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?

This Is It

This is it.  This is the moment (one of them, anyway) that I have been waiting for.  Today the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal from Utah (and several other states) asking it to restore bans on same sex marriage.  Read this article.  Though it came as a surprise to some, the gesture upholds the earlier decisions from several Circuit Courts, and tells the appealing states that the argument is dead.  Technically, if a different Circuit Court later rules in favor of a gay marriage ban, then the matter may have to be adjudicated by the Supremes, but that is not a likely event.

You see - Sean Reyes, Utah's Attorney General, is stuck now.  He can do nothing.  His hands (and the Church's hands) are completely tied. Those gays who have already married can move on with their lives, and, presumably, those gays who now want to marry can move ahead with their legal nuptials.

Just last week, Sean Reyes notified the 10th Circuit Court of his intention to appeal the Brown decision (of 12/13/2013) which decriminalized Utah's polygamists. Reyes wants the Court to preserve a law that makes it a crime for polygamists to exist.  In light of today's Supreme Court action, I think he is wasting his time.

I mean, since Lawrence v. Texas (June 26, 2003), gay people have been permitted to exist and breathe air outside of prisons.  They eat, sleep, drink, walk, work, drive, gather, and share intimacy all without being incarcerated.  Now, not only are they permitted to exist, but they can get married like heterosexuals have done for decades.  If gay people, (whom many Mormons despise) can now marry, why cannot polygamists now exist without the threat of being sent to prison for their criminal religious thoughts?

I have said this before, but I always salivate at the prospect of reading the pleadings conjured up by those who want to imprison polygamists while absolving adulterers and fornicators.  I say that because the arguments they contrive are so laughable and stupid:

1. Polygamists threaten the sanctity of holy matrimony in Utah.
2. Polygamists hijack the official legal marriage system.
3. Polygamists are adulterous and sinful.
4. Polygamists burden the welfare system.
5. Polygamists have retarded and substandard children.
6. Polygamists monopolize the pool of available single women.

Seriously, though, there is not one single argument in favor of criminalizing plural relationships that makes any sense when a state is not willing to incarcerate all of its fornicators. You can't not eat your cake and not eat it too. 

I can't close this post without also commenting on Canada.  British Columbia has decided now to move ahead with the prosecutions of Winston Blackmore and Jimmy Oler for polygamy.  Justice Bauman's decision to uphold Canada's anti-polygamy law seems equally laughable in a country that legalized gay marriages in 2005 and recently permitted prostitution nationwide.  Blackmore and Oler should assert that they pay their women, and that the wives are serving as prostitutes.  I only wish Lewis Carroll had been able to include this stuff in his Alice In Wonderland story - it would have made a lot of sense.

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

Supreme Theater

I have mixed feelings about private versus socialized health care.  The U.S. has a lower average lifespan and higher infant mortality rate than most Western nations.  Other than the U.S. (at 17%), no country spends more than 12% of its GNP on health care.  The private system of health care insurance and health care delivery in America is extremely inefficient.  All this notwithstanding, a huge majority of U.S. residents wants the Supreme Court to repeal all or most of Barack's Obaminacare monster.  Most are unaware of the onerous costs of the program that we have barely even begun to suffer.  Perhaps not many remember the sleight-of-hand maneuvers Obama conjured up in order to get the blasted thing passed.  Ordinarily, a bill of that significance cannot be passed without a 60 - 40 majority in the Senate.  Two years ago, the Democrats pulled the "reconciliation" rabbit out of the hat and passed the measure 51-49 in a virtually fraudulent manner.  I have contempt for that - - but what's new?  I have contempt for the fact that in 1819 the Supreme Court allowed a bank onto American soil which would charge us interest and eventually divest us of everything.

