Free Republic

Every argument supporting gay marriage—‘Love is love,’ ‘we deserve equal protection under the law,’ and ‘we’re not harming anybody’—also supports group marriage. The Massachusetts town of Somerville has become the first in the nation to legalize polyamorous relationships. It’s evidence of the slippery slope social conservatives warned would follow legalizing gay marriage.Polygamy was the obvious evolution of redefining marriage. After all, every argument supporting gay marriage—“Love is love,” “we deserve equal protection under the law,” and “we’re not harming anybody”—also supports group marriage.Somerville’s legal recognition of polyamory came about on June 25 while the city council was changing its domestic...

From 1852 to 1890, polygamy was regularly practiced in the Mormon church. Polygamy was first practiced by Joseph Smith after God supposedly gave him a direct revelation, but it was later defended by Apostle Orson Pratt, which gave it widespread approval until Utah territory joined the United States under the condition that polygamy would be discontinued. A new law in Utah is set to reverse that and remove heavy criminal penalties for being married to more than one spouse. It was commonly said during the gay marriage debate in the United States that once sodomy-based unions were legalized, polygamy would...

Following the introduction of civil partnerships, Muslim representatives in Italy are now demanding the legalisation of polygamy. Responding to a new law allowing same sex couples to enter civil unions, Hamza Piccardo argued that if gay relationships, which Muslims disagree with, are a civil right then Italians must accept polygamy as a civil right too. The founder of the Union of Islamic Communities and Organisations (UCOII) in Italy took to Facebook to claim polygamy is a “civil right” and that Italy would benefit from the large number of Muslim births it would promote.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas said this week that he wants to bring an end to the practice of tolerating polygamous marriages among immigrants in Germany. “No one who comes here has the right to place their cultural entrenchment or religious thinking over our laws,” Maas told Bild newspaper. “Therefore, no multiple marriages will be allowed to be recognized in Germany.” In Germany, marrying another person after you are already married is illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. …

You might think that this is grotesque. I certainly think it is grotesque. But should we be so judgemental about the unorthodox connubial arrangements of Anna and Lucy Decinque, 31-year-old identical twins who are sharing a bed with their 32-year-old electrical mechanic boyfriend Ben Byrne? The trio have lived together for the last four years in Perth, Western Australia, with the girls’ mother. The girls are inseparable, so much so that they have spent A$240,000 on various cosmetic improvements to look even more alike. They imitate each other and share everything. Even their boyfriend. When Anna and Lucy appeared on...

A family made famous by the reality show "Sister Wives" is calling on a Utah appeals court to uphold a ruling that essentially decriminalized polygamy, saying the state's historic ban on the practice raises constitutional issues about freedom of religion, association, and privacy rights of consenting adults. Kody Brown and his four wives - Meri, Jangle, Christine and Robyn - who began appearing on the TLC reality show in 2010, filed suit against the state of Utah challenging the state's ban.

Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature. This means two things. First, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are produced not only by our individual experiences and environment in our own lifetime but also by what happened to our ancestors millions of years ago. Second, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)BILLINGS - Given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, a Lockwood family is now looking to solidify rights of its own. We first told you about the Colliers in January of 2015 when the polygamist family appeared on an episode of the TLC show, "Sister Wives."The polyamorous movement is a national push to allow marriage between multiple partners. Nathan Collier and his two wives, Vicki and Christine, said Tuesday that they are simply looking for equality. Nathan is legally married to Vicki, but also wants to legally wed Christine. On Tuesday,...

About Me I am originally from Los Angeles, California and currently reside in Orem, Utah. I am an entrepreneur for Eklect Enterprises and a student at Utah Valley University majoring in Software Engineering. I have been a member of the church since 1991, and my parents were converts to the church in 1984. I served a full-time mission in the Colorado Denver North Mission from 2003-2005 where I earned multiple awards, including the Gold Award in the Gospel Scholarship Program. After my mission service, I have held different auxiliary positions and callings in the church, from Nursery to Bishopric; I...

Ross Douthat has a thought-provoking reflection on the future of religion, both globally and in America. He says that it’s dangerous to assume that the future will look like the present, only moreso. Which Catholics in 1940 would have foreseen something as epochal as the Second Vatican Council, coming just 20 years later? Who could have anticipated that China is on track to having the largest Christian population in the world, and that Africa would be sending missionaries to the West? But here we are. Douthat calls attention to Will Saletan’s Slate piece saying that the Mormon Church has a...

Earlier this month, TLC brought back "Sister Wives," a reality show featuring the Utah-based polygamist Brown family of four wives and 17 children, for another season. Since last season, the Browns struck down a major piece of state legislation that may pave the way for the legalization of polygamy under the guise of “religious freedom.” In a nod to anti-gay marriage advocates who warned the legalization of same-sex marriage would lead to other kinds of sexual freedoms, such as polygamy, the ruling is deemed a watershed moment for the rights of polygamist families— of which there is estimated to be...

