Real Americans care and have cared. In an era when petitions were unheard of (perhaps other than the abolition movement), Americans signed a 28-roll, 7 million signature petition & delivered it to Congress in 1898. What was the issue? Utah had delivered a polygamist to Congress, and Americans wanted him turned back.
Why is polygamy illegal??
It erodes and militates against monogamy, as does cohabitation, same-sex marriage, group marriage (5 men/5 women, for example), polyandry (you see nothing wrong with a woman who has 20 husbands?), etc.
"In January, 1903, the Utah Legislature chose Mormon Apostle Reed Smoot to be the State's new Senator. The result was a nation wide protest, mainly organized through Protestant churches, against his seating in the U.S. Senate. The main accusations were that Mormons continued to practice polygamy cladestinely, despite the 1890 Manifesto, and that the Mormon Church continued to dominate political and business affairs in Utah and the Intermountain West.
Smoot's election to the Senate was seen as part of a Mormon conspiracy to pollute the national councils with their theocratic influence. Eventually a massive petition was presented to the U.S. Senate, which began what became a multi-year investigation into Mormon and Utah affairs. In the end Smoot retained his seat, and the investigative committee produced four massive volumes of hearing transcripts, which are one of our richest sources on Mormonism at the turn of the century. The transcripts in their entirety are available below in PDF format. These files are text searchable using Adobe Acrobat. Enjoy!"
Man, 20 husbands? She must be worn out...