Free Republic

When Malik Obama, President Obama’s half-brother, and Sarah Obama, the president’s step-grandmother raised money in the United States, they claimed it was for charity work in Kogelo, Kenya. It was later discovered that not only did the IRS illegally grant one of them (Malik) tax-deductible status retroactively, but in so doing, it supported an operation rife with polygamy and terror recruitment. The Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) and Mama Sarah Obama Foundation (MSOF), are two entities claiming to be non-profit charities yet solicit funds from the United States. The money they claim is to build homes for widows, orphans and...

The average German family struggles financially with large tax burdens and as a result have only 1.3 children per family due to high financial costs. One of the lowest rates in Europe Meanwhile Muslim immigrants have as many as 3-4 wives, perhaps 6-7 children from each wife, and all of this is funded by welfare as none of these wives work. 35 % of Muslims living in Germany have multiple wives, nearly all of them live comfortably on welfare funded by German taxpayers. This is not only in Germany too, nearly all of Europe has the same situation, including the...

Muslim men in Germany take advantage of the social welfare system by bringing two, three, four women from across the Muslim world and then marrying them in front of an imam. Although polygamous marriages are not officially recognized -- and are technically illegal and punishable by fines and imprisonment -- government agencies are reluctant to take action. Once in Germany, the women request social welfare benefits, including the cost of a separate home for themselves and their children, on the claim of being a "single parent with children." ... Rather than asking Muslims to take responsibility for their "image problem"...

During a law school debate on April 15, New York University professor of social and cultural analysis Judith Stacey argued against the nuclear family and monogamous relationships, and for decriminalizing polygamy. The debate, sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society and between Ms. Stacey and the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Ryan T. Anderson, was on “the defense of marriage.” Among Ms. Stacey’s wicked smart musings: “I say why should there be marriage at all;” “What should limit it to two and why should it be monogamous? Nothing in view gives the state that particular interest;” and “So I would agree that we...

Warren Jeffs must be banging his head against the walls of his prison cell these days. If he had only waited a few years before starting his Texas polygamy compound, he’d have ended up a civil rights trailblazer and Twitter-verse superstar, enduring nothing more than a little good-natured teasing from Jimmy Kimmel about his new show, “79 Wives and Counting.”Actually, that scenario’s not hard to imagine, given that the last vestiges of “repressive Christian morality” are being swept away by a tsunami of “progressive” dogma, its doctrines flowing from an absolute certainty that there are no absolutes — that all...

With the Supreme Court set to start hearing arguments on the constitutionality of bans on gay marriage next week, polls across the nation are showing that for the first time in history, more Americans support same-sex marriage than oppose it. The reasons for this dramatic shift in the American point of view are many. For starters, President Barack Obama flipped the script when he announced his support of gay marriage in an election year. A gutsy move and one that made it okay to be pro-gay. Since then, people have been coming out of the woodwork to support gay marriage,...

We are constantly reassured that recognizing gay marriage will not lead to the recognition of other unions, such as polygamous or incestuous ones. As a conservative who supports gay marriage, and has done so for quite some time, I bought into these reassurances in good faith. Now I am starting to wonder if I’ve been hoodwinked. Why? On April 15th, an article was posted on Slate. Had it not been for Rush Limbaugh finding and discussing the article on his radio show today, it would have likely gone unnoticed by many, posted only hours before the Boston bombing and lost...

Opponents of same-sex marriage resist it because it amounts to redefining marriage, but also because it will invite future redefinitions. If we embrace same-sex marriage, they argue, society will have surrendered any reasonable grounds on which to continue forbidding polygamy, for example. In truth, proponents of same-sex marriage have never offered a very good response to this concern. This problem was highlighted at the Supreme Court last month in oral argument over California’s Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman.

Here’s how same sex marriage will lead to a police state: First this article on Slate calls for the legalization of polygamy. The call for polygamy sort of springboards from the argument for same sex marriage. The piece argues from various viewpoints, but the underlying principle is the same: “Let us decide what marriage is.” Here is the defining last paragraph: The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage between two consenting adults is not inherently more or less “correct” than marriage among three (or four, or six) consenting...

