It's All Silliness

Today, (once again on June 26th) the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision.  I'll ignore yesterday's ignominious decision upholding Obominacare.  Today's decision commands all fifty states to permit and acknowledge same sex marriages.

I have been enthusiastically awaiting this outcome - not only for legal and social reasons, but also from the simple standpoint of logic.

In Saudi Arabia recently, two women were jailed for violating the kingdom's ban on women driving.  Their case has now been referred to the Terrorism Court (a court that has sentenced dissenters to death).  Now, I may be wrong, but I think automobiles are a relatively modern innovation. I would imagine that before engines came along, Arabia didn't ban women from driving/riding camels.  When the government gets involved sometimes it screws things up and makes a controversy where there needn't have been one - especially when it imposes an arbitrary discrimination.

Today, as the news media recite the arguments surrounding both sides of today's 5-4 ruling permitting gay marriage licenses nationwide, I hear remarks like - "It's been that way since the founding of our nation", "Marriage has ALWAYS been between a man and a woman", "Why does the Court think it can dictate the will of the respective states?".

Virgil Cooper wrote:

The marriage license as we know it didn't come into existence until after the Civil War and didn't become standard practice in all the states until after 1900, becoming firmly established by 1920. In effect, the states or governments appropriated or usurped control of marriages in secular form and in the process declared Common Law applicable to marriages "abrogated." 

See also UCC - Uniform Commercial Code - 1950 - Approval of the Uniform Marriage License Application Act. (http://www.barefootsworld.net/usfraud.html)

Prior to the states' intervention into the civil marriage business, it was the province of the various churches to decide whom they would marry.  The fact that the states stuck to the man/woman marriage model was perhaps arbitrary, and only reinforced by a prevailing culture which until 2003 saw gays as felons.

Today's ruling gave gays nationwide something that 100 years ago they wouldn't really have needed. What makes the difference now is that since the good religious folks of our country deputized the government to guard and maintain the sanctity of the Judeo-Christian sacrament of traditional holy matrimony, the glorious prize at stake is the LICENSE - a relatively new innovation (like the automobile).

I have said it before, but the equal protection doctrine of the (fraudulent) Fourteenth Amendment makes it silly for the new, Corporate United States government to discriminate on the basis of gender when issuing a license - especially one that is essentially a BUSINESS LICENSE.  Virgil Cooper continues:

In the civil law, the marriage is considered to be a for-profit venture or profit-making venture (even though it may never actually produce a profit in operation) and as the wife goes out to the local market to purchase food stuffs and other supplies for the marriage household, she is replenishing the stocks of the business. To restate: In the civil law, the marriage is considered to be a business venture, that is, a for-profit business venture. Moreover, as children come into the marriage household, the business venture is considered to have "borne fruit."  (citing William Defuniak)

I am happy for my gay friends who can now feel like fully-fledged corporate subjects with equal privileges and immunities granted as titles of nobility in an admiralty jurisdiction.  One news anchor mused about whether we polygs will now step up and insist on equal treatment in the form of licenses for a plural family.  I don't know, I'm thinking about it.

I do think that Utah's recent appeal (to the 10th Circuit) of Judge Waddoups' decriminalization of plural cohabitation is not only littered with typos, but also now is doomed to fail.  While gays have won the right to marry, we polygs are still not permitted to exist.  How silly is that?

The Final Showdown

In one of my recent posts I erred.  I wrote that I did not think it was likely that a Circuit Court would uphold state same-sex marriage bans.  Surprise, surprise - in a two-to-one split decision, the Sixth Circuit overturned lower-court rulings (granting gay marriage) in cases from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.  Read this article.  This is delicious.  Now, with contrasting rulings from different Circuits, the matter must inevitably escalate to the Supreme Court.

Despite the laments of those who insist that the decision whether to allow same-sex marriages must remain with the People of the respective states, it is clear that there is a powerful Popular trend in the U.S. to let gay people marry, and the courts are rapidly getting in step behind it.

I am reminded of the bizarre Reynolds decision.  In 1879, most Americans were enthusiastic over having a federal court barge in and dictate to the little ol' territory of Utah regarding its marriage practices.  We have short memories.

