Ahead of the 2002 Olympics, Utah has begun a crackdown on polygamous marriages. Although Utah agreed to outlaw polygamy as a condition of its statehood, the state has for the most part not prosecuted those who still enter into marriages with multiple partners.
Advocates of polygamy claim the government is persecuting them in much the same way it used to persecute homosexuals, while opponents of polygamy say the practice needs to be outlawed to protect young girls. Who is right?
Both sides are correct. First of all, the government should have no say in how consenting adults choose to live their lives. The Supreme Court in 1879 ruled that polygamy is not a Constitutionally protected exercise of religious freedom, but it clearly erred in that decision in much the same way it erred in ruling that the state had a compelling interest in outlawing consenting homosexual relationships.
In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that Amish children could not be forced to attend school on religious grounds which is inconsistent with the 1879 polygamy ruling, as one of the dissenting judges pointed out.
Polygamy between consenting adults — just like marriage between people of the same sex — should be legal.
On the other hand, what passes for polygamy in Utah often bears a greater resemblance to child sexual abuse than anything else.
Consider Tom Green, 52, who has had 10 wives and has been charged with bigamy and child rape among other things. Green is accused of having sex with one of his wives, Linda, when she was only 13. As prosecutor David Leavitt told the Dallas Morning News,
…this is a man who has taken 13- and 14-year-old children, deprived them of any education, married them, impregnated them, required the state to pay the bill [Green’s family is a big client of the welfare system] and has raped a 13-year-old girl. If we can’t prosecute for conduct like Tom Green’s, we have no business prosecuting crime.
Green’s case is not an anomaly. His prosecution follows on the ground-breaking 1998 prosecution of David Ortell Kingston who was sentenced to up to 10 years for incest and unlawful sexual conduct with his 16-year-old niece who was allegedly his 15th wife.
When his niece fled the marriage that had been arranged by her father, John Daniel Kingston beat his daughter and returned her to David Kingston.
These sort of practices with minors are unconscionable and have absolutely no place within constitutional protections for relationships between consenting adults. Neither, however, should our anger and disgust at the exploitation of these young women allow us to go further and advocate criminalizing consenting relationships between adults merely because they involve more adults than the state deems “normal.” Those sorts of decisions should be left up to individuals rather than the government.
Source:
Trial to test Utah’s 104-year-old ban on polygamy. The Associated Press, November 26, 2000.
Polygamy backers claim Utah bill infringes on religious freedom. The Associated Press, February 13, 2001