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Legal expert Jonathan Turley said consenting adult polygamists who ‘do not believe in child brides’ should be allowed to formalize their relationships. The issue made national headlines this year when law enforcement officials raided the compound of a polygamist sect in Texas and removed hundreds of children. (Photo by Tony Gutierrez/AP)
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: JOEY DiGUGLIELMO COMMENTS
 
| Editors’ note: This is the second in a two-part series in which the Blade invited legal experts to address some of the arguments raised by opponents of same-sex marriage in light of the May 15 California marriage ruling. See "Answering tough questions raised by Calif. ruling" to read part one, which addressed religious freedom issues. |
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pan style="font-style: italic;">pan style="font-weight: bold;">If two men or two women can marry in some parts of the country, could it, in time, lead to a repeal of U.S. polygamy laws?
Esther Rothblum, a lesbian professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University who published a three-year study on the effects of Vermont’s civil unions law, stresses that the California Supreme Court ruling has nothing to do with polygamy and said she doesn’t fear same-sex marriage leading to a repeal of polygamy laws.
“You hear people say that all the time,” she said. “‘Oh next they’ll rule that somebody can marry their dog,’ that kind of thing. But historically laws haven’t led to those kinds of things in other areas. For instance when women won the right to vote, it didn’t lead to children being able to vote, animals being able to vote. Nobody’s arguing for any of that. In a legal sense, I just don’t see that kind of thing happening.”
pan style="font-weight: bold;">pan style="font-style: italic;">But there are thousands of polygamists in the U.S., as the removal of more than 400 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, illustrated. Could polygamy have a legal future in the U.S.?
The experts who spoke to the Blade said no.
“People bring that up and say then why can’t people marry their dog but I think that kind of argument says a lot about the individual bringing it up,” said Kimberly Richman, a sociology professor at the University of San Francisco who specializes in gay and lesbian parenting.
“This was the end of a decades-long struggle. I’m not sure polygamists have the political lobbying force to do that. I don’t see groups of polygamists gathering in New York and Washington and San Francisco. They’re mostly in Utah and don’t tend to have a lot of pull as a social movement. This wouldn’t have happened on its own.”
Chai Feldblum, a lesbian and professor of law at Georgetown University, doesn’t buy the “paving the way” argument.
“[The defendants in the California case] were coming into this arguing that marriage is still a relationship between two people,” she said. “I don’t see anything in this decision that would lend anything to [the polygamy] argument because it’s really like apples and oranges.”
First Amendment expert Jonathan Turley, who teaches at George Washington Law School, said any correlations between polygamy and same-sex marriage have been “overplayed.”
Turley, who’s straight, said a more apt comparison would be the 2003 overturning of Lawrence v. Texas, in which the U.S. Supreme Court repealed sodomy laws, because polygamy laws would have to be overturned before marriage rights could be granted.
The comparison makes some gay activists uncomfortable because there are aspects of the same-sex marriage debate that Turley said could have ramifications for polygamists.
“There’s something ironic here because you’d think there’d be a natural alliance between the groups and yet they don’t want to have anything to do with each other,” Turley said. “Every time I write an op-ed about polygamy, gay and lesbian activists I know always say, ‘You’re making this tough for us.’”
Turley said consenting adult polygamists who “do not believe in child brides” should be allowed to formalize their relationships, a view he admits is unpopular.
“I don’t like polygamy but that’s not what’s important here,” he said. “What it means for gays and lesbians is that eventually they’ll have to unite on a single, cohesive principle about this. There will have to be a new definition of marriage because it’s disingenuous to say that gays and lesbians should be included in marriage but then for them to exclude others.”
pan style="font-weight: bold;">pan style="font-style: italic;">Is it unfair for a slim majority of judges to vote against the will of the people of California who, in 2000, made their opposition to same-sex marriage known by approving Proposition 22 by 61 percent? Shouldn’t the people have the say on something so significant?
No, experts the Blade talked to said.
“There’s a reason we have separation of powers,” Richman said. “It’s because you can’t always trust the majority to protect the minority’s rights. ...
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