Let us not forget the breathtaking ambiguity in Canada, where gay marriages have been legally solemnized since 2005, and it is a crime to be a polygamist - even an informal one.

I express my thanks again to Judge Clark Waddoups (and Justice Christine Durham) who saw through the exquisite hypocrisies of Utah's anti-bigamy statute and obliterated it even before the Supreme Court has a chance to bless universal gay marriage.

GO TED AND DAVID !!!

Slippery Slope

Sexiest Girl Alive

Who started it ???  Was it Antonin Scalia or Sick Rantorum?  Somebody started it.  Scalia told us (in Romer v. Evans) that we should harbor spiteful feelings against polygamists because they are comparable to murderers or animal abusers.  Rick Scrotorum (then Pennsylvania senator) carried on the slippery slope lament perpetuated by James Dobson in 2004 (read here).

Dobson premonished the day when, as a result of Lawrence v. Texas, "daddies" would freely molest their little girls, and men will copulate with their donkeys.  One thing would lead to another. 

This argument is at best confused.  Lawrence simply made it no longer criminal for gays to breathe and walk free.  Remember that some states (post-Bowers) required people who discovered themselves to be gay to go the police station and register themselves as sex offenders.

Remember that, until last week, Utah's polygamists were de facto felons, criminal for their mere existence.  So, if you follow the Santorum slope, we will devolve irreversibly into bEstiality (NOT BEASTiality !!) as soon as gays can wed, and polygs can avoid prison. 

What these slippery slope exponents forget is that if there truly are people out there who ardently crave sex with their donkey or pet goat, they have probably been steaming up the barn for years already, irrespective of obscure SCOTUS decisions (e.g. DOMA, Prop' 8).  Understanding this, Santorum had better join the farm vice squad and focus on rigorous enforcement of man/beast chastity.

The "slippery slope" argument appeals to the low IQ voter - the person who thinks that if a gay person gets a marriage license, his neighbors will conduct orgies in their basements, and naive Christians will start dating ewes.

The LDS Church spent millions (of its members' contributions) on preventing gay marriage licenses in Hawaii and California - - petrified of the slippery slope.  Its ensuing, ill-fated victories are now coming back to haunt the Mormons.  The Church's PR machine has the foresight of a small goldfish or Chicken Little.

Rest assured, at least 76 countries criminalize homosexuality.  In Iran, it will cost you your life.  If that feels better for you, go live there!  In Iran, prostitution is a crime, so johns "marry" the hookers for the duration of the trick, and then get a "divorce" on the way out of the brothel. Legislating morality is at best a waste of energy and at worst a political deception.

For more on the slippery mind of Santorum, read this.

Newsflashes: - the New Mexico supreme court just ruled in favor of gay marriage, and Canada just legalized prostitution nationwide.  If you want to fix a country's problems, focus on outlawing usury banking.  That way, people will be free and rich and mind their own business.

It's an IQ thing

Today, a federal district court judge struck down Utah's Amendment 3 (the one that declared nothing but a marriage between a man and a woman to be legally admissible).  Christmas came early this year for both the gays and the polygs.

This is big news.  The judge (Robert Shelby) effectively legalized gay marriages in Utah.  By now, (late evening 12/20/2013) already hundreds of gay Utahns have tied the knot (legally).  Read this Salt Lake Tribune article.

Already opponents of gay marriage have cried out in protest - many of them LDS or Christian believers who see this ruling as the virtual end of the world as we know it.  How could an activist judge trample on the state's rights like this?  Don't these judges understand that marriage has always been between "a man and a woman" and that the Bible condemns homosexuality?  Surely the courts should agree that children are best raised in a home with a mommy and a daddy?

These questions expose a deep IQ deficiency.  These people seem to have damaged brains - perhaps from sniffing too much glue or paint brush solvent.  Why are people so stupid?

