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And So It Begins: The Push for Polygamy

And So It Begins: The Push for Polygamy

Last updated on: February 25, 2014 at 8:36 am by Rebecca Hamilton

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And So It Begins: The Push for Polygamy 2014-02-25T08:36:17-07:00 Rebecca Hamilton

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Newt polygamy

This is a random round-up of opinion pieces pushing polygamy.

It is by no means exhaustive or even representative. It reflects what I’ve seen in casual internet browsing. One article goes back to the time of the last presidential election. The others were written after the DOMA decision.

Events and behaviors form patterns. The pattern for quite some time has been that opinion makers in high-profile media begin what quickly becomes a coordinated political movement with trial balloon pieces such as these. The normalization of polygamy is fully launched with such television shows as Big Love and Sister Wives.

The piece that irks me the most is the one by the so-called feminist who’s calling for polygamy. If she’s a feminist, then George Wallace was a Freedom Rider.

Is this the beginning of a push to redefine marriage to allow polygamy? What do you think?

From CNN:

It’s time to reconsider polygamy

by Mark Goldfeder, cnn.com

December 16th 2013

(CNN) — Polygamy is back in the headlines.Last week, a federal judge in Utah struck down part of the state’s anti-polygamy law as unconstitutional, although he kept the ban on possessing more than one marriage license at a time. Fans of the “Sister Wives” reality TV stars, who filed the suit, are rejoicing in the news.At the other end of the spectrum, TLC debuted its newest docuseries, “Breaking the Faith,” which tells the dark story of women and children trying to escape from the practice.

Another lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice alleges that polygamous clans are secretly running the show in Utah and Arizona townships, manipulating the political process from behind the scenes. And in Texas, the Attorney General’s Office is inchingcloser to seizing a massive polygamous ranch.Across the country, angry citizens are calling for the government to follow its own laws and crack down on polygamy.

Meanwhile, celebrities like Akon and various news outlets encourage people of all ages to reconsider plural marriage.What competing narratives about polygamy in America reveal is that whether or not a white-washed, clean-cut version of plural marriage could in theory legally exist, in practice it does not, and what states like Utah, Arizona and Texas actually have is an unregulated, dangerous and harmful situation, where the strong prey upon the weak and helpless.The time has come to address this discrepancy. When the Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act in U.S. v. Windsor in June, opening the door to federal recognition of same-sex marriage, it also set the stage for a discussion of plural marriage.DOMA defined marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.”

While DOMA obviously prohibited same-sex marriage (by requiring that a marital unit consist of a man and a woman), it also enshrined the prohibition against polygamy, by requiring that such a union be between only one man and one woman. Even before Windsor the Supreme Court had declared morals-based legislation invalid, renewing interest in polygamy. But in calling DOMA definitions unconstitutionally restrictive, the court, perhaps unwittingly, also struck down the federal numerical limitation in a marriage, immediately re-opening the possibility of plural marriage at the state level. Activists have taken note, and are only getting louder.

From Psychology Today:

The Three Reasons for Polygamy

by Nigel Barber, psychologytoday.com

October 23rd 2012

Both candidates for the presidency owe their very existence to polygamy (1). President Obama’s father belonged to the polygamous Luo tribe. Mitt Romney’s paternal great grandfathers moved to Mexico to continue the Mormon practice of polygamy then outlawed in the U.S. So the time is ripe to ask what advantages polygamy has over monogamy.

Although plural marriage is banned in developed countries, it is surprisingly common, and popular, elsewhere with 55 percent of women sharing their husbands in Benin and an average of 16 percent of women doing so in less developed nations (2). Polygamy may be detested in developed countries but it is practiced to some degree in most societies studied by anthropologists. What did polygamy do for the Obamas and the Romneys that they could not accomplish with monogamy?

Studies in animal behavior show that polygynous mating systems (i.e., one male mating with several females) have at least three possible advantages.

From Salon:

Legalize Polygamy!

No. I am not kidding.

By Jillian Keenan

Sister-wives Valerie, left, and Vicki serve breakfast to their children in their polygamous house in Herriman, Utah, in this file photo from May 30, 2007. Polygamy, once hidden in the shadows of Utah and Arizona, is breaking into the open as fundamentalist Mormons push to decriminalize it on religious grounds, while at the same time stamping out abuses such as forced marriages of underage brides.

Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?

We can only hope.

Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too. Legalized polygamy in the United States is the constitutional, feminist, and sex-positive choice. More importantly, it would actually help protect, empower, and strengthen women, children, and families.

For decades, the prevailing logic has been that polygamy hurts women and children. That makes sense, since in contemporary American practice that is often the case. In many Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints polygamous communities, for example, women and underage girls are forced into polygamous unions against their will. Some boys, who represent the surplus of males, are brutally thrown out of their homes and driven into homelessness and poverty at very young ages. All of these stories are tragic, and the criminals involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. (That goes without saying, I hope.)

But legalizing consensual adult polygamy wouldn’t legalize rape or child abuse. In fact, it would make those crimes easier to combat.

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