Polygamists fight to decriminalize bigamy

The Washington Post ^ | Nov 21, 2006 | John Pomfret

[presidio9]

In her battle to legalize polygamy, the only thing Valerie hasn't revealed is her last name. The mother of eight has been on national TV; her photo along with that of her two "sister-wives" has graced the front cover of a glossy magazine dedicated to "today's plural marriages."

She has been prodded about her sex life: "He rotates. It's easy -- just one, two, three." Quizzed about her decision to share a husband with two other women: "You really have a good frame of reference when you marry a man who already has two wives." Interrogated about what it's like to live in a house with 21 children: "Remodeling a kitchen, that's no small feat with three wives and a husband involved."

All the while, the petite brunette with a smile as bright as Utah's sky has insisted that she's just like you and me: "I'm a soccer mom. My kids are in music lessons. They go to public school. I'm not under anyone's control."

Valerie and others among the estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy. Consciously taking tactics from the gay-rights movement, polygamists have reframed their struggle, choosing in interviews to de-emphasize their religious beliefs and focus on their desire to live "in freedom," according to Anne Wilde, director of community relations for Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group based in Salt Lake.

In recent months, polygamy activists have held rallies, appeared on nationally televised news shows and lobbied legislators. Before the Nov. 7 elections, one pro-polygamy group issued a six-page analysis of all Utah's state and local candidates and their views on polygamy. "We can make a difference," the

[tsomer]

"...the bible supports multiple wives."

Multiple wives for an embattled Israel, surrounded by hostile barbarian people who sacrificed their children to their deity Malich, thousands of years ago. Consider historic context....

The bible also reads:"you shall know them by their fruit."

Once again, history tells.

What do polygamous societies look like, compared with monogamous societies--past and present? The suggestion that polygamy favors men and women equally is a howler.

'Freedom of choice' is a slippery slope: why is it wrong for a father or mother, out of desperation, or malice, or good intention to sell or barter their offspring as they wish? Are we going to abolish parental oversight? Who decides which mores should apply? You know, 'different strokes for different folks.'

Elsewhere I'm labeled a book-burner. I can guarantee that many more books would burn in their polygamous utopia. And I can guarantee that our libertines would never miss them. Ironic that 'book-burner' is the illiterates' favorite epithet.

[randita]

But if you wanted to run a cult community far from the law, the northern Arizona strip would be ideal. Note I say far from the law.

I know the area you mean. We traveled there a few years back and purposely got off the beaten track onto some winding dirt roads just to see what the backcountry was like. It WAS remote.

We went into a little town, might have been St. Georges-can't recall-to get a few groceries and some wine. We looked all up and down the "main street" and didn't see a liquor store anywhere, so we asked some locals where the liquor store was. You should have seen the disapproving looks we got.

Finally someone (I think it was a teenager-LOL) told us where the store was. It was down a small unmarked street and actually did not even have a sign out front. There were about 5 choices of wine and the bottles were dusty so you know they'd been sitting there for a while. In fact, the whole store was dusty and didn't look like it had seen many customers in the past month.

It was a funny experience.

[Texas_shutterbug]

"I would appreciate if moderators would purge any further discussions supporting polygamy. It is immoral, an abomination, a contradiction to the fundamental assumption of equality between men and women, and the certain means to our complete destruction. If we cannot agree on this rudimentary precept, everything thing else here is false."

I totally agree. There is nothing conservative about helping to destroy our civilization as we know it. Pologamy is BAD for women. VERY BAD.

[Texas_shutterbug]

The bible NO LONGER sanctions plural marriage if you are a christian. There are several verses - that together - strongly indicate that we were to go back to God's original design - one man and one woman.

Let's just start with one verse - do not deny each other [sex]. Now, I don't know about you - but if you were sharing your wife with five men, would you be getting as much sex as you or the average man would like? I know I wouldn't be getting as much sex as I like if my husband were "servicing" one other woman. How can he not be denying me, if he's in another woman's arms? blech

[gondramB]

ping for later -that was a thought provoking reply.

[gondramB]

>>The bible NO LONGER sanctions plural marriage if you are a christian.<<

I started to do a more detailed post and probably should have. I'll come back to this - my point was to try to seperate legal plural marriage - which I oppose - from whether it was ok to discuss plural marriage and whether such living arrangements should be legally allowed but not legally sanctioned as marriage.

[metmom]

In all the discussion about legalizing polygamy, it seems that the thinkg all the religious people have forgotten is that God does not sanction it.

Gen 2:18-24 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

*Wife* Singular. God created ONE woman for Adam, not a harem.

I Cor 7:2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.

Eph 5:31 & 33 FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.

