Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Judge Cites Same-Sex Marriage in Declaring Polygamy Ban Unconstitutional
http://www.breitbart.com ^ | December 14, 2013 | Ken Klukowski

Posted on 12/14/2013 11:53:21 AM PST by NKP_Vet

In a game-changer for the legal fight over same-sex marriage that gives credence to opponents’ “slippery slope” arguments, a federal judge has now ruled that the legal reasoning for same-sex marriage means that laws against polygamy are likewise unconstitutional.

In his 91-page opinion in Brown v. Buhman, on Dec. 13, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups struck down Utah’s law making polygamy a crime. In so doing, he may have opened Pandora’s Box.

As a condition for becoming a state in 1896, Congress required Utah to outlaw polygamy, which is marriage between three or more persons. This case involved a family of fundamentalist offshoots of nineteenth-century Mormonism. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints disavowed polygamy in 1890, and again in 1904, but some splinter groups continue the practice.

Waddoups’ opinion would not only cover such groups, however, but also Muslims or anyone else who claims a right—religious or otherwise—to have multiple-person marriages. He notes that the Supreme Court ruled against polygamy in its 1896 case Reynolds v. U.S., but said he cannot simply rest upon that decision “without seriously addressing the much developed constitutional jurisprudence that now protects individuals from the criminal consequences intended by legislatures to apply to certain personal choices.”

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: culturewars; homosexualagenda; kodybrown; moralabsolutes; polygamy; rop; ruling; sharia; sodomandgomorrah
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-83 next last
So here is what we have here. This liberal activist judge could care less what the Supreme Court ruled in 1896, when it said Polygamy was illegal. So if this fruitcake can overrule the Supreme Court, it is only a matter of time before it goes back to the Supreme Court where Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts will side with the liberals and Polygamy will once again be not only legal in Utah, but it will also be the law of the land. Then it will be OK for some pervert that likes to sex with a dog to marry his dog. This is how backwards this country has became with the liberals that now control the US Supreme Court. If marriage is not legally defined as one man and one woman and nothing else, it means nothing anymore. Nothing at all. Sodomites have won, because the US Supreme Court is loaded with them. I am saying all this because if the case returns to the Supreme Court they will legalize Polygamy and every other type of degenerate activity you can think of.
1 posted on 12/14/2013 11:53:21 AM PST by NKP_Vet
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet
Fortunately for the men who were justices of the Supreme Court in 1896, they are all dead...or they could be prosecuted for a hate crime for outlawing polygamy. Who were they to judge? What difference does it make?

Next they will need to come up with a label to stigmatize anyone who objects to polygamy (along the lines of "homophobia" and other coinages).

2 posted on 12/14/2013 12:00:45 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet

Next up, marry your goat.


3 posted on 12/14/2013 12:03:06 PM PST by Navy Patriot (Join the Democrats, it's not Fascism when WE do it, and the Constitution and law mean what WE say.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet

Slippery slope?

More like a water slide to Hell.


4 posted on 12/14/2013 12:03:42 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet

” This liberal activist judge could care less what the Supreme Court ruled in 1896, when it said Polygamy was illegal”

A later SCOTUS ruled abortion is hunky dory. A previous one ruled that slavery was ok. SCOTUS is frequently wrong.


5 posted on 12/14/2013 12:04:44 PM PST by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet
Double the pleasure ?

Not bloody likely.

6 posted on 12/14/2013 12:05:23 PM PST by onona (The Earth is the insane asylum for the universe (yup, I belong))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Navy Patriot

7 posted on 12/14/2013 12:06:01 PM PST by BenLurkin (This is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire; or both.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet
Actually, this judge is on solid legal ground to overrule the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Federal government (including the U.S. Supreme Court) has no jurisdiction in state marriage laws. In 1896 it no jurisdiction, either. The Supreme Court ruling from 1896 was based on the legal argument that the U.S. law requiring Utah to outlaw polygamy as a condition of statehood was valid on constitutional grounds because Utah was a Federal territory (not a state) at the time the law was passed.

The Utah legislature could have passed a state marriage law allowing polygamy and told the U.S. Supreme Court to "#*%& off!" immediately after statehood had been granted, but they didn't. It took 117 years, but it looks like someone finally did.

8 posted on 12/14/2013 12:11:42 PM PST by Alberta's Child ("I've never seen such a conclave of minstrels in my life.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet
Dave Kopel's take on it isn't so hyerpbolic:

http://www.volokh.com/2013/12/14/brown-v-buhman-isnt-complicated/

Utah’s anti-bigamy ordinance has a normal provision, and an unusual provision: “A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.” Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-101(1) (2013).