Legal marriages are a modern innovation.  Religious nuptials go back as far as Adam and Eve.  Adam and Eve didn't go and apply for a marriage license.  When state governments started issuing licenses to prospective spouses, they created a secular scheme of taxation and control, independent of churches.  A government marriage is no more religious than a hunting license.  You wouldn't dare deny a hunting license to a gay guy, so why would you deny him a government marriage license?  Churches can marry whom they want.  They cannot issue work visas to immigrants.  People seem utterly incapable of distinguishing between a religious rite and a government license.

I have listened to the opponents of gay marriage.  They worry that America's children won't grow up in a two-gender-parent home, and that this will ruin them.  Of all the anti-gay-marriage arguments, this one is the most compelling.  However, it is a worthless argument.  If a lesbian couple has an eight-year-old child (from one of the two women), what will be the harm to that child if the women are granted a state marriage license? NONE !!!

The trend is inexorable. The courts are acknowledging over and over that the 14th Amendment demands "equal protection" (or application) of laws for EVERYONE.  Whether or not you like what the 14th Amendment did to this country (turned it into a corporation), we are stuck with it. Gay marriage is soon to be legal nationwide.   Utah is the last place one might expect to embrace gay marriages, but that ship has now sailed.  The state's chief legal officials are appealing frantically.  The Mormon Church is apoplectic.  The sky has fallen. 

They are wasting their time.  Resisting the inevitable is stupid.  It's an IQ thing.  Some people just have really low IQs, and there's nothing you can do about it.  Perhaps if they wait a couple of months, they might just realize that nothing bad will happen.

Quitcherbitchin !!!

Here's The Thing: -

Here's the thing - -

The State of Utah has no attorney general right now.  The last two, Bishop Swallow and Shark Murtleff, are both being investigated by the feds for fraud and corruption. The latter made it his mission to exploit polygamists for political gain.  The former says he comes from polygamy and has nothing but warm feelings for its practitioners.  Either way, technically, their future successor is duty-bound to defend Utah's laws and appeal today's (12/13/13) ruling from the District Court striking down the cohabitation prong of Utah's idiotic bigamy statute.

But here's the thing - judge Waddoups' decision is so well reasoned and so constitutionally sound, that any appeal will be an uphill battle.  Since virtually none of the facts is in dispute, the only controversy is whether or not the language and execution of the bigamy statute are legally sound.

Waddoups voids the "cohabitation" prong as operationally unsound because by the nature of its enforcement it singles out a religious minority for disfavorable treatment (AND because it ignores the freedoms reiterated by the 2003 Lawrence decision).

More importantly, however, Waddoups takes his scalpel to the heart of Utah's polygamy foes by attacking the centerpiece of their arguments - compelling government interest.  Utah's bigamy statute defenders argue that the higher courts must not apply any heightened or strict scrutiny to the bigamy statute because it was framed under a clearly "rational" basis - namely the compelling state interest of protecting the institution of monogamous matrimony in Utah.  Aside from the fact that that argument is silly (does the fact that gay people walk Utah's streets injure the Judeo-Christian institution of holy matrimony?), Waddoups reminds us that since more than ONE of the Browns' constitutional liberties have been hurt, the review standard is driven by the "hybrid rights" doctrine developed in Employment Division v. Smith. Simply put, when both your 14th Amendment (due process) and 1st Amendment (free exercise) rights have been harmed, the level of scrutiny required of the appellate courts is now HEIGHTENED scrutiny.  Turley and Waddoups articulated no fewer than six constitutional harms inflicted upon the Browns by the statute and its enforcers. This means that the state can no longer cower behind the pathetic rational-basis argument about protecting traditional marriage at the expense of the Browns' freedoms.

Thus the court(s) has a duty to take a good hard look at the spirit and effect of the statute and to see if it survives constitutional analysis.  Kody Brown has four ladies.  He sleeps with all of them.  Many Utahns can be said to have done the same thing, just not calling their partners "wives".  Prosecuting Brown for using the wrong word violates his free speech liberties - not to mention his freedom of association and right to equal protection under the law.