This next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will conduct expanded hearings to evaluate the constitutionality of Obominacare.  Yet, I have to chuckle.  Most high school kids can see the writing on this wall.  Without being too blunt, I must note that Obama's latest buddy/appointee, Elena Kagan, is unmistakably socialist/liberal.  Sonia Sotomayor cannot be far behind.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg was another liberal appointee.  Add a fourth liberal, Stephen Breyer, and you are looking at a split decision.  Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia (the conservatives) are very likely to question the constitutionality of the individual healthcare buying mandate.  This leaves Anthony Kennedy (usually a moderate) to make the decision all on his lonesome.  I predict a 5 - 4 decision one way or the other.  Like the polygamy controversy, this too is a sticky one.  Don't try to tell me that it is not undoubtedly political - political not only in the ideological leanings of each justice, but political also in the profound impacts which will come from the eventual decision.  Even the very timing of the publication of the ruling could hugely affect the upcoming presidential elections.  Every one of the justices HAS TO KNOW THIS.  There may even be a mixed ruling - upholding Abominacare, yet rejecting the individual mandate.  THEN WHAT ???

I would have more energy for this great theatrical event if it were not such a huge distraction from the real problem - bankruptcy and liquidation.  This nation has filed bankruptcy three times - 1787, 1933, and 1989.  All that's left for us now is receivership and regime change.  See Deuteronomy 28 - - -

"15  ¶ But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: . . . . . . . . . .

43	The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.
44	He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.
45	Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep His commandments and his statutes which He commanded thee.  . . . . . . . . . . .

51	and he (the enemy) shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.
52	And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.
53	And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:"

Three Tiers

In the seventies, the United States Supreme Court was feeling the need to bolster the civil rights protections craved by certain groups.  If a state legislature got a wild hair to pass a dumb law - like "Negroes must not sing on street corners", then the high court could overturn the law and void it.  As various classes or groups then clamored for similar protections, the Court was then faced with a dilemma.  The question was - how far could the Court go to intervene in state statutes?  By what standards could the Court review the state's laws when someone complained that they were unfair or biased?

There were people who were poor and people who were old.  The Court had sympathy for them, too, so it had to formulate a way of preventing bad laws targeting them.  But surely poor or old people weren't discriminated against as badly as were colored people, were they?

Ultimately, it was decided that the Court would use a "Three-Tiered" framework of review to scrutinize the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of certain legislation.  Thus, if a law impacted people according to race (or even religion), then the Court could apply the strictest standard of scrutiny ("Strict Scrutiny") to that law.  The impacted class was termed a "Suspect Class".  See this article.

The second tier - the one affecting poor or old people - would trigger "heightened (or intermediate) scrutiny".  These people fell into what was called the "Quasi-Suspect Class".  This also came to include people discriminated against because of gender.

The final, and lowest standard of review is the least demanding.  The term often used is "rational basis".  This means that, if the state can show that it had at least a "rational basis" for enacting a law, then that would satisfy the Court - the Court would just look away, basically.

So, in short, if you (as a member of a particular class of individuals) want to be protected from unreasonable laws, you had better be at least poor or old, or, better still - have dark skin.

This process signaled the need to define what a "class" of people was.  I quote from Wikipedia -

"Some of the criteria that have been cited include:

• The group has historically been discriminated against, and/or have been subject to prejudice, hostility, and/or stigma, perhaps due, at least in part, to stereotypes.^[1]
• They possess an immutable^[2] and/or highly visible trait.
• They are powerless^[2] to protect themselves via the political process. (The group is a "discrete" and "insular" minority.^[3])
• The group's distinguishing characteristic does not inhibit it from contributing meaningfully to society."

Certain types of people fell neatly into a class - for example - albinos (or amputees).  Albinos don't get to choose to stop being albinos.  Blacks do not have the ability to choose to be Caucasian.  Old people cannot decide to become young again (except for Joan Rivers).  These classifications are permanent and easy to define.

Other, less easily definable classes include Catholics, felons, homosexuals, polygamists, etc.  In the 1990's, gay Coloradoans fought hard to be viewed as a distinct class (in order to merit "protected status") (see Romer v. Evans).  After all, virtually all gay people feel that their sexual orientation is NOT a choice.  They are unable to experience sexual attraction to people of the opposite sex.

