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?

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

They're Not The Same

The Salt Lake Tribune published an article yesterday in which a Deputy Attorney General made some remarkable comments about Kody Brown's challenge of Utah's lame bigamy statute.  In a state whose principal church successfully tells whopping lies to its membership it is not hard to notice that senior law enforcement representatives live in utter la-la-land.

Jerrold Jensen, whose unenviable task is to face down Jonathan Turley, suggested to Tribune reporter, Lindsay Whitehurst, that the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision will not help the Browns' case.  Just so you can see the absurdity of his thinking, let me play this out in simple terms.

When John Geddes Lawrence and his male partner were arrested in Texas for gay sex acts, it had nothing to do with any attempts to marry.  Their crime was their private homosexual sexual activity.  Gays all across the nation would love to get legal marriage licenses.  That's what Proposition 8 was all about.  They don't just want "legal unions".  They don't want merely not to be classed as criminals any more - they want legal, state marriages - - you know - the kind with a state marriage license and certificate - the kind that only legal divorces can undo.

Polygamists have private sex - just like other married and single Americans.  The Lawrence decision made all of that legal, - constitutionally protected.  The sex and the private expression of it between (or among) consenting adults is beyond government's power.  Polygamists cannot be charged for their private sex, and Utah law enforcement officials damn well know it - which is why they now: a.) will never charge consenting adult polygamists, and they: b.) dread having to defend the bigamy statute.  They insist that the law is constitutional, but they insist on not enforcing it.  Let us read what AG Jerrold Jensen said -

'. . . State lawyers, on the other hand, point to other court decisions upholding the ban and say marriage can be regulated by the government. They argue the law is fairly applied to both polygamists and people who commit fraud by marrying more than one unknowing person at a time. Deputy Utah Attorney General Jerrold Jensen said polygamists shouldn’t rely on Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark 2003 right-to-privacy case that struck down laws banning intimate homosexual contact.

"Plaintiffs try to equate private sexual conduct in the home with marriage," he wrote in court documents. "They are not synonymous."'

Honestly, I am confused by his argument.  He says that we polygamists equate our private sexual conduct with marriage.  No, we don't.  We speak of our ladies as "wives", but neither in Arizona nor in Utah does the state recognize or legitimize these religiously-framed relationships.  In fact, in Utah, such relationships cannot claim official marriage status, because they are voided by law.

     30-1-2.   Marriages prohibited and void.
     The following marriages are prohibited and declared void:
     (1) when there is a husband or wife living, from whom the person marrying has not been divorced;
     (2) when the male or female is under 18 years of age unless consent is obtained as provided in Section 30-1-9;
     (3) when the male or female is under 14 years of age or, beginning May 3, 1999, when the male or female is under 16 years of age at the time the parties attempt to enter into the marriage; however, exceptions may be made for a person 15 years of age, under conditions set in accordance with Section 30-1-9;
     (4) between a divorced person and any person other than the one from whom the divorce was secured until the divorce decree becomes absolute, and, if an appeal is taken, until after the affirmance of the decree; and
     (5) between persons of the same sex. 

     (6) Marriages between cats and dogs (yes, I added this one !!!)

I think what Jensen is trying to say is that the crime we polyg's commit is that we think of our partners as "wives", even though the state forbids such thinking, and that we become felons because we wish our relationships were licensed.  On the contrary, we don't wish to have our unions legitimized by the state, and certainly no homosexual has ever been arrested for wishing he could have a marriage license.  Furthermore, Mr. Jensen, it seems to me that it is the state that wants to classify our non-legal relationships as "marriages", so that it can find us guilty of committing bigamy.  Tom Green spent several years in prison for having multiple wives, even though he was legally single.  

Jensen is ostensibly conceding that Lawrence will protect the Browns' sexual activities, but it will not protect the lifestyle they have adopted.  I agree.  Lawrence was never about lifestyle or relationships - it was only about private sex.  However, when Jensen gets to argue his tortured reasoning in January, will he be able to point to a single statute or Supreme Court decision that affirms the criminality of a RELATIONSHIP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ?  I can hear Judge Waddoups giggling already.  Will Jensen argue that our crime stems from our improper use of the word "wife"?

In the 1940's, one of Rulon Allred's wives was arrested for playing the piano at a church frequented by polygamists.  If Arizona and Utah still think that kind of tyranny is okay, I should move to France.