Here's the thing - - I invite Utah's next AG to take a swing at the decision in the 10th Circuit.  Waddoups has covered every base in his 91 pages.  Any appeal has to draw on a strong legal argument refuting Waddoups and demonstrating the critical merits of criminalizing religious polygamists.  I submit that it cannot be done.  No self-respecting 10th Circuit jurist would dare disagree with one paragraph of Waddoups' ruling.

Think of it this way - - millions of Americans are deeply resentful of gay marriage.  Their religious sensitivities are mortified at its proliferation.  However, when you get right down to it, the anti-gay-marriage arguments are all groundless and emotional.  My favorite one is the one asserting that children do best when raised in a two (-gender) -parent home.  That makes a lot of sense.  The problem is that you cannot compel that.  If two lesbians are already raising a kid, it is unlikely that that kid's upbringing will deteriorate simply because the two mothers get a legal marriage certificate.  The argument falls apart.

Same thing with plural marriage.  Utah has had tens of thousands of polygs for 150 years.  Traditional monogamous matrimony cannot be demonstrated to have suffered as a result.  There is no rational way to argue that it has.  Perhaps monogamous marriage has suffered FAR MORE as a result of people getting divorced.  Yet the government makes no attempt to outlaw divorce.

So, I say to Gary Herbert and his prospective AG nominee, "Have at it!  Send Jerrold Jensen or Laura DuPaix to Denver to argue that polygamists hurt Utah by existing, and that they all need to go to prison.  See how far you get with that!"  The principal reason (and Waddoups observed this) why these arguments fall flat is because they are tendered in bad faith.  These AG lackeys have NO DESIRE to prosecute polygamists, they just want to wag the moralistic finger of LDS piousness to menace an unpopular minority.  Waddoups saw through it.

All the more delicious is the fact that Waddoups is a home-grown BYU graduate who finally saw through the hypocrisy and bigotry, and dared to buck the trend.  I almost wonder if he isn't going to get pulled in by his Stake President and threatened with disfellowshipment for making the LDS Church look (even more) like a fool.

See you in Denver, Laura.
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Short Memory

Dallin H. Oaks gives 3 fingers

In this photo, LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks is giving three fingers.  I have heard hypocrisies from this guy on other occasions, but he distinguished himself again in last weekend's (October 2013) LDS General Conference. 

I believe that churches should formulate whatever teachings and policies they want to.  The argument over gay legal marriage in America is silly.

Meanwhile, read the following from the AP:
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The Mormon church cannot condone same-sex marriage, even if that stance might be misunderstood or prompt accusations of bigotry, a top church leader has said.

No matter what legislation US states or nations passed, human laws could not "make moral what God has declared immoral", Apostle Dallin Oaks told the church's biannual general conference in Salt Lake City on Sunday.

He urged members to remember that their first priority was to serve God, and the policies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were based on God's decrees, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The church's eternal perspective did not allow members "to condone such behaviors or to find justification in the laws that permit them", Oaks said. "And unlike other organizations that can change their policies and even their doctrines, our policies are determined by the truths God has declared to be unchangeable."

Associated Press in Salt Lake City 
Sunday 6 October 2013 22.16 EDT
 ---------------------------------------------
I just think Oaks's temerity and gall are breathtaking.  He suggests that the Mormon Church would not dream of changing its "doctrines".  Is his memory so short, that he does not remember the Church changing its doctrines regarding priesthood for African Americans, the taking of plural wives, and the identity of God (Michael/Adam)?  The Church changed its prohibitions against abortion, did away with the Seventies, canceled the gathering, changed the sacred temple garment, gutted the temple ceremony with its penalties and more, etcetera, etcetera. 

I am reminded of an earlier hypocrisy from Oaks when he argued vigorously for freedom of religion in America (despite the Church's vengeful persecution of Fundamentalist Mormons for a hundred years).  What is this guy smoking?

I don't argue for the Mormon Church to solemnize nuptials for gay people, but Oaks does what a lot of stupid people do - he confuses religious matrimony with government marriage contracts - two completely different things.  The Church already drastically changed its own definition of marriage, stripping the New and Everlasting Covenant of its critical plural component.  It has no business telling the states how to dispense secular marriage licenses.