Judge Waddoups upholds the first part, about marrying a second person, as a straightforward application of Reynolds. If X has a marriage license to A, then X can’t obtain a marriage license to B. If X tricks a county clerk into issuing him a marriage license for B, then X are guilty of bigamy. This is the same in Utah as everywhere else in the United States. Thus, the State of Utah has no obligation to treat X+A+B as all being married. The plaintiffs in Brown sought no legal recognition for plural marriage.

Rather, the case involved the unique part of the Utah statute, which defined “bigamy” to also include when X “cohabits with another person.” This criminalizes quite a lot of conduct which, these days, is pretty common. For example, X and A are civilly married. With A’s knowledge and consent, X spends some weekends at the home of his mistress, B, with whom he has sexual relations. Under the common law, this is the crime of adultery, and adultery is still a crime in some states. But as far as I know, no state other than Utah would describe such conduct as “bigamy.”

[...]

It is important to remember Brown v. Burnham in no way establishes a constitutional right to plural marriage. Nor does the Brown decision challenge ordinary state laws against adultery. Rather, the decision simply strikes down an unique state law which defined cohabitation as “bigamy.” Even then, the statute might have been upheld but for the government’s policy of reserving prosecutions solely for cohabitators who for religious reasons considered themselves to be married to each other under God’s laws, and who fully conceded that they were not married under the civil law of the state.


9 posted on 12/14/2013 12:12:48 PM PST by jdege
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet
In his 91-page opinion in Brown v. Buhman, on Dec. 13, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups struck down Utah’s law making polygamy a crime. In so doing, he may have opened Pandora’s Box.

I disagree with this assessment. The U.S. Supreme Court opened Pandora's Box. Judge Clark Waddoups simply removed the hinges on the lid. There's no point in even having a box after Pandora's fled the scene, right?

10 posted on 12/14/2013 12:14:18 PM PST by Alberta's Child ("I've never seen such a conclave of minstrels in my life.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet
Wow. I never saw that coming.

Oh, wait...

11 posted on 12/14/2013 12:17:59 PM PST by RichInOC (2013-14 Tiber Swim Team)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet

Sorry, but his reasoning is sound, and no justification for calling him a liberal.

This is exactly what conservatives have warned of all along. When you permit a behavior to have the same legal status as a biological characteristic, you have no philosophical basis for restricting ANY behavior, and you certainly have no basis for actually punishing a behavior


12 posted on 12/14/2013 12:18:21 PM PST by papertyger ("refusing to draw an inescapable conclusion does not qualify as a 'difference of opinion.'")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet
In a game-changer for the legal fight over same-sex marriage that gives credence to opponents’ “slippery slope” arguments, a federal judge has now ruled that the legal reasoning for same-sex marriage means that laws against polygamy are likewise unconstitutional.

You watch... Anyone want to take bets on how long before marriage to minors comes up? Bestiality? Necrophilia? Hey, if you're going to be "fair" and not discriminate against one demographic, you can't discriminate against another. A slippery slope indeed.

13 posted on 12/14/2013 12:18:23 PM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet; MeganC; GOPsterinMA
Sure, Why the Hell Not?

If Two Dudes can get "married" than why I can't I get hitched to the Victoria Secret Fashion line up?

We all should be Members of the NFL then it would almost be encouraged!

14 posted on 12/14/2013 12:20:57 PM PST by KC_Lion (Build the America you want to live in at your address, and keep looking up.-Sarah Palin)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet

Given the degeneracy of American manners and morals this decision was a “no brainer!”


15 posted on 12/14/2013 12:21:57 PM PST by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet

“If marriage is not legally defined as one man and one woman and nothing else, it means nothing anymore. Nothing at all.”

I reckon my faith is still going to look at it as a Sacrament no matter what the state says about it. Nothing the state does can devalue a Sacrament. That’s why certain faiths don’t accept remarriage after civil divorce or ‘gay marriage’ even though the state does.

Freegards


16 posted on 12/14/2013 12:22:12 PM PST by Ransomed
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ThunderSleeps
It didn't even take ten full years after gay "marriage" was brought to America by the Ma. Supreme Court for things to fall THIS far!

Marriage to minors, bestiality, necrophilia,incest.....it's not a question of "if"....just "when"!

17 posted on 12/14/2013 12:24:05 PM PST by massmike (If I like my tagline,I can keep it! Obama said so..........)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: ThunderSleeps

18 posted on 12/14/2013 12:26:33 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: BenLurkin

19 posted on 12/14/2013 12:29:28 PM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: NKP_Vet

And the punchline is conservatives are supporting this by getting state issued licenses to marry. Its not required for the religious ceremony, yet conservatives line up to get them anyway.


20 posted on 12/14/2013 12:29:39 PM PST by RKBA Democrat ( There is no worst president but owebama, and valerie jarrett is his prophet.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-83 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson