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Strange Bedfellows: ABC Analyst Suggests Polygamy Ban Unconstitutional
NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

Posted on 04/12/2008 5:53:29 PM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest

You might think MSM support for the raid by Texas state authorities on the polygamist compound in Eldorado would be a slam dunk. After all, the religion involved is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Not just Mormons: fundamentalists Mormons! Throw in patriarchy and allegations of exploitation of young women, and surely the feminist-inspired liberal media would be cheering on the bust.

But not so fast. Support this intervention, and perhaps a precedent is established for restrictions on unorthodox family arrangements of a more PC tint.

Take the comments of Jonathan Turley on today's Good Morning America. The George Washington law school professor went so far as to strongly suggest that the ban on polygamy is unconstitutional. And co-anchor Bill Weir was anything but unsympathetic to Turley's arguments.

View video.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: jonathanturley; mormonism; polygamy
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1 posted on 04/12/2008 5:53:29 PM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
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To: Behind Liberal Lines; Miss Marple; an amused spectator; netmilsmom; Diogenesis; YaYa123; MEG33; ...

ABC analyst suggests polygamy ban unconstitutional. Ping to Today show list.


2 posted on 04/12/2008 5:54:59 PM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest (Keeping track of the MSM so you don't have to!)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
It's a slippery slope isn't it.

Soon we will have people marrying their pets so they can get vet coverage.

3 posted on 04/12/2008 5:56:22 PM PDT by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

am I the only one who read that Obama’s daddy was a polygamist of sorts? does it even matter?


4 posted on 04/12/2008 5:57:14 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand ( If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you...)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
The George Washington law school professor went so far as to strongly suggest that the ban on polygamy is unconstitutional.

Polygamy is unconstitutional because having more than one wife violates the Constitution's "cruel and unusual punishment" clause.


5 posted on 04/12/2008 6:03:37 PM PDT by Polybius
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To: Polybius

Actually, it’s having more than one mother-in-law that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment ;-)


6 posted on 04/12/2008 6:04:39 PM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest (Keeping track of the MSM so you don't have to!)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

This was actually a Supreme Court case back in the nineteenth century with [i]Reynolds v. United States[/i] and the SCOTUS found the law to not violate the first amendment.


7 posted on 04/12/2008 6:05:16 PM PDT by Santa Fe_Conservative (The RINOs think that they have won but we shall see who has the last laugh in '08...)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

When I said gay marriage opened the door to polygamy, I was laughed at.
Now a national legal analyst agrees with me.
Wow, I feel better.


8 posted on 04/12/2008 6:06:43 PM PDT by tbw2 ("Sirat: Through the Fires of Hell" by Tamara Wilhite - on amazon.com)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

Maybe that’s why a lot of poligamists marry sisters. Only one mother in law. Or because the women are related, the rivalry is reduced.


9 posted on 04/12/2008 6:07:34 PM PDT by tbw2 ("Sirat: Through the Fires of Hell" by Tamara Wilhite - on amazon.com)
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To: USNBandit
We already endorse serial polygamy, otherwise known as “no fault divorce” and multiple, sequential marriages.

Once you get away from one man - one woman for life, it is indeed a slippery slope.

10 posted on 04/12/2008 6:07:35 PM PDT by BwanaNdege ("The Map is not the Territory")
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

The way the SCOTUS butchered the Constitution to rationalize Roe v. Wade and “affirmative action,” I wouldn’t put it past the Court one day to justify polygamy et al as well.

It only takes five sitting nutcases, and there are plenty of liberal lawyers well-qualified in that regard.


11 posted on 04/12/2008 6:09:54 PM PDT by A_Former_Democrat
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

how long before the Moslems try to litigate this? Get that old marriage amendment out of the drawer in a hurry.


12 posted on 04/12/2008 6:11:12 PM PDT by gusopol3
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To: the invisib1e hand
am I the only one who read that Obama’s daddy was a polygamist of sorts?

*********

At 18, Obama Jr's father, Barack Obama Sr. (Senior), married a girl called Kezia from a local village.