Oaks is an intelligent guy - he was BYU president, a state Supreme Court justice, and a University of Chicago (Illinois) professor.  I wish he would use that intelligence to get the story straight and quit deceiving the millions of faithful with the myth that the Church diligently preserves divine, unchangeable doctrines.

Breitbart Agrees

I have been saying for some time that the 14th Amendment doctrine of equal protection spawned the current arguments in favor of gay marriage.  All states are now on a slippery slope to approving it.  The Supreme Court may soon insist.

I have also long been saying that the arguments endorsing gay marriage must equally be applied to American polygamists (see my THREE TIERS post -  http://fallofreynolds.blogspot.com/2011/08/three-tiers.html).

Recent Supreme Court decisions have prompted more commentators to acknowledge these realities.  I quote in full below a brilliant article from Breitbart.com.
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http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/06/30/The-road-to-polygamy

The road to polygamy

by John Hayward 30 Jun 2013

Proponents of gay marriage often make light of the slippery-slope argument that same-sex marriage will lead to legalized polygamy.  I can see why they want to dismiss that argument, but they're being silly.  Of course same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy.  It is inevitable.  It'll take a little while, but it's coming.

Simple common sense tells us that every argument deployed in support of same-sex marriage is readily available to the polygamy activists.  Who are we to tell three women and one man that they can't be in love?  Who are we to deny official recognition, and government benefits, to their loving union?

This isn't just a rhetorical trick.  The essence of the gay marriage argument is that the sex of the participants is absolutely irrelevant.  If that's the case, then how can the number of participants be essential?  Everything except the exchange of vows between legal adults in a committed relationship is being stripped from marriage.  The sense that society has a deep and abiding interest in promotion the union between a man and a woman has been lost.  The question is now framed purely as one of unfair exclusion: hidebound traditionalists, religious zealots, and generally mean people are trying to keep gay people from getting married, but the forces of enlightened tolerance are riding to the rescue.  Read Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in the Defense of Marriage Act decision; he spends a great deal of time thundering that no person of good will could possibly advance a logical reason to prevent the federal government from extending benefits to same-sex couples.  The polygamists will simply take him at his word, and read his decision right back to the Supreme Court, when it's their turn to make a bid for "tolerance."

I don't think the legal concept of "consenting adults" is necessarily voided by same-sex marriage, although it's under attack from other directions.  For that reason, slippery-slope warnings about legalized bestiality and pedophilia are going too far.  But polygamists are consenting adults.  And, as a report at BuzzFeed indicates, they were very, very pleased with the Supreme Court's DOMA decison:

The Supreme Court’s rulings in favor of same-sex marriage Wednesday were greeted with excitement by polygamists across the country, who viewed the gay rights victory as a crucial step toward the country’s inevitable acceptance of plural marriage.

Anne Wilde, a vocal advocate for polygamist rights who practiced the lifestyle herself until her husband died in 2003, praised the court’s decision as a sign that society’s stringent attachment to traditional “family values” is evolving.

“I was very glad… The nuclear family, with a dad and a mom and two or three kids, is not the majority anymore,” said Wilde. “Now it’s grandparents taking care of kids, single parents, gay parents. I think people are more and more understanding that as consenting adults, we should be able to raise a family however we choose.”

“We’re very happy with it,” said Joe Darger, a Utah-based polygamist who has three wives. “I think [the court] has taken a step in correcting some inequality, and that’s certainly something that’s going to trickle down and impact us.”

Noting that the court found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional because the law denied marriage rights to a specific class of people, Darger said, “Our very existence has been classified as criminal… and I think the government needs to now recognize that we have a right to live free as much as anyone else.”

There's nothing illogical about what Darger is saying.  The same-sex marriage movement is predicated on the notion that nuclear families are nothing special - they're just one of many alternative lifestyle arrangements, worthy of no special recognition from government or society.  And the argument has indeed been framed as "denying marriage rights" to classes of people, rather than insisting upon the unique value of "traditional" marriage.  (I find myself using that phrase when I write on this topic, to distinguish the traditionally understood definition of marriage from the same-sex variety, but I've heard it said that qualifying the term "marriage" in any way is conceding vital intellectual ground to those who wish to re-define it.)  Why should the polygamist "class of people" be "denied" these "rights?"