The Muslim scripture, the Quran, is the only known world scripture to explicitly limit polygamy and place strict restrictions upon its practice: “… marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with them, then only one.” (Quran 4:3) The Quran limited the maximum number of wives to four. In the early days of Islam, those who had more than four wives at the time of embracing Islam were required to divorce the extra wives. Islam further reformed the institution of polygamy by requiring equal treatment...

Slate believes, “Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice.”

A columnist at Slate made waves on Tuesday after bucking the party line of same-sex “marriage” advocates by penning a column calling for “marriage equality” to extend to legalized polygamy. After opening her column by lamenting the “tired refrain” from social conservatives that same-sex “marriage” opens the door to recognizing multiple-partner unions, Jillian Keenan quickly shows that she has adopted their logic herself. Kody Brown and his four 'wives' from the TLC show Sister Wives “While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight...

Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy? We can only hope. Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end...

n a bizarre story involving Facebook “friends,” a Washington man has been charged with bigamy after the social media site revealed he had married two woman. CBS News reported April 16 that 41-year-old Alan L. O'Neill, a Washington state corrections officer, married a woman in 2001, separated from her eight years later, then changed his name and remarried another woman. The two wives revealed O’Neill’s deception when they looked into the fact they had both shown up as “friends” of their husband’s Facebook profile. "Wife No. 1 went to wife No. 2's page and saw a picture of her and...

Before America embarks on changing the concept of marriage, I hope they will at least agree on examining cultures that do not define marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman. In their eagerness to achieve their goals, the pro gay marriage enthusiasts are marching towards what they perceive as progress and modernity while ignoring lessons from other cultures, history, basic human nature and the horrific and negative unintended consequences of redefining "marriage". Islam's definition of marriage is one man and up to four women where loyalty in the marriage is required only from the woman towards the...

The son of former president Ronald Reagan warns in an op-ed published Tuesday that legalizing gay marriage will lead to “polygamy, bestiality and perhaps even murder.” Michael Reagan, a political consultant, made the claims as he calls on church leaders to stand up and fight against same-sex marriage. … Legalizing same-sex marriages, he writes, “inevitably will lead to teaching our public school kids that gay marriage is a perfectly fine alternative and no different from traditional marriage.” … Reagan slams the Republican Party, saying party leaders are too preoccupied with the next presidential election to be concerned about the moral...

Also, “it’s just bad faith to forbid the brother and sister on these putative health grounds” The words in the title and subtitle were spoken by one of the leading thinkers and advocates in favor of gay marriage, University of Chicago Professor Martha Nussbaum, in a speech she gave at Cornell Law School in 2009 (video and discussion below). I was reminded of those words after Dr. Benjamin Carson created a stir when, during a television interview, he made the following comment (emphasis added). Marriage is between a man and a woman. It is a well-established fundamental pillar of society,...

Okay, so I'm not a lawyer, much less a constitutional lawyer. Ted Olson is a lawyer -- an accomplished attorney with a fine mind and a capacity for facile argument. But he's dead wrong when he says the law can exclude polygamy or any other marriage arrangement though it recognizes the legal "right" of homosexuals to marry. Let's carefully consider Olson's oral argument in response to Justice Sotomayor's query about the plasticity of marriage should the institution be opened to homosexuals. SNIP SNIP Here's the Sotomayor-Olson exchange from a transcript provided by NPR: JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Olson, the bottom line...

They made fun of Rick Santorum and other social conservatives when they suggested gay marriage would easily lead to legalizing polygamy. But now liberals see that “grander trend” on the horizon. On Thursday night’s All Things Considered on NPR, they were casually discussing how “legalized polygamy could make a comeback” with Jonathan Turley, a law professor hired by the stars of TLC’s “Sister Wives” to push for that cause. He said polygamy enthusiasts are right where the gay lobbyists were ten years ago: ROBERT SIEGEL: The Browns are known to some folks from television. JONATHAN TURLEY: That's right. The Browns...

In the nineteenth century, the courts agreed that it was necessary for the State to acknowledge the biblical requirement of monogamy over against polygamy (many wives). Marriage is by definition a union of one man and one woman. The courts justified their rulings because of moral absolutes found in the Christian religion. What was true of polygamy was equally true of homosexuality since homosexuality was illegal in all the states, including the Mormon-populated state of Utah. The arguments against polygamy applied to homosexuality with little or no debate. In The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day...