Four years later (1957) Obama Sr., because of his father's wealth and influence, was awarded an American sponsored scholarship in economics to the University of Hawaii. The presumption was that Obama Sr. would return to Africa and use his "Western-honed skills in a new Kenya."

At the age of 23, Obama Sr. left behind his pregnant wife Kezia and their children to become the first African student enrolled at the University of Hawaii.

Obama Sr's other wives:

While still married to Kezia, Obama Sr. married fellow University of Hawaii student Anna Dunham, an 18 year old white anthropology major. Anna gave birth to a son on August 4th, 1961 in Honolulu. Obama Sr., a Muslim, chose the Muslim Koranic name, Barack Hussein Obama, for his son. The middle name "Hussein" to honor Muslim grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama.

Two years later, Obama Sr. abandoned Anna and Obama Jr. for a scholarship to pursue a PhD program in economics at Harvard University.

In June 1964, Obama Sr. returned to Kenya to work for the Jomo Kenyatta administration. Soon after, he married another white woman, his third wife, an American-born teacher called Ruth, who he met at Harvard. She followed him back home to Africa and conceived 2 children by him. He fathered 2 more children by Kezia.

Anna divorced Obama Sr. when Obama Jr. was 6 to marry Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim. Soetoro moved his new family to Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim country. Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro was born in Indonesia.

**********

13 posted on 04/12/2008 6:13:07 PM PDT by Polybius
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To: tbw2
I have said the same thing. Dont feel any better about it that someone with face time agrees. If gay marriage is ok then whats wrong with more than one wife, or husband, or any mix thereof?
14 posted on 04/12/2008 6:13:11 PM PDT by nomorelurker (keep flogging them till morale improves)
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To: tbw2
When I said gay marriage opened the door to polygamy...

You are absolutely right. All the issues of "gay rights", abortion, etc. lead to exactly what we're seeing today. Soon, everything will be okay, as it's becoming. Child sex will be no big deal (well, it will to us of course) among other things including bestiality. Right is wrong, wrong is right, can there be any clearer signs?

15 posted on 04/12/2008 6:13:28 PM PDT by brushcop (B-Co. 2/69 3rd Infantry Div., "Sledgehammer!" ...and keep hammering 'em!)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest
If its Muslims, you can bet liberals will push before long to remove the polygamy ban.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

16 posted on 04/12/2008 6:15:54 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: nomorelurker

My four year old daughter was playing house and a pair of male twins wanted to play the daddy. My daughter then told me that when she’d grows up, she’ll marry both of the boys.
“Honey, by the time you’re grown up, it will be legal.”
At least she’d decided to marry a boy, and not a girl.


17 posted on 04/12/2008 6:17:24 PM PDT by tbw2 ("Sirat: Through the Fires of Hell" by Tamara Wilhite - on amazon.com)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

Utah cases challenge whether anti-polygamy laws are constitutional

Polygamy is the practice (usually religious) of having multiple spouses (usually wives). There are two possible lines of constitutional attack on anti-polygamy statutes. One derives from the First Amendment’s religion clauses. The other derives from Due Process “right to privacy” concepts — and in particular, from the Supreme Court’s recent holding in Lawrence v. Texas that adults have a privacy right that extends to private, consensual sex acts.

In the end, neither of these lines of attack will — or should — be successful. Still, it is worth taking a close look at each to examine the extent to which the Constitution allows states to shape — or forbids them from shaping — the definition of marriage, and regulating who can marry whom.

http://tinyurl.com/5g2ves


18 posted on 04/12/2008 6:22:02 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

Better not go home to your wives and daughters tonight gentlemen


19 posted on 04/12/2008 6:22:45 PM PDT by yldstrk (My heros have always been cowboys--Reagan and Bush)
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To: governsleastgovernsbest

This polymagy group has been around much longer than even the suggestion of gay marriage. I do agree with the idea that accepting gay marriage would indeed open the doors for polymagy groups and other groups to claim their practice was as valid as gay marriage.


20 posted on 04/12/2008 6:28:56 PM PDT by Tammy8 (Please Support and pray for our Troops, as they serve us every day.)
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