It might be a forlorn hope at this point in the discussion, but I think we should re-examine the vital importance of marriage between men and women to society.  We never should have stopped emphasizing this unique value, and assumed the defensive crouch that lets activist Supreme Court judges sneer that no one can make a reasoned argument against gay marriage any longer.  It won't be much of a consolation watching the polygamists bludgeon Justice Kennedy with his own words in a few years.

Dear Judge Waddoups

Dear Judge Waddoups,

Did you notice today that the Supreme Court (ten years to the day after the June 26, 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas) just struck down DOMA (the federal defense of marriage act)?

I know you have been working for some months now on your decision in the Kody Brown bigamy crime case.  I wonder if you have been waiting for the Supreme Court to share its wisdom regarding gay marriage prohibitions with you.

In a 5-4 decision today, the Court told you that DOMA must fall because government must not single out a specific class of people for favorable or unfavorable treatment.  In his 1996 dissent in Romer v. Evans, Justice Antonin Scalia noted that the polygamists in Utah are singled out for unfavorable treatment.  Three-tiered framework be damned, polygamists do fall into a discrete minority class.  They ARE treated as second-class citizens.  Their EXISTENCE is seen as a crime (as was gay people's existence before 2003).

What is the appropriate prison term for a polygamous person?

 - - - Life in prison.

Why? - - - Because he will still be a polygamist when you let him out of prison.

Clearly, today, the Supreme Court acknowledged the absurdity of this, and now so must you, Judge Waddoups.

Jonathan Turley told you that Utah's ridiculous bigamy statute violates no fewer than six of Kody Brown's Constitutional protections - more than enough justification for strictly scrutinizing this dumb law.  Now you can finish your master-work. If gay people can now marry and enjoy all of the benefits accorded to heterosexual spouses, will you let us thrive and walk the streets without fearing imprisonment?

I am holding my breath now, waiting for you to rule that Utah's bigamy statute constitutes IMPERMISSIBLE TARGETING of a religious minority.  Can you have the ruling finished by 5 pm this afternoon?

Sincerely,

Renn Oldsbuster

DELIBERATE STUPIDITY

I used to wonder why entertainers, newspeople and politicians spoke to the American people as if they were all 12 years old.  Now I think I am understanding why.  A friend of mine from India asked me yesterday if I knew where one can find the best Indian food in the the world.  I figured - - Calcutta, New Delhi, Mumbai .........  "No", he said, "England".

You see, just because the obvious conclusions come easily, does not mean that they are right.  Surely each of us is smart enough to see past the dumb, reflexive responses of a simpleton. BUT NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I look at the big furor raging right now over the comments of Dan Cathy, the president of the Chick-Fil-A fast food chain.  This guy is a southern Christian who disapproves of homosexuality.  His beliefs are based on his interpretations of Bible scriptures.   This is all fine and dandy.  He can believe what he wants.  He goes on to say that God will punish America for embracing gay marriage.  This is where the controversy starts to get more complex.  What is gay marriage?  Is it when a gay couple goes to the local parish church, and the pastor or vicar or priest solemnizes the ordinance of holy matrimony for the couple?

Come on folks !!!  Are we all so stupid that we do not know the difference between an ecclesiastical rite and a government licensing contract?  If I had Cathy's views on homosexuality, I would definitely not officiate in a ceremony marrying two same-gender people.  He shouldn't either.  This whole argument has become so fogged up that it is no wonder that ordinarily, intelligent people cannot see through it.

Let me reiterate - this 14th Amendment, maritime, de facto government to which we are all subject has no business dictating religious compliance to anyone.  It cannot offer a state marriage contract to two heterosexuals while not offering it to two homosexuals.  Plain and simple !!!  Various states are beginning to grasp this, and have allowed gay LEGAL marriages.  Soon all states will.  There is no argument (other than the petulant religious one) that can challenge this change.  The government is not, and should not be, in the business of administering the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, despite decades of appearances to the contrary.  I guess the ignorance comes from multiple generations of people who regularly conflated their faith-based nuptials with the signing of a state contract.  These are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BEASTS !!!  Do you understand the distinction?