Author: B. Carmon HardyReviewer: Lowell C. BennionCategories: History of the Church, Pioneer PeriodJournal: 33:2In recent years, studies of Mormon plural marriage have multiplied almost as rapidly as polygamous families did more than a century ago. With this book, Cartoon Hardy, who teaches American history at California State University in Fullerton, has made a major contribution to our understanding of the solemn covenant of plurality. His study, The Mormon Polygamous Passage (1831–1911), began with his 1963 dissertation on "The Mormon Colonies of Northern Mexico," and he has steadily expanded that research ever since. Solemn Covenant, Hardy's first book, serves as a...

What? Olson tries to make a distinction without making a difference. After Sotomayor asked this question, basically: if marriage is about equality, for consenting adults (consenting adults mind you, she was clear with that), then what is to keep consenting adult polygamists from marrying? Should they have "equality" too? Hence, Olson's reply that to prohibit gay marriage would be status-based discrimination, whereas prohibiting polygamy would be conduct-based. But I distinctinctly remember that when sodomy laws were overturned, the argument used then was that no state had a right to infringe upon homosexual's conduct behind closed doors.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was questioning former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, a pro-gay marriage Republican. She brought up a very interesting question during the exchange: If gay marriage is legal, what about polygamy? Sotomayor asked, "If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?" before referencing "polygamy and incest among adults," as reported by Matt Canham of the Salt Lake Tribune. The argument is an illustration of a broader issue about the culture of American society. To agree that gay marriage is indeed protected by the "equal protection" clause in the Constitution, wouldn't the...

The joke about Unitarians is that they’re where you go when you don’t know where to go. Theirs is the religion of last resort for the intermarried, the ambivalent, the folks who want a faith community without too many rules. It is perhaps no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Association is one of the fastest-growing denominations in the country, ballooning 15 percent over the past decade, when other established churches were shrinking. Politically progressive to its core, it draws from the pool of people who might otherwise be “nones” – unaffiliated with any church at all. But within the ranks...

During its first several decades, LDS Church leaders included an “Article on Marriage” in the faith’s Doctrine and Covenants. Penned by early church leader Oliver Cowdery, it stated, in part, “Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.”It sounds pretty simple, albeit a bit clumsy in the wording. Some have surmised that the slight difference in the words “man should have...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here's Art in Windsor, Connecticut, as we go back to the phones. Hello, sir. CALLER: Rush, how you doing? RUSH: I'm fine, sir. Thank you. CALLER: Look, I just think, you know, there used to be laws that said black people can't marry white people. I don't think this is any different. I mean, if you're gay and you want to marry somebody who's gay, marry somebody who's gay. That's your business. What is the business of the state government or the federal government telling me who I can and can't marry? RUSH: You are serious with...

With the Supreme Court set this week to hear two historic challenges to the traditional definition of marriage, pro-family advocates are charging that legalizing gay marriage would “inevitably” lead to the legalization of polygamy as well. “No question about it,” Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview Monday afternoon. “If you make the ultimate value a person’s right to express their sexuality with another person and to have that identified as marriage, then how do you keep polygamy from happening? “How do you keep consensual...

Dr. George Will is a respected social scientist and acclaimed writer, but he’s not a lawyer. And he shows it by suggesting the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a challenge to that federal statute this week in U.S. v. Windsor. DOMA prevents the federal government from giving federal marital benefits to gay marriages or polygamous marriages, and the Constitution allows Congress to make that judgment. Will has made valuable contributions to the issue of gay marriage. And on a personal note, I’m grateful for Will’s very positive Washington Post column last...

Does anyone know the story behind Lorenzo Snow marrying a sweet 16 year old girl...?

There is nothing in our current legal system or national moral climate that will stop polygamy from becoming the next liberal cause: “Redefining marriage to include same-sex couples would jettison the rationale and logic behind prohibitions on polygamous marriages, according to several friend-of-the court briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the traditional definition of marriage. “‘Ultimately, there is no principled basis for recognizing a legality of same-sex marriage without simultaneously providing a basis for the legality of consensual polygamy or certain adult incestuous relationships,’ reads one of the briefs, filed by the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel. ‘In...