I Tim 3:2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

I Tim 3:12 Deacons must be husbands of only one wife, and good managers of their children and their own households.

Titus 1:6 ...namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion.

God is pretty clear that a husband is to have one wife especially leaders in the church.

[metmom]

The Bible doesn't support multiple wives. Documenting it happening is not the same as supporting it. Post 167 has some verses for that.

[SauronOfMordor]

Agreed, a good point. But at least the home grown leeches don't know how to make IED's. Yet.

That may come. The Iraqi "insurgents" are mostly externally funded and supplied. What would be the result of foreign agents offering a bunch of money to the Bloods, Crips, and MS-13 to riot and burn, to impose pressure on the US to get out of the Middle East?

[Vigilanteman]

Intellectually, I agree with your interepretation.

I was just having a little fun stretching things.

I do not discount the possibility that Chritians might be asked to practice polygamy at sometime in the future in response to some catastropic event . . . such as there being too many gelded liberal males and homosexual males (I relize I may be redundant here) and too few available Christian males to provide husbands for willing Christian females. There is even a reference in Isaiah 4:1 as follows:

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

This may be a prophecy that sanctions polygamy under unusual circumstances, but I think it is more likely a prophecy on the unusual circumstances without the sanction.

[Texas_shutterbug]

Also, the implication that husbands and wives are not to deprive one another sex suggests that one man/one woman is the expectation.

[Gondring]

Elsewhere I'm labeled a book-burner.

I'm curious where that is...is it on FR? As you should know from your seniority here, it's proper form to ping those to whom you refer in your post.

[marsh_of_mists]

But the leaps you make to both zoophilia and pederasty are crossing the same line: adult informed consent.

NAMBLA says different. Prove them wrong.

[Gondring]

So, one size fits all? Just because you feel the way you feel, everyone should prefer that life? Yet it's interesting you bring up Paul. Although you're cursed with the uncontrollable sex drive (and as Paul wrote, you found it better to marry than to burn), recall what Paul said was the preference--to be like him!

So it's good that you found a match for your sex drive and love, but what about those who don't? And I suppose you believe this country should be turned into a Christian theocracy, where everyone has to play by Christian doctrine, rather than on individual rights?

[Gondring]

What are you claiming NAMBLA is claiming? I have never heard them claim that children are adults....I have simply seemed them jump onto the bandwagon of "we know better than others" and "who cares about the requirement of adult informed consent and individual rights!?"

IOW, totally against my point. Are you disputing me and supporting their view?

[Gondring]

Censorship is BAD for our republic. VERY BAD.

[marsh_of_mists]

"pro-life-at-any-cost"

What cost would that be? The cost that concerns is tens of millions of dead fetuses/babies. You speak about the importance of individual rights and personal sovreignity. It is precisely those things that lead me to a pro-life position. I believe fetuses should be allowed their inalienable, individual rights; I believe they should have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am not a "Nanny Stater". I believe in small, decentralized, efficient, unobtrusive government focused primarily on protecting the safety and sovereignity of the nation. However, I also believe that there are certain areas, small though they may be, in which it can support the cultural and moral traditions of the society that supports it, while still remaining small, decentralized, efficient, and unobtrusive. This is, of course, more true with local governments than state ones and more true with the state than the federal. And even in cases where all branches of government should butt out, I still support Western "traditional moral values" on a social and cultural basis. I hope you don't believe that supporting such things necessarily translates to a massive federal government micromanaging our lives like a Puritan commune. I would far prefer that individuals, institutions, and communities choose cultural and moral traditionalism of their own free initiative. In fact, I'm certain that such traditionalism would not be sustainable otherwise, regardless of any government legislation/regulation.

[marsh_of_mists]

I'm saying NAMBLA and the rest of the "boylovers", believe that children, psychologically, can give informed consent as much as any adult to sexual activity with adults. They believe that those children should be granted the individual rights. And the "zoophiles" say the same thing about animals; animals can show through their behavior whether they like or dislike sexual contact. Both of boylovers and zoophiles argue that the claim that children and animals can't give informed consent is founded in the same irrational taboos from which homophobia springs. Thus, both groups conclude that the government should just butt out when children give their informed to have sex with adults.

So prove them wrong.

[Gondring]

Anti-abortion is not the same as pro-life, in my book. I'm pro-rights. And perhaps one could say, "pro-choice...the child's choice..."

[truemiester]

The true crime is what happens to the sons of these "marriages". They are very early on viewed as potential rivals for girls, even by thier own fathers. The are sunned and out cast at an early age. I've heard of some fathers, telling thier sons they will never have a wife, 'helping' them to turn gay.
Rumors, of course. But what does happen to the 'excess' males? That is the real question.