The normalization of polygamy would undermine our commitment to human dignity—our sense that each human being is to be valued as an end in him- or herself, and not merely as a means to others’ ends. Conservatives have long warned that the redefinition of marriage sought by the proponents of same-sex unions will prepare the way for a further redefinition of marriage to include polygamy. Some liberals have already done their part to fulfill this prophecy by assuming that the argument over same-sex marriage is over and by beginning to argue for a normalization of plural marriages. As I have...

When you look at world history, and especially biblical history, you will find that polygamy has been an accepted and honorable way of life. Many beloved prophets of the Old Testament were polygamists, and Abraham was a friend of God, all while having many wives. Polygamy was once a lifestyle accepted by all. For Christians of 2000 years ago, polygamy was stopped by the Roman empire. Paul, in his letter to the church in Rome, said, “A bishop should be the husband of one wife.” He was simply telling them to obey the law of the land. Roman law is...

Why should we stand up for normative monogamy? Well, not all forms of marriage lead to equal outcomes. For example, “normative monogamy reduces crime rates, including rape, murder, assault, robbery and fraud, as well as decreasing personal abuses” and is therefore better for adults and children, according to academics Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson in The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage Of course, my fellow Australians instinctively know that monogamy is good for children. Or at least a good majority know. Another important study, The World Family Map, found that 70 per cent of Australians believe a child...

Brady Williams and his five wives are the stars of a new reality series on TLC. The six Williams family members decided to go public with their story in order to dispel myths about polygamy, including about sexual relations between Brady and his wives. "All of America is having sex," Brady told HuffPost Live. "It's no big deal to answer [questions]. We're not perverted, we're not twisted. We're normal – we're just normal times five." However, Dean Gregory Alan Thornbury of the school of theology at Union University in Tennessee has been quick to point out that polygamy, even within...

Syria is submerged in civil war. The Sunni and the Shi’ia of Iraq are renewing their 1300-year-old conflict. Libyan rebels have shut down the nation’s oil industry. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been suppressed and is resorting to terrorism. Pakistan is a cauldron of violence and assassinations. In short, the Muslim world, as usual, is at war with itself. This is not a contemporary phenomenon. Islam has been attacking its neighbors ever since the Prophet Mohammed received the Koran from the Angel Gabriel in the 7th century. Within 50 years of his death, Muslim armies had conquered the known world from...

The A&E reality series Duck Dynasty nearly got derailed when one of its cast members echoed thoughts of many church goers regarding the gay lifestyle. Come March, TLC will bring polygamy back into its lineup, and it likely won't generate a fraction of the controversy that Phil Robertson's musings met. The one-hour special My Five Wives debuted last year on TLC, and now the network is offering nine new episodes of the polygamist clan. As TLC says in its press release concerning the show, "families come in all different shapes and sizes ..." The first new show will bow on...

With the ruling of a federal judge last week that declared part of Utah's anti-polygamy law unconstitutional, the left finds itself torn. Of course, with their ever-wavering consciences that are willing to go along with whatever seems the latest fad that tests our moral boundaries (especially in the sexual realm), some liberals say that it is time that we take a closer look at plural marriage. After all, if consenting adults want to enter into such relationships, what is the problem? In other words, as I asked over five years ago, what's wrong with polygamy? However, some liberals took comfort...

3:25:11 AM Polygamy comes out of the closet Michael Cook | 17 Dec 2013 | 7 tags : polyamory, polygamy, same-sex marriageKody Brown ABOVE, center, poses with his wives, from left, Janelle, Christine, Meri, and Robyn.. Is Utah’s ban on polygamy unconstitutional? Last week a Federal Court judge ruled that it is, after Kody Brown and his four wives, the stars of the reality TV series Sister Wives, challenged it.. Judge Clark Waddoups, of United States District Court in Utah, struck down provisions of Utah’s bigamy law, which make “religious co-habitation” illegal. Kody Brown, who belongs to the Apostolic United...

In Lawrence v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court, reversing its own then-recent holding in Bowers v. v. Hardwick, ruled that laws against homosexual sodomy are unconstitutional–even though the Constitution says nothing about sex, let alone sodomy–on the ground that the right of privacy (also never mentioned in the Constitution) protects all consensual, private sexual contact between adults. Lawrence immediately was seen as a milestone in the campaign for gay marriage. Some conservatives noted that the Court’s rationale would protect polygamy, too, but they were denounced as killjoys. Lawyers noticed, however. Soon after Lawrence, several lawsuits were commenced in federal...