Boris Dittrich, a former Dutch politician, was behind the gay marriage campaign in Holland (Sebastiaan ter Burg / Flickr) The politician who masterminded the gay marriage campaign in Holland says that “group marriage” is now being discussed in the country.Boris Dittrich, a former Dutch politician, gave a video interview about how he successfully introduced gay marriage. He said, “There is now a discussion in the Netherlands that sometimes people want to marry with three people and maybe even more.“But that’s the beginning of something completely new and that will take a lot of years I guess.”Dittrich was speaking to a French...

ROME, March 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – 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. In a video interview with Yagg, the French online homosexual magazine, Dittrich, a former Dutch MP and homosexualist activist working for Human Rights Watch, related the carefully laid-out plan that established first public acceptance legal civil partnerships, which in turn led inevitably to changing the definition of marriage. The redefinition...

SALT LAKE CITY — Joe Darger and his wife, Vicki, walked through the Capitol shaking hands with lawmakers like any other citizen lobbyist. What exactly they’re asking their lawmakers to do is a little more unique: decriminalize polygamy. “The way we are persecuting a particular religious group of people is wrong,” Joe Darger said. “It’s morally wrong, it’s ethically wrong, and we need to look at it. It hasn’t worked for 150 years and we need to change it.” Darger, a polygamist with three wives, Vicki, Valerie and Alina, is hoping to get lawmakers to start considering the idea of...

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”. This is a crucial point for supporters. If they were to concede that...

WASHINGTON — Dozens of prominent Republicans — including top advisers to former President George W. Bush, four former governors and two members of Congress — have signed a legal brief arguing that gay people have a constitutional right to marry, a position that amounts to a direct challenge to Speaker John A. Boehner and reflects the civil war in the party since the November election.

<p>The Associated Press on Thursday updated its stylebook so that married individuals will be referred to as husband and wife, regardless of whether they are in a same-sex marriage. The change comes a week after the AP received criticism for an internal memo designating the word "partners" for individuals in same-sex marriages.</p>

You knew it was coming. Scientific American — which often pushes cultural agendas as much as scientific ideas — has an article informing us that polyamorous people have so much to teach the rest of us about life. From “The New Sexual Revolution: Polyamory May Be Good For You“ One thing that seems to unite the polyamorous community is a real enthusiasm for digging into emotions. Honesty, openness and communication are cornerstones for polyamorous relationships, Holmes has found. “They’re talking a lot, they’re negotiating a lot, they’re bringing their feelings to the table a lot,” he said.

I keep hearing same-sex marriage (SSM) activists assuring us that no one else will legally redefine the essence of marriage, after they enjoy the privilege of doing so. It's a red herring to distract us from the real issue: redefining it for them alone. But if we redefine marriage for one group, there's no logical reason to deny other nonconformist advocates their right to do so, especially if they successfully argue their version of marriage on utilitarian grounds -- it benefits or does no harm to society. I don't know who invented the slippery slope fallacy, but he or she...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently opted for two cases pertaining to same-sex marriage. Windsor v. United States challenges the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Had Edith Windsor's deceased “spouse” been a man she would have been saved $363,000 in estate taxes. The other concerns the Ninth Circuit’s overturning Proposition 8; a successful ballot initiative which prevented same-sex marriage in California. Leave lawyering to lawyers, but when pendulums swing sometimes they return like wrecking balls smacking those who previously prodded the pendulum. Government, at least Washington, should not interfere in marriage. It has, sometimes at the insistence of those most adamantly...

A wealthy businessman married four women in one day at one wedding ceremony, according to press reports. The BBC had reported at the time of the wedding that South African businessman Milton Mbele broke all the traditional rules of a polygamous wedding when he recently married four women on the same day. "I do not know how much four different weddings would have cost me but I did it all at once to save money," he was quoted as saying. "For example, I just needed one tent, I had to hire one caterer and one photographer for the whole ceremony."...

My buddy, Glenn Beck, has made a great contribution to the TEA party movement and to a renewal of popular interest in our Founding Fathers and their ideals. For all that he deserves praise. But, I believe, he is making a serious error in abandoning the civil right of marriage. The Republican Party was founded in opposition to two historic wrongs. The party’s first platform in 1856 denounced “slavery and polygamy—the twin relics of barbarism.” Slavery was finally put down with a terrible toll—630,000 Americans dead in the Civil War. The new movie, Lincoln, tells the dramatic story of the...

