Did Our Fight For Marriage Equality Result In Legalizing Polygamy?

Well, the wingnuts were right after all.

Remember when the fight for marriage equality began and all those folks — like Frothy Mix Santorum and Mike Huckleberry Hound — came out swinging that if we were to allow The Gays to get married it would open the floodgates for people to have multiple spouses — polygamy — and people to marry their children, their dogs or houses or books or lamps?

It’s happened.

Last Friday a federal judge overturned much of Utah’s law banning polygamy, proving Santorum was right that —

What? The overturning of the law has nothing to do with marriage equality? In fact, it really has nothing to do with marriage at all? Sister Wives say what?

Yes, Sister Wives; the Utah case involved a suit filed by Kody Brown and his “wives” — Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn — all featured on the TLC “documentary” Sister Wives. Brown’s argument was that Utah’s anti-polygamy laws infringed upon his Mormon religious practice — his religious freedom — and the privacy of him and his wives.

Well, District Court Judge Clark Waddoups — a George W. Bush appointee … so all y’all wingnuts can save your Thanks Obama for another time — agreed, though the decision still says it is illegal in Utah to be legally married to more than one person at the same time.

So, what exactly was overturned?

The polygamy laws in Utah go far beyond limiting an individual to only one marriage license, the statute also prohibits “cohabitation,” referring to any situation in which a married person “purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.”

See, even though Kody Brown only is legally married to just one of his wives — he has had “spiritual” commitment ceremonies with the others — the  fact that he has a living arrangement that includes other individuals he refers to as wives — deemed “religious cohabitation” in the Mormon context of multiple marriages — was a violation of the law.

So, you see, Kody Brown is not going to be able to marry anyone else unless he divorces the one wife to whom he is legally wed.

And though conservatives may try to continue demonizing The Gays by claiming polygamy is part of the slippery slope of same-sex marriage, polygamy is actually the result of the very same “religious liberty” that people like Santorum and Huckabee claim marriage equality infringes upon.

The Gays and their fight for equality did not bring on the legalization of polygamy, or bigamy, or incest, or marrying an inanimate object … though Karen Santorum might be hard-pressed to prove she hasn’t done that.

Just sayin’.

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