It's A Trip-Wire

I understand that in his comments to Judge Waddoups in the recent hearing on the Kody Brown bigamy test case, Jonathan Turley used the term, "trip-wire".  Turley was talking about the Lehi police and how it was too late now for Utah County Attorney, Jeff Buhman, to walk back his threats of prosecution by capriciously "changing the department's policy".  Waddoups asked Jerrold Jensen how this latest play was not an attempt simply to avoid having the bigamy statute reviewed by the federal court.  Turley was using a metaphor to illustrate how, as soon as the Lehi police opened a public investigation into the "illegality" of the Browns' family arrangement, the trip-wire had been tripped.  The bomb had gone off, and the harm had been inflicted.  The cat was out of the barn.

I would like to be a fly on the wall when a Utah reporter asks the LDS Church spokesperson if the Church feels okay about the Reynolds decision getting tested in the 10th Circuit or in the SCOTUS.  I imagine an army of General Authorities writhing in discomfort. - - - -  "President Monson, since polygamy was ended in the Church because it was outlawed by the federal government - and seeing that it has now been decriminalized, will the Church resume its practice?"

The wall is cracking, and the wire has been tripped.

I see another interesting parallel in the world of Mormondom.  Even in Arizona, I have occasion to run across faithful LDS members.  When they learn of my lifestyle, they are inquisitive, and sometimes uncomfortable.  I guess that discomfort would be equivalent to the discomfort some might feel when sitting next to two conspicuously gay men on a train.  What is it about polygamy that makes Mormons squirm (even the men)?

I have a daughter in her early twenties who also knows several LDS people.  Sometimes she gets into discussions with them about the differences between modern and (her) traditional Mormon beliefs.  Inevitably, with my daughter's persuasiveness, one of her friends learns more than he or she planned to, and the conversation gets awkward.  She will ask her friend if she would like to learn more, and the answer is no.  What could be disturbing about hearing the teachings of Mormon founders like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and John Taylor?

Oh, I know what it is.  They are paralyzed with a fear of learning the truth.  If your spouse were in the armed forces, and two uniformed soldiers came knocking on your front door one day, you too would prefer to turn them away and not hear tragic news.  That is human nature.

Whether they realize it or not, my daughter's friends are looking down at a trip-wire.  It is there, just inches away, threatening them with horror and oblivion.  If they listen more to the message of the fullness of the Restoration, they might suddenly realize that the Church has been lying for 122 years.  Sheer dread !!! Oh, no !!!  How can I live without the Church? - and my friends? - and the temple?   It would be the end of my life, or the world!

The Church has developed a clever decoy - the myth of continuing revelation.  Recent General Conference talks like this one reassure the faithful that the revelations from God have been flowing steadily (in an "ongoing stream") since 1820 until today (with Monson).  This is a deceit for at least two reasons:

1.  The many revelations given to presidents John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff (regarding plural marriage among other things) are concealed from members.  The Church presumes (correctly) that if its members read those revelations, they will leave the Church.  The Church repudiates the revelations to those key prophets. 

2.  After Wilford Woodruff's 1889 (farewell) revelation from God, not a single president of the Church has published (or even received, I believe) the text of A SINGLE revelation given to him by God, where God is the one doing the talking.

If LDS members venture ANYWHERE NEAR these jarring realizations, the bubble is burst, the wire is tripped, and the Wizard of Oz is exposed as a fraud.  So they recoil.  When they start to get that unnerving sensation that their fundamentalist friend might just be on to something, they clam up, shut down, and run for the hills - anything to avoid that trip-wire.

I hope you agree with me that this is sad.  An entire generation of millions is living under the ether of deceit and disinformation.  They are told, "We have a living prophet".  Tell me, dear reader, what revelations have you heard from Hinckley or Monson?  What prophecies have they delivered at the pulpit?  What exactly has our Heavenly Father said to them?  Can you get me a copy of it to study, ponder and pray about?

Bottom line - an ecclesiastical corporation has succeeded in convincing millions to flee from the truth.  They fear the trip-wire, the red pill (see The Matrix).  God told Joseph Smith that this would happen when He said,

 28 "And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel;

 29 But they receive it not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men." (Doctrine & Covenants, Section 45)

Strange

Strange - I think reporters do not know how to describe the twin towns of Colorado City and Hildale.  Some refer to them as the "polygamous town".  What is a 'polygamous town'? - a town which is married to more than one spouse?  Is San Francisco a "homosexual town"? - a town that mates with a different town of the same gender.

I saw a news report the other day which noted that 87% of "black" Americans support the re-election of president Barack Obama.  Why is that?  Is it because black people feel that our country is better led by a person whose skin is black?  Is it because Barack Obama is a socialist, and black people gravitate towards socialism?  Who knows?

