Do you have a clarification on this. I'm a little confused from the article and Barnards approach.
Question:
If Barnard were to win his case and get the supposed polygamy ban lifted does that give presidence to other types of marriage unions which have come up between two men or two women? Just a thought.
2. Doug Van Duker said:
Laws against a polyamorous lifestyle seem to become at issue within the general community of Utah only when the topic of recognition of polygyny by FLDS groups is discussed. Having sex with multiple partners or even illegitimate children doesn’t seem to raise much concern outside of the religious sector of our society.
In 2001, the Rev. Jesse Jackson admitted to having fathered children by his mistress of many years, Karin Stanford [subsequently former President Bill Clinton’s selection of the Rev. Jackson as his "spiritual advisor, " during the Monica affair. Under the circumstances, the selection seemed...sardonic]. No one has suggested censure of the good Reverend based upon his infidelity, and certainly no one has suggested that his relationship constituted bigamy. Is there a significant difference or moral hierarchy in non-traditional sexual relationships? If an individual has a long term sexual relationship with a partner, unbeknownst to the individual’s spouse, why is that less morally offensive than if the spouse is aware of it? Why does it become still more reprehensible if the spouse approves?
Other than the religious community, has anyone in the last 20 years objected to someone else’s lifestyle because the person is "sexually active;" gay, straight or bi-sexual (I think that’s PC speak for what used to be called “promiscuity”)?
Gay-marriage is founded in the Court's interpretation of a constitutional right to privacy. In recent years, the courts have consistently held that an individual's personal sexual preferences are a privacy issue. The ruling on Lawrence v. Texas was predicated upon this foundation.
The argument for the recognition of gay relationships, unions and marriages is that the state should have no say who individuals select as a "partner" to love...or just enjoy a little recreational sex with. It is logically ridiculous to then assert that somehow this argument holds an inherent exception against long-term heterosexual relationships or with multiple heterosexual partners.
The nation's courts have ceded the argument that what one does sexually, and with whom one does it, is strictly a matter of privacy and not the business or either the government or the community. The few exceptions appear to be statutory rape (and only sometimes), incest, bigamy, and of course...polygamy. If who one chooses as a sexual partner is not a state or societal interest, then how many partners one has should be of no greater interest, irrespect of the relationships being heterosexual or gay.
I present this argument, not in support of the polygamist life-style, but rather to note just how far astray our judicial system has been allowed to wander.