The Mormons are the ones who passed the bill to make cohabitation between unwed man and woman illegal, as a means to satisfy the conditions for statehood, at least they were an overwhelming majority back then. Now, the Mormons, including the mainstream, could undo their polygamy restrictions if they really wanted to, simply because for the most part, cohabitation, which entails polygamy, is decriminalized, the state doesn’t care if any given guy cohabits with who knows how many wives. I wonder why they haven’t given up on polygamy because of the decriminaliztion, of the aspects around enforcing it, but then again, I guess the big mainstream Mormonism has gotten a little assimilated with the rest of us.
But he is not a Mormon. He is something else, maybe pluralist Baptist.
Even if the mainstream Mormons could practice polygamy legally, they probably wouldn’t go back to the 19th century. We have spent more time as a monogamous faith than we did in polygamy. I don’t ever see the LDS Church reversing course. But you make a good point. Why can’t polygamists of whatever ilk do so without persecution? Maybe the Welfare Wives phenomenon.