Here's another interesting factoid.  You do not own your vehicle.  "Wait !!!", you say, "I have a Certificate of Title!".  Well, a certificate of title is not THE title.  It is a piece of paper that certifies that there is a title, and you do not have it.  The REAL title is the MSO (Manufacturer's Statement of Origin).  Read the following from the Government's Border Protection website: 

"What documents are considered valid proof of ownership for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) purposes when exporting a vehicle / car from the U.S. which does not have a title?

If the vehicle or car you intend to export does not have a title, a manufacturer's statement of origin (MSO) is considered valid proof of ownership."

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When you buy a new car, the dealership sends the MSO to the State.  The state keeps the MSO and continues to own the vehicle.  You are merely the renter of the car, as evidenced by the annual rental payment you must make in the form of a registration fee.

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In other news, there will soon be a hearing to address whether Kody Brown's challenge of Utah's bigamy statute is now moot because Utah County has decided not to prosecute the Browns for their plural purporting and cohabiting. This is an interesting twist.  My sense is that Waddoups will rule that the Browns still have standing to challenge the law because the law still menaces them and they were harmed by a long-lingering threat of investigation and prosecution.  I believe that Waddoups will decide that the law clashes with the 2003 Lawrence decision and is now void.

HOWEVER . . . . . . . 

If the next Attorney General (presumably Bishop John Swallow) elects (or is commanded by the Mother Church) to appeal Waddoups' decision to the 10th Circuit in Denver, the panel may choose to disagree with Waddoups (as it did with Ted Stewart in the Bronson v. Swensen case) and assert that, absent an arrest and a trial, the Browns suffered no "harm" and thus have no standing to bring the challenge.

Just like Obaminacare, folks, this is all political. Powerful people want us polyg's to be outlaws at all costs.  It's easier to abuse people if their faces are on a 'Wanted' poster.

Excuse my cynicism again, but there appears to be nothing new under the monogamous (?) sun.  I'm still waiting for Canada to arrest Winston Blackmore and James Oler.  I'll probably turn blue from holding my breath.

Utah has a Safety Net for polygamists - put in place to rescue a disenfranchised population.  The Safety Net and its sponsors have announced a policy of not seeking the decriminalization of plural relationships.  After all, why would you jeopardize your public funding and agenda by arguing for a disenfranchised population to stop being disenfranchised?

Strange!

 

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 - 

The Horns of a Dilemma

The following is excerpted from an article by Emiley Morgan (of Utah's Deseret News).  Writing about Federal Judge Waddoups' ruling yesterday, she reports:

 ------------

'He [the judge] wrote that [Utah County prosecutor] Buhman conducted interviews with the Deseret News, The Salt Lake Tribune and People magazine where he made it clear that he intended to investigate and prosecute the Browns. "The fact that no charges have, in fact, been filed, does not matter," Waddoups wrote.

"The entirety of actions by the Utah County prosecutors tend to show either an ill-conceived public-relations campaign to showboat their own authority and/or harass the Browns and the polygamist community at large, or to assure the public that they intended to carry out their public obligations and prosecute violations of the law," the judge wrote. "Without any evidence to the contrary, the court assumes that these are consummate professionals making announcements of criminal investigations to apprise the public that they are doing their duty and seeking to enforce the law."'

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In the case before the Federal District Court, Utah's Attorney General argued that the Brown family could not claim standing (to wit - they have had not been harmed or threatened with harm) sufficient to warrant the case being heard.  Judge Waddoups disagreed.  This is historic, folks.  Now the federal courts MUST consider whether Utah's bigamy statute (and the Reynolds decision on which it relies) should be struck down as being unconstitutional.

Snarklips must be stewing still over the Utah County prosecutor's (Jeff Buhman's) blunder.  I love this!!!  Buhman said he was (and still is) investigating the Browns for felony bigamy.  What is there to investigate?  The law makes anyone with more than one bed-partner a bigamist and a felon.  The Sister Wives show is all the evidence he needs.  But now he finds himself in a pickle.  Here are his options:

1.  Insist that the bigamy investigation is still continuing, thus giving the Browns all the ammunition they need in order to prove that they must continue to fret under the specter of the threat of prosecution and incarceration. . . . . . . . .  OR he can - - -

2.  Announce that the investigation is now concluded because he lacks sufficient evidence to prove that Kody Brown is a polygamist (or announce that Utah County has elected to disregard Utah's felony bigamy statutes and will no longer prosecute even blatantly public polygamists like the Browns).

If Buhman takes option #1, the Browns' claim of harm and standing wherewith to challenge Reynolds is reinforced all the more.  If Buhman takes option #2, he further bolsters the Browns' argument that a law which neither the state nor the counties will ever prosecute must be repealed.

Now that Snarklips and Herbert have been let off the hook, they can point the political finger of blame squarely at Buhman - let him go down in history as the dimwit who got polygamy decriminalized.