Who Will Be Hurt?

North and south of our northern border, there are scores of political folks who have almost made it their life's mission to make sure that plural marriage will never be decriminalized.  If you pay any attention to the hysterical pleadings of the Canada A.G.s and their pseudo-expert scholars, you'll notice their fears that the decriminalization of polygamy will cause our modern western cosmopolitan society to come to a grinding halt - a vision akin to the plight of Will Smith's character in the "I Am Legend" movie.

If polygamy is decriminalized in British Columbia and Utah, will several of the nuclear reactors in the U.S. melt down?  Will half the population succumb to AIDS?  Will Barack Hussein Soetoro Obama win a second term?  Will the Federal Reserve be forced to agree to be audited?  Will the sex offenders on your street rape your daughters?  Will the sky fall in?  Will God be found to have died in the sixties as was once alleged?  Will the honeybees die off entirely?  Will California fall into the ocean?  Will crops cease to grow?  Will it be revealed that the 9/11 attacks were plotted by U.S. government insiders?  Will Mormons all lose their temple recommends?  Will it be discovered that no LDS Church president had a revelation from God after 1889?  Will the federal government run out of our money?  Will half of the Arab world be on our doorstep tomorrow?  Will the judicial system crumble under the sheer weight of family confusion?

Seriously, though, if polygamy is decriminalized (like homosexuality was in 2003), what bad stuff will happen?  Who will be hurt?  Will more teens be molested - or fewer?  If you hate polygamy, tell me what bad stuff will ensue as a result of decriminalization.  Will the government lose its ability to persecute us?  Will politicians have no more minorities to exploit?  Will Latter-day Saints have no one left to be creeped out about?  Will the Church have to stop marginalizing and vilifying us?  Will Thomas F. Monsoon have to start solemnizing pliggy weddings in the temples? - - - - - - Naahhhh !!!

I'm sorry, it would be one thing if there weren't already tens of thousands of polygs having virtually no bad impact on society - - if the politicians were really sincere in their criticism of us and actually had the courage to follow through with their threats and prosecutions. 

Frankly, I think the whole decriminalization argument is silly.  The question is not just - who would be hurt? - but rather - what would even change?  We won a de facto decriminalization with the gays through Lawrence in 2003.  The only thing that could change would be that people would not be so quick to call us criminals, to call us "polyg"s, to refuse us employment, to invade our schools, to confiscate our livelihoods, to snatch our children, to patronize us, to accuse us of being welfare cheats, to accuse of being child molesters, to laugh at our clothing, to accuse us of racketeering, to deny us the opportunity to be public servants, to spread silly rumors about us in the media without evidence, and to view us as lower than Nazi war criminals . . . . . . . . OR would those things change?

I say that not much would change, and no one would be hurt.  So, you decide.