The Supreme Court disagreed and decided that the three-tiered framework would be final.  No new groups could be added to the Suspect and Quasi-Suspect classes.  This was brought to my mind again yesterday when I read a blogpost from a gentleman who insisted that homosexuality is an involuntary condition, while polygamy is a choice.  WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Think about that!  Gay people are drawn to same-gender partners.  They cannot get excited about the opposite sex.  Still, when they bond with one or more individuals, it is a CHOICE.  They select a partner through free choice.  They reject the partners they find unappealing.  Why is this different from polygamists?  The fact that polygamists are a "class" of people who have not been accorded any special kind of status (suspect or quasi-suspect) is the reason why the state of Utah can get away with arguing that its asinine bigamy law is worthy of only "rational-basis" review - that it need only argue that it has a "compelling interest" in protecting the sacred sacrament of holy matrimony within its borders.  With such a low standard of scrutiny, the Supreme Court is at best complacent.  The argument, however, is as flawed as the one promoted by the Prop 8 supporters in California who insisted that if Tim and Jeremy next door got a marriage license, then the neighborhood children would grow up to be murderers - - there simply is NO causal relationship.

If you think about it, there are thousands of polygamous families in Arizona and Utah.  If Reynolds were overturned, what would change?  NOTHING !!!  Their numbers would remain the same.  The only difference would be that perhaps they would be persecuted less, and they would live more in the open, and the Mormon Church would feel a little bit more self-conscious.

I am attracted to Beatrice.  I love Beatrice.  I want to have children with Beatrice.  Beatrice is my wife.  I choose not to leave her.  I love Violet. I can't make myself stop loving her.  She is physically attractive to me.  I am not attracted to Fred.  I cannot make myself be attracted to Fred.  Intimacy with Fred would disgust me.  I love Cecilia and Phoebe.  They love me too.  They trust that I will never leave them or our children.  I cannot make myself stop loving and supporting my plural family.

Tell me how polygamy is a choice.  I could say I choose not to be attracted to Marilyn Monroe, but it would be a lie.  No course of therapy could get me to find her ugly.

I think this is the fundamental logical disconnect in society's view of polygamy.  Society feels that polygamy is a sin, a crime, and that its practitioners should just choose to stop committing this "sin", this "crime".  There is confusion over what is inherent nature and what is moral choice.  Serial killers may be born with psychopathy or may have acquired it.  Therapy does not fix them. The inclinations are permanent.  Their crimes are a combination of nature and personal decision making.  Nature does not excuse accountability. 

I am a polygamist - it's hardwired into my DNA.  You cannot change that.  You can kill me, but, like Ogden Kraut, I will still be a polygamist.  By nature, I am attracted to a significant number of women.  I choose not to commit adultery.  By nature I am not attracted to children.  I choose not to marry nasty women.  I choose to pay my bills.  Most guys I have met seem to have an innate tendency to be attracted to multiple women.  That is biological or genetic or something like that.  The "choice" part comes in when the guy "chooses" to be loyal or not.  Fidelity is a conscious choice.  Polygamous attraction is no less hard-wired than same-gender attraction - - - - PROVE ME WRONG !!!!

I believe that gay people are incapable of undoing their homosexuality.  That is not a choice.  Whom they choose to marry is entirely free will.  I cannot undo my polygamousness - it is a permanent part of my biology.  I do, however, freely choose whom I marry.

My point is that, when the Supreme Court starts down the pathway of defining classes of people, it should remember that I can no more choose to stop being a polygamist (by nature) than a person with Down syndrome can choose not to have Trisomy 21.  My conduct is, however, pursuant to my choice.  No argument defending the rights of gays to marry does not also prove that polygamists should have the right to marry.  If legal marriage can be inflected by gender, why can it not also inflect by number?
---------------------------------------------------------------------