A friend sent me two articles from a
Utah Fox television station. The first is a great recap of the events of yesterday at the
10th Circus Court of Appeals in Denver. Jonathan Turley represented the
Kody Brown family in its lawsuit against Utah's bigamy statute. The
reporter, Ben Winslow, told me that much of the court hearing focused on
standing. Again, Utah's Parker Douglas (in his appeal) argued that the
Browns were never at risk of being prosecuted for their polygamy, so they had
no standing to complain of being harmed by the statute.
We find in another report today by Ben Winslow that there is purportedly a
mystery anti-polygamy bill lurking in the Utah legislature that seeks to
"re-criminalize" people who live with others and purport to be
married.
"It wouldn't make cohabitation a crime unless
they were 'purporting' to be married," [Parker] Douglas told FOX 13 outside of
court. "I think it clarifies who might be covered by the law. The reason
for it is to give the public precise knowledge of what is criminal and what is
not."
I'm a bit confused. Isn't this precisely the
same statutory language that Judge Waddoups annihilated on December 13,
2013? What is cohabitation anyway? Is it - "RESIDING WITH -
", or is it - "HAVING SEX WITH - "? I still don't
know. I don't think they know. Besides, who the hell can enforce
that kind of lunacy? And what does purport mean? If I say
my second lady partner is a wife, then is that speech prohibited? Under
the First Amendment, are there still certain phrases I may not utter?
Before the legalization of gay marriages, were gays criminalized for saying
"husband" or "wife"?
One of the justices in the three-judge panel asked
Parker Douglas if he wasn't trying to " . . have his cake and eat it
too?" In other words, is Utah trying to create a situation where no
polygamist can EVER challenge the law because the State can always say that it
has no plans to prosecute anyone under the law? It always comes up with
the same two STUPID excuses -
1 1. "The State has a legitimate
interest in regulating marriage."
Well, yes, of course it does, you idiots, but
polygamists don't get multiple marriages, so they don't violate the state's
marriage regulations. How on earth can you "regulate" who lives
or stays with "whom"?
2.
"The State has a longstanding policy of not charging polygamy as a
crime alone, unless it was in concert with other crimes like underage
marriage or abuse.
If you have read even a few of my blogposts, you are
aware that I simply want to make sense of things. The only thing that
makes sense to me is that no self-respecting attorney would go through these
contortions to preserve a law that the State will never dare to enforce, unless
there were some big fat Church breathing down his neck to keep the damned law
in place so that it can stigmatize and villainize Fundamentalist Mormons.
I still wish that Judge Walter Steed had sued the State. He was removed from his judgeship after many years because of his large family (see this earlier post http://fallofreynolds.blogspot.com/2011/01/higher-standard.html).
I can't read the tea leaves, but if the justices read Judge Waddoups' 2013 ruling, they have to realize that Utah is straining at something absurd. Look at it this way:
A. Utah wants a bigamy statute to remain in force to prosecute cohabiting adults who think of themselves as spouses, even though in the eyes of the law they CANNOT BE SPOUSES.
B.
A polygamous family steps forward and sues the State because the State classifies
the family as felons.
C. Utah says that the family
members cannot challenge the law because the law was only preserved to menace
them into silence, and that the State never had any intention of enforcing the
law against them.
Does that seem fair? Does that seem legal? Does
that seem Constitutional? Well, that is the reality of the situation we
are in, folks.
Before nationally-permitted gay marriage, detractors
argued that (married) gay couples would pollute the neighborhood and corrupt
the children. We all know that that is stupid, because, marriage
certificate or not, the outcome is the same.
Jonathan Turley is dead-on. This case is about
freedom of SPEECH, freedom of ASSOCIATION, and freedom of RELIGION. If
the Browns are turned away for lack of standing (as were Bronson and the
Cooks), who next can challenge the statute? The State knows that EVERY
person it charges with bigamy, Bob Foster, Mark Easterday, Steve Bronson, Tom
Green, Rodney Holm, and whomever, will very likely fight back. Tell me
why Utah never charged David Kingston or Warren Jeffs with bigamy? Utah
is desperately afraid of triggering another test case which could overturn
Reynolds. The State is LYING !!!
This is not a test of Utah's bigamy statute, rather it
is a test of the I.Q. of the three 10th Circuit justices. If they rule
against Kody, you will know that there is great stupidity afoot.
Alternatively, the Church has improperly influenced the Court.
