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’.
