Ex Parte - Dirty, Dirty, Dirty

Hey folks,

I'm not ready to present this information fully yet, but I want to say that I am thinking about writing a blogpost about some dirty tactics in the Beehive State. I remember watching a great documentary about polygamy and Utah's history. It told of how the dignitaries in Utah were so anxious (in the 1890's) to secure statehood for the then Utah Territory, that they paid $250,000 each (a grundle of dough !!!!) to a New York and a San Francisco newspaper to write glowing stories about Utah's progress away from the barbarism of polygamy and towards a modern, cosmopolitan culture. I guess in those days of rough, frontier ethics, it was no big deal to bribe newspapers to champion one's political cause, however disingenuous.

I refer (very cursorily) now to the Vera Black case. Vera Black was one of the ladies who had her children confiscated by law enforcement during the (Church/State-cabal-driven) raid of 1953 on Short Creek (Utizona). After the idiot Governor (Pyle) and his lawmen lackeys lost their lust for imprisoning the fundamentalist Mormon wives and children, they eventually let them return to their homes. They decided, however, to make an example of Vera Black and her children. Vera Black was a plural wife, and the Utah government goons decided that, since polygamy was "immoral", and that it was a crime to raise children in an "immoral" environment, she could only get her kids back if she (and her husband) renounced their plural lifestyle.

Atlanta attorney, Ken Driggs, wrote a brilliant paper on this case (In Re Black) and revealed a very juicy piece of information (drawn, in fact, from official government records). He pointed out that the juvenile justice machinery (and other [mostly Mormon] government officials) at that time were hell-bent on indicting Vera Black, and on keeping her kids away from her. So hell-bent were they, that they took the liberty of meeting privately with the judge in Vera Black's case and literally instructing him on how to rule. Naturally, like a good, establishment Utahn, the judge complied. Apparently, such ex parte shenanigans were acceptable, if not customary, in that ignominious period of our history.

I think a lot of people in Utah have such a preternatural contempt for plural marriage that it makes them throw their integrity and ethical values out of the window. I think they sleep more easily at night and get a strong feeling of self-sanitization because they themselves are not filthy polygamists. Few seem to consider it to be politically incorrect to disparage polygamists and to wish harm upon them. It is perhaps akin to Germany's pre-war, Nazi, anti-Jewish fervor and hysteria. It makes me wonder what is on our horizon. I like that bumper sticker that reads:

JESUS IS COMING AND, BOY, IS HE P$$$$D !!!!!

STAMP ME OUT !!!

It appears from the article cited below that Harry Reid now wants to stamp us out! I don't know if it was he who used the "stamp out" terminology but, if it was, then I herewith place a voodoo curse on him so that he can end up like Korihor (see Alma 30).

What an idiot! How palatable were the Salem witch lynchings? How successful was the Tiananmen Square debacle? Does he seriously think he can get his SturmTruppen to come to Utah and stamp out 37,000 people? Would he stop after fifty crushings of women and babies because of all the squished bones, flesh, guts, brains and blood?

I think we should change his title from Senator to "Bastard".

Sincerely,

Renn, the Reid-Curser.

Harry Reid Pushes For Anti-Polygamy Task Force
April 16, 2009 09:40 AM ET | Paul Bedard |

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/4/16/harry-reid-pushes-for-anti-polygamy-task-force.html

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

He's a Mormon convert and a Nevada lawyer, so nobody has to tell Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that polygamy is illegal. But having multiple spouses continues, especially in splinter Mormon groups, and now he's planning to make it a federal case. Reid says he will push the attorney general to create a task force to stamp out the practice. The Department of Justice is expected to agree. "We have an obligation to help these women and children who are being victimized," Reid says.

A Veritable Torrent

Wow! It seems there is a veritable torrent of states sanctioning gay marriage.

Vermont legalizes gay marriage with veto override

Today's approval of gay marriages in Vermont was the first to come, not from a court, but from the elected legislature of the state.

Now, all we need to do is convince the good citizens of the pretty, great state of Utah that we polygamists are almost as worthy as gay people are to exist, reproduce, work, (not to mention be judges and lawyers), travel the highways and own businesses.

I have to wonder, from a strict 14th Amendment perspective, why, if legal, government-licensed, civil marriage contracts can inflect based on gender, they cannot also inflect based on number . . . . .

If the current state of affairs is baffling, then your homework assignment is to discover who pays (U.S. Treasury Secretary) Timothy Geithner's paycheck. (HINT: it isn't the United States.)

Writing On The Wall - Irony?

I think I see the writing on the wall. Connecticut, Massachusetts, - now IOWA !!! The Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Friday that same-sex couples must not be denied equal protection of the laws, and must be entitled (like heterosexual Iowans) to obtain a state-licensed marriage. The remarkable aspect of this ruling was that the seven member court was unanimous. Apparently Iowa justices can smell the coffee as well as the roses. ( See more on this from Arthur S. Leonard at Iowa Supreme Court Rules Unanimously for Marriage Equality for Same Sex Couples )

Maybe I'm too childlike in my reasoning, but I don't see how the rest of the states can much longer hold off this inexorable tide of common sense. Marriage was traditionally the province of the local parish church. The betrothed couple would publish banns at the local church, and the vicar or parish priest would solemnize the nuptials. When the government conceived and commandeered the marriage licensing process, it must evidently not have been for spiritual and ecclesiastical purposes. Methinks the motives were more fiscal and political. The States oversee marriage from several secular standpoints:

Spousal immunity from testifying,
Immigration,
Taxation,
Probate,
Divorce and child custody,
etcetera

Let me just go on record here and now that I don't think that any of that civil stuff has ANYTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE SANCTITY OF THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY MATRIMONY !!!.

I know that, in the 1880's, many good Christian folk were eager to have the government get its fingers in the marriage pie so that it could bully the Mormons into jettisoning one of their core religious doctrines. Well, I'm sorry, it's coming back to bite. Now that government dispenses official matrimonial benefits, obligations, privileges and immunities, there is nothing "holy" about civil marriage. Whether or not you are a fan of the 14th Amendment, it plainly says that everybody is equal, and everybody has to be treated equally by the corporate United States of America.

The California Supreme Court is preparing to issue its opinion in reference to the recently passed Proposition 8. If it decides like it did in the case of Proposition 22, then California should soon be celebrating the permanent future of gay marriage. It's just a matter of time. I get steamed when I hear talk of the State's right to protect the institution of marriage. Should the State be protecting the institution of infant baptism, too?

Come on, folks, it's as plain as the nose on your face. The 2003 LAWRENCE v. TEXAS decision says that States cannot enact legislation to target the conduct of a specific minority, just because they happen to find that conduct to be morally repugnant. Now, I am a straight person so I am not attracted to my own gender. I think that one's attractions are immutable. That is why the court system doesn't believe that pedophiles can be re-programmed to prefer grown-ups over children. Sexual orientation appears to me to be a lifetime trait. With that in mind, I'd like someone to explain to me why the ability to love three women is any less a lifetime proclivity than same-sex attraction.

So, the writing is on the wall. Gay marriage is soon to be as nationally embraced as it is in Canada. Is it not lopsided that, while many states are openly embracing their gay citizens in the sacred, holy, government-sponsored rite of divine civil matrimony, we Utah polygamists are still struggling simply not to be thrown in prison and not to have our homes, trusts, careers and children be taken away by government thugs who just happen to find our lifestyle to be morally repugnant?

Irony?