NY archbishop warns polygamy could follow gay marriage [CNAU]

[estesbob]

i don’t buy the slippery slope argument at all. The difference between homosexuality and polygamy is that one chooses to be a polygamist, no one has control over whether they are gay or not.

. But as with all of us they have total control of how they choose to act on their sexual attractions. . There simply is no argument used to justify so-called homosexual marriage that is not equally valid for justifying polygamous and same-sex incestuous marriages.

 

[qui_est_ce]

It’s already happening.

An attorney for cable television star Kody Brown and his four wives has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Utah bigamy law that makes their family structure illegal.

Washington-based attorney and law professor Jonathan Turley filed the lawsuit Wednesday afternoon in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court.

It seeks a judicial review of the state bigamy law, which makes it illegal for unmarried persons to cohabitate. The third-degree felony is punishable by five years in state prison.

Formerly of Lehi, the Brown family stars on the TLC program “Sister Wives.” The family left Utah in January because police had launched a bigamy investigation. No charges have been filed.

The Browns practice polygamy as part of their religious beliefs.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

The polygamous family featured on cable television’s “Sister Wives” plans to challenge the Utah bigamy law that makes their lifestyle illegal.

Attorney Jonathan Turley is expected to file the lawsuit in Salt Lake City’s U.S. District Court on Wednesday.

Turley represents Kody Brown and his four wives — Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn. Kody Brown is only legally married to Meri Brown.

Formerly, of Lehi, the Browns belong to the Apostolic United Bretheran church, which practices polygamy as part of its faith.

The Browns and their 16 kids moved to Nevada in January after Utah authorities launched a bigamy investigation. No charges were ever filed, but Tuesday, Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman said the investigation is ongoing.

Bigamy is a third-degree felony in Utah. Under the law, a person can be guilty of bigamy simply through cohabitation, not just by having multiple legal marriage licenses.

Turley said the lawsuit doesn’t aim to challenge Utah’s right to refuse to recognize plural marriage.

“All we’re saying is that the state cannot criminalize the private relations of consenting adults,” Turley told The Associated Press. “This lawsuit is less of a polygamy challenge than it is a privacy challenge.”

Turley said the Browns and other polygamous families in Utah and the U.S. should be able to enjoy the same privacy rights as other families.

“In our view, Utah’s law violates those rights, from due process to equal protection, from free exercise of religion and free speech,” he said.

Utah Attorney General spokesman Paul Murphy on Tuesday said the state is prepared to defend its bigamy law.

Utah has not prosecuted a polygamist for bigamy since 2003, when former Hildale police officer Rodney Holm was convicted of entering a religious marriage with a teenager when he was already married to her sister.

Holm, a member of the southern-Utah based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, argued that a ban on polygamy violated his constitutional right to practice his religion.

The Utah Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2006, although in a dissenting opinion, the state’s chief justice said the state unfairly applied the law to polygamists and “oversteps the lines protecting the free exercise of religion and the privacy of intimate, personal relationships between consenting adults.”

The U.S. Supreme Court also denied an appeal from Holm in 2007. The high court banned the practice of polygamy, even in the context of religion in 1879.

Polygamy in Utah and across the Intermountain West is a legacy of the early teachings of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons abandoned the practice of plural marriage in the 1890s as a condition of Utah’s statehood.

An estimated 38,000 self-described Mormon fundamentalists continue the practice, believing it brings exaltation in heaven. Most keep their way of life a secret out of fear of prosecution, although over the past 10 years an advocacy group made up mostly polygamous women has worked to educate the public and state agencies in Utah and Arizona about the culture.

“This is a good time for the lawsuit, we’ve tried to set that stage for this for 10 years,” said Anne Wilde, co-founder of the polygamy advocacy group Principle Voices. “We’ve really tried to help people understand that this not a criminal lifestyle among consenting adults.”

npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=137786593

 

[wisdomseeker]

Jul 11, '11 6:00 am
New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan has warned that allowing same-sex marriage in the state could lead to a further redefinition that accepts multiple partners and infidelity, Catholic News Agency reports.

More…

Little too late, is it not? God knows how evil can be influencial in the faitfull that is why God always demanded the evil be purged among us. This is the result of disobedience to the Word of God. We shall know them by their fruits. Understand this as you will.

I remember of the scandal last year of the Church of St Xavier.

 

[tlimon]

i don’t buy the slippery slope argument at all. The difference between homosexuality and polygamy is that one chooses to be a polygamist, no one has control over whether they are gay or not.