People are lining up by the thousands to defend Cathy by buying more of his chicken sandwiches, while others are excoriating him for supposedly hating gay people.  Both sides are confused.  If states grant marriage licenses to gays, this is simply in harmony with the tenets of the 14th Amendment (the legal system which replaced the Constitution).  This shift in no way suggests that the states have repudiated the Bible (they did that in the 1860s).  The people who hate Cathy for his pontifications are wrong to assail him.  If our people went and attacked the businesses of all the folks in Arizona and Utah who despise polygamists, there would be few places left to shop at.

I am ranting about this because there is an eerie similarity between this stupid confusion and the confusion over the decriminalization of plural families.  Some observers (Sanctorum) have lamented that the acceptance of legal gay marriages will be the start of a "slippery slope" down which society will slide into an abyss of polygamous and animal marriages (??).

Just like the animals, we polygamists are not fighting for a marriage license from the state.  We just want to be left alone and not be classed as criminals.  The gays won this battle in 2003.  Just like with the gays, the eradication of all polygamists is not feasible.  The wall is cracking.

Are you still confused?

What Do You Think?

Today, Megyn Kelly (FOX News) discussed Jonathan Turley's case against Utah County's prosecutor, Jeff Buhman, for threatening to enforce Utah's silly bigamy statute against the Kody Brown family.  This case appears to have garnered some attention.  Maybe people are starting to understand that Reynolds must fall.  Sadly, the guests once again entirely confused the effort to decriminalize private (plural) intimacies with the concept of legalizing polygamous state marriages (which the Browns are not seeking).

Even more encouraging is the language used by Judge Waddoups in his recent memorandum.  His incisive, even tongue-in-cheek commentary discloses what will happen when the merits of the case are argued soon.  Waddoups clearly believes that the Browns' rights are being violated by the hollow saber-rattling of Utah's law-enforcement/ecclesiastical/political machinery.  I spoke to a Phoenix reporter yesterday who marveled at the determination of Utah's AG to preserve a law which he is adamant about not enforcing.  One is reminded of the naked emperor once again. 

Today, the media also reported that the Ninth Circuit court of appeals just ruled (2-1) on the challenge to California's Prop. 8 (ban on gay marriage).  The court struck down the ban based on its violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.  We all knew this was coming.  Naturally, Prop. 8 supporters will be anxious to test this decision, either by the entire panel of the Ninth Circuit, or by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Such an effort would be doomed.  Too many states already permit gay marriages (for the same 14th Amendment rationales) and too few of the Ninth Circuit justices are social conservatives to ever reverse the decision.

The irony is that while gays have clearly won the right to marry, we have not yet won the right to exist.

What do you think?
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I like this comment from Turley's blog - 

Sanctorum

Rick Santorum appears to be at least momentarily impacting the political landscape.  Santorum virtually tied Mitt Romney in the Iowa Republican primary.  Santorum had crisscrossed the state, courting evangelical Christian conservatives who resonated with his "social conservatism".  Social conservatism generally involves a pro-life and anti-gay-marriage stance.

Today, Santorum gave a speech at a New England college.  He was heckled by students who disagreed with his position on gay marriage.  He repeated his usual argument that people should be allowed to "do" whatever they want, but that the government should not be required to grant marriage licenses to gay couples.  He asked a student if states should grant a marriage license to "three guys".  Clearly, legalized polygamy would cause the complete destruction of the United States . . . . . . . .

Santorum's position (on gay marriage) is utterly indefensible.  The resistance to gay marriage is rooted in public revulsion over homosexuality, and religious reluctance to accord it official sanction.  The problem is once again the confusion over the difference between marriage and marriage.  There is the church-dispensed sacrament of holy matrimony, and there is the state-issued marriage license.  Are we so stupid that we cannot tell the difference between the two?