GREGG COUNTY, TX (KLTV) - For more than a year, KLTV has been investigating the allegations by several East Texas men that they were all married to the same woman at the same time. Now, that woman has been charged with bigamy. Candice Andrade, 32 of Kilgore, was arrested in Gregg County on November 15 and released the same day. Her trial date has not been set. In June of 2011, two men said they discovered they were married to Andrade at the same time. They told KLTV they found a third husband in Houston. In November 2011, they discovered...

Jacob Zuma, the South African president, has issued a ringing endorsement of traditional courts, saying that problems should be resolved “the African way, not the white man’s way”. Mr Zuma, a proud Zulu who himself subscribes to traditional practices such as polygamy, said that those living in rural communities in South Africa found the traditional justice system a better way of resolving their disputes. “Prisons are done by people who cannot resolve problems,” he was quoted as saying by South Africa’s Times newspaper. “Let us solve African problems the African way, not the white man’s way. Let us not be...

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. As the battle over the true definition of marriage heats up nationwide, they want a place on the front line. Polyamorists now want a seat at the table of "equality" and "tolerance." “Polyamorist” means “lover of many,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Polyamorists maintain more than one sexual relationship at a time, with the full...

Officials say they’re flooded with applications from well-heeled Saudi Arabian men with one or more wives seeking a new life in Canada TORONTO - Canadian diplomats in Saudi Arabia say there may be a political tempest brewing as many oil-rich polygamist men look for ways to resettle here with their many wives. Diplomatic officials said they’re flooded with applications from well-heeled Saudi men with one or more wives and have asked Ottawa for guidelines on if the spouses should be given visas for Canada. “Bigamy and polygamy are crimes in Canada, but not here in Saudi Arabia,” said Jeff Rogers,...

In Brazil, the BBC reports: A notary in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo has sparked controversy by accepting a civil union between three people.Public Notary Claudia do Nascimento Domingues has said the man and two women should be entitled to family rights. She says there is nothing in law to prevent such an arrangement.But the move has angered some religious groups, while one lawyer described it as “absurd and totally illegal�.The three individuals, who have declined to speak to the press, have lived in Rio de Janeiro together for three years and share bills and other expenses. Ms Domingues...

A notary in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo has sparked controversy by accepting a civil union between three people. Public Notary Claudia do Nascimento Domingues has said the man and two women should be entitled to family rights. She says there is nothing in law to prevent such an arrangement. But the move has angered some religious groups, while one lawyer described it as "absurd and totally illegal". The three individuals, who have declined to speak to the press, have lived in Rio de Janeiro together for three years and share bills and other expenses. Ms Domingues says they...

Controversy has been sparked as the first civil union between three separate partners was registered in Tupã, in the Northwestern region of Sao Paulo state, Brazil last week. The three-person union has shocked religious groups in the country, and sparked further concerns that the traditional family unit is being further eroded by the current day society. The actual declaration of the union between the man and two women was in fact made three months ago, but it finally became public this week. Notary officer, Claudia do Nascimento Domingues, has explained that the three partners lived together and wanted to publicly...

Chris Matthews: 'If I Were Obama I'd Marry' Bill Clinton By Noel Sheppard Created 08/23/2012 - 6:26pm MSNBC's Chris Matthews sure doesn't have a problem expressing his affection for men on national television. After showing a new campaign ad former President Bill Clinton just completed for the current White House resident, the Hardball host actually said, "If I were Barack Obama, I'd marry that guy" (video follows with commentary): Makes you wonder how Mrs. Matthews feels about her husband talking this way on national television. One moment he's telling viewers how listening to Obama gives him a thrill up his...

Muslim immigrants with more than one wife will see an increase in their social welfare benefits beginning in 2013, when reforms to the British welfare system come into effect. Although polygamy is illegal in Britain, the state effectively recognizes the practice for Muslim men, who often have up to four wives (and in some instances five or more) in a harem. Currently the state pays extra wives in polygamous households reduced amounts of individual income support, in addition to the normal amount received by the husband and his first spouse. Under the new rules, however, the extra wives will be...