The American public as well as American jurisprudence has come to interpret the establishment clause in a strict separationist context. Thus, to borrow from Thomas Jefferson, there ought to be a strict separation between Church and state. For many, this has come to mean that any morals derived from a religous context cannot be a basis for law. We are coming unhinged from natural law so far as liberal humanism differs from natural law.

The ramifications of this ideology is that American jurisprudence has embraced de facto agnosticism. Reasons for laws can be found within the material universe but cannot be found in any faith tradition. Since private sexual freedom is a “fundamental right” (Lawrence v. Texas) and the marriage is also a “fundamental right” (Loving v. Virginia), the courts will likely take the material/genetic expersion of sexuality and conflate it with the “fundamental right” to marriage, refuse to acknowledge that polygamy is choice (like homosexual actions) and should be refrained from, and then grant people the constitutional right to polygamous marriage subject only to a “strict scrutiny” standard of review. Since faith or religion cannot inform the courts on their opinion, the courts will fall back on de facto agnosticism and be forced to accept the logical extension of common law development over the last several years. They will be shackled by precedent and agnosticism.

FYI, for sake of analysis, one can substitute gay marriage for polygamous marriage and the outcome will be the same. If the issue of whether a ban on gay marriage is constitutional ever makes its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, there is a 99% chance that it will be deemed unconstitutional. The vote will probably be 5-4 in favor of gay marriage with Alito, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas voting in favor the constitutionality of such a ban with Kennedy as the swing vote joining the majority.

 

[curlycool89]

Not at all. They can’t help that they are attracted to multiple people and can only really be happy marrying 2 or more others. They’re born that way, so we can’t discriminate. People want to cherry pick the “I’m born this way” argument, but it doesn’t make any sense.

What a pile of bull.

There’s a reason why multiple partners doesn’t work. You have 1 wife and you love her with all you are. You can’t do that with more than 1, it’s simply impossible to love them all the same. You’ll love one more than another or 1 in a different way than another. Both are not the full type of love that marriage demands, both are false.

Marriage is meant to be the full loving of another. You can’t have that if you have to share, it’s why you don’t.

 

[meltzerboy]

What a pile of bull.

There’s a reason why multiple partners doesn’t work. You have 1 wife and you love her with all you are. You can’t do that with more than 1, it’s simply impossible to love them all the same. You’ll love one more than another or 1 in a different way than another. Both are not the full type of love that marriage demands, both are false.

Marriage is meant to be the full loving of another. You can’t have that if you have to share, it’s why you don’t.

Do you mean the way parents cannot love all of their children equally and in the same way? Or can they?

 

[jamanne]

The reason multiple partners don’t work is in reality the old geezers demand the youngest of the women so they can get control of them.next thing you have very angry mothers jealous of the sister wives children , and many times control tales the shape of refusing education or freedom of friendships or religion.Traditional marriage has big problems with these issues can you just imagine allowing multiple partners in these scenarios.then what happens when inheritance and widows pensions and medical benfits all raise their heads ,who ends up paying the financial cost of these randy relationships??? and how many little kids end up abandoned when they don;t work out

 

[curlycool89]

Do you mean the way parents cannot love all of their children equally and in the same way? Or can they?

A parent loves children as a parent would. It is a very self-giving love, but it does not go to the same level (not the word I’m really looking for, so it’s a poor stand-in) as a husband for their wife or a wife for their husband.

Let’s just be frank here: the 500 lbs elephant in the room is sex. The marital act is the most self-giving thing you can do. It is completely giving yourself to another, not only being intimate but also completely vulnerable. You cannot give that to more than one person without lessoning it.

One of the 10 Commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery” for a reason.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

i don’t buy the slippery slope argument at all. The difference between homosexuality and polygamy is that one chooses to be a polygamist, no one has control over whether they are gay or not.

Depends - the jury is still out on whether it’s a disposition or a choice or both.

Also, people have stronger sexual desires than others. Maybe a single partner doesn’t cut it? By your logic, they are “born that way” and should have the same “rights.”

 

[music2]

Not at all. They can’t help that they are attracted to multiple people and can only really be happy marrying 2 or more others. They’re born that way, so we can’t discriminate. People want to cherry pick the “I’m born this way” argument, but it doesn’t make any sense.

Lol.We all can be attracted to many people but at the end of the day we still only choose to marry one person.
We dont say “heck why choose,i’ll just have both!”

 

[Nec5]

What a pile of bull.

There’s a reason why multiple partners doesn’t work. You have 1 wife and you love her with all you are. You can’t do that with more than 1, it’s simply impossible to love them all the same. You’ll love one more than another or 1 in a different way than another. Both are not the full type of love that marriage demands, both are false.