Churches have every right to decide whom to wed and whom not to wed.  Since America became a corporation (in the 1860's), religion has been accorded no place in the political process.  God has been expelled from government.  This was not what the Framers had in mind, but it is simply the way it is, folks.  If religion has no place in our government, you cannot use religious and doctrinal precepts to manage the state licensing process.  States issue licenses to pairs of people who want a government-run marriage contract.  Some government benefits and privileges go along with that contract.  None of those benefits has anything to do with religion.  Telling gay people that they cannot get a state marriage license is as ridiculous as telling a black man that he cannot get a firearms license.  You might harbor resentment towards black people for theological or cultural reasons, but that is no basis for denying them access to a secular government benefit.

Sanctorum is charging towards a philosophical buzz-saw.  The argument is 'un-winnable'.  He is almost saying, "No, gay couples, you cannot get legally married, because these religious evangelical supporters of mine simply don't want to allow it."  If we cannot place a religious emblem on public property, we certainly cannot hope to impose ecclesiastical rules on government policies regarding civil marriage contracts.  Even dimwit Canada has figured that out.

Sanctorum is hoping to carry his "socially conservative" message now to New Hampshire where nobody will listen.  Good luck!

Stupid State

I have a lot of brilliant friends (notwithstanding the fact that some of them have large families). In fact, I think that listening to country music does far more damage to one's I.Q. than being a polygamist ever could.

Anyway, one brilliant friend brought to my attention today an exquisite irony that I must pass on. She pointed out that, in Utah:

If you are gay, and you try to say that you are married, the State will go to EXTRAORDINARY lengths to insist that YOU ARE NOT MARRIED.

If you have one legal wife, but you also have other adult women in your family to whom you are not legally married, the State will go to EXTRAORDINARY lengths to insist that YOU ARE MARRIED to them (so that they can call you a criminal).

Go figure !!!

Church Opens Mouth, Inserts Foot (More Hypocrisy)

You know how O.J. Simpson goes to such extraordinary lengths to feign innocence and act like he didn't really kill Nicole and Ron . . ?? I mean - I crack up every time I think about the stupid, bloody, size 12, Bruno Magli shoes. You can pretend all you want but, if you're a murderer, you're a murderer (right ??).

By the same token, the State Church of Utah wants to masquerade as a wise, judicious organization that makes ever-careful P.R. decisions. OH PLEASE !!!!!

Last night, Church security guards accosted two gay men who were walking home from a concert by way of the Church's "Main Street Plaza". The men were holding hands, and one kissed the other on the cheek. The guards accused the men of "inappropriate behavior" and instructed them to leave the private property. The men protested, so the guards forced one of them to the ground and handcuffed him. Salt Lake P.D. soon arrived and cited them for misdemeanor trespassing. In its report on the event, a TV news team showed video of heterosexual couples holding hands and kissing on that same property.

Okay, so let's do the arithmetic on this one. If I were one of those two gay men, I would be calling a civil rights attorney before I had my next meal. What part of S-T-U-P-I-D does the Church not understand? Maybe the whole private property thing prevails here, and the men's case would be weak, but why would the Church even dare to risk the fallout?

It just seems to me that the Church's attitude on certain things is so blinded with hubris, that it regularly forgets to "look" before it "leaps". The word "bonehead" comes to mind.

If I were Utah's gay community, I would get a posse of gay couples to go to the Main Street Plaza on the morrow and have them all hold hands in plain sight. Actually, I'm half tempted to go there with a couple of my wives, and hold hands with both of them (maybe even steal a kiss or two) and see if I can provoke another excessive response from the ecclesiastical plaza police.

Church spokespeople gurgitated the obligatory rationalizations, but I think all they've done is awaken a not-so-sleeping giant!

The question is - did these bruiser guards and their LDS counterparts in the Salt Lake Police Department act on their own righteous initiative, or were they carrying out a tightly-crafted directive from on high? Either way, I predict a storm of reactions which will all bring the Church precisely the opposite outcome from what it wanted.

Here is the double standard - LDS Mormons can be police officers and do the bidding of a Church in their law-enforcement work, while FLDS members have been stripped of their right to serve, because Mark Shurtleff fears that they MAY follow the wishes of their church.

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?