Marriage is meant to be the full loving of another. You can’t have that if you have to share, it’s why you don’t.

I’m just playing devil’s advocate for those pro-gay folks that magically craft a line in the sand forbidding polygamy. Who are you to say that someone can’t love 2 or more with all that they are? Traditionalists also argued that you can’t love someone of the same sex in that deep intimate way. They have sadly been defeated.

A lot of the folks here just say, “it’s not the same”. Neither was/is gay marriage.

 

[music2]

I’m just playing devil’s advocate for those pro-gay folks that magically craft a line in the sand forbidding polygamy. Who are you to say that someone can’t love 2 or more with all that they are? Traditionalists also argued that you can’t love someone of the same sex in that deep intimate way. They have sadly been defeated.

A lot of the folks here just say, “it’s not the same”. Neither was/is gay marriage.

I’m curious do any pro-gay marriage people not support polygamy marriages?
Or do they view this as ok too cause the choice is by adults with consent?

 

[qui_est_ce]

I’m curious do any pro-gay marriage people not support polygamy marriages?
Or do they view this as ok too cause the choice is by adults with consent?

I’ve seen it said that “marriage is between two consenting adults.” Multiple wives can’t really consent because they have been “culturally indoctrinated.”

I don’t understand how they feel it should stop at “two consenting adults.”

 

[qui_est_ce]

Let’s just be frank here: the 500 lbs elephant in the room is sex. The marital act is the most self-giving thing you can do. It is completely giving yourself to another, not only being intimate but also completely vulnerable. You cannot give that to more than one person without lessoning it.

Are you saying that sex between same sex couples is a “marital act?”

One of the 10 Commandments is “Thou shalt not commit adultery” for a reason.

The 10 Commandments have been fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus said marriage is between a man and a woman.

 

[nhylan]

I’m just playing devil’s advocate for those pro-gay folks that magically craft a line in the sand forbidding polygamy. Who are you to say that someone can’t love 2 or more with all that they are? Traditionalists also argued that you can’t love someone of the same sex in that deep intimate way. They have sadly been defeated.

A lot of the folks here just say, “it’s not the same”. Neither was/is gay marriage.

Traditionalists, as you call them, had a flawed understanding of homosexuality. Its not something you turn on and off, most research points towards the fact that you are born with it. Polygamists are indoctrinated, its a cultural thing, not biological.

 

[Warrior1979]

What a pile of bull.

There’s a reason why multiple partners doesn’t work. You have 1 wife and you love her with all you are. You can’t do that with more than 1, it’s simply impossible to love them all the same. You’ll love one more than another or 1 in a different way than another. Both are not the full type of love that marriage demands, both are false.

Marriage is meant to be the full loving of another. You can’t have that if you have to share, it’s why you don’t.

With the divorce rate what it is, it can be argued that marriages between one male and one female don’t work either. The “don’t work” argument isn’t going to fly in a court of law.

 

[vsedriver]

Traditionalists, as you call them, had a flawed understanding of homosexuality. Its not something you turn on and off, most research points towards the fact that you are born with it. Polygamists are indoctrinated, its a cultural thing, not biological.

How can you say it isn’t biological? There is nothing biologically driving humans to pair bond for life or to even pair bond at all. In fact I would say that it is biological to have multiple females (infidelity is evidence of this) and that it is cultural to pair bond for life.

 

[Ahimsa]

Polygamy could follow gay marriage? Historically, polygamy has existed for eons before same-sex marriage. The Torah says nothing about same-sex marriage, but it says a lot about polygamous marriages: Lamech and Jacob had two wives, and the Torah does not prohibit having more than one wife.

It would be ironic if polygamous marriages were to become legal during a Mormon presidency.

 

[nhylan]

How can you say it isn’t biological? There is nothing biologically driving humans to pair bond for life or to even pair bond at all. In fact I would say that it is biological to have multiple females (infidelity is evidence of this) and that it is cultural to pair bond for life.

Actually monogamy is biological. biologists have argued that monogamy helps protect the offspring of species that are particularly vulnerable. to bond for life is a culture/religious aspect of it. How long the bonding takes place doesn’t make a difference. Maybe polygamists bond for life??

 

[Warrior1979]

Actually monogamy is biological. biologists have argued that monogamy helps protect the offspring of species that are particularly vulnerable. to bond for life is a culture/religious aspect of it. How long the bonding takes place doesn’t make a difference. Maybe polygamists bond for life??

FWIW, what you describe is not limited to one male/one female. Various primitive cultures have small family units they may include a few males and females that have relations with each other, and offer similar, or greater, protection. An example that comes immediately to mind is the Zo’e tribe, though there are others.