Below is my column in the Washington Post (Sunday) on our recent victory in the Sister Wives case. The column looks at the most significant aspect of the case — the rejection of morality codes that once controlled across the country in prohibiting everything from homosexuality to adultery to fornication. These morality laws were upheld in the decision in Reynolds in 1876 in a polygamy case out of Utah. The Brown decision returned us to the same question involving the same issue in the same state. Some 136 years later however the answer from this federal court was very different. We are a different country today and, despite what one hears from politicians like Rick Santorum, I believe that we are a better country today.
There does seem to be confusion about the ruling with some saying that polygamy is still not legal after the opinion. That is simply wrong. Polygamy is not the same a bigamy. One is the crime defined under cohabitation statutes of living as a plural family or with a person married to another person. The other is the crime of having two or more marriage licenses. The latter has nothing to do with the structure of your family and has almost exclusively involved people who hold themselves out (falsely) as monogamous. We always argued that the state could prosecute people who obtained more than one marriage license. Bigamy has not been an offense committed by polygamists who traditionally have one official marriage license and multiple spiritual licenses. Indeed, the law targeted polygamy with the cohabitation provision precisely because there is a difference between the two. The state fought for years to preserve this law because it reached beyond simple bigamy. Before this opinion, it was a crime for polygamists to live, as do the Browns, in a plural family. After the opinion, it is legal. This is precisely what occurred in Lawrence v. Texas where homosexual unions were a crime but then became legal when the Texas law was struck down. This decision legalizes tens of thousands of polygamous families who will no longer been viewed as criminal enterprises. They will be allowed to be open plural families. They are now legal relationships. Legality of polygamy is entirely different from recognition of plural marriages just as the legality of homosexual relations is different from the recognition of same-sex marriage.
There is also a lack of knowledge about the existence of such laws outside of Utah. This law does exist outside of Utah. Indeed, the very same language is found in the Canadian cohabitation law. I was called as a legal expert in the recent challenge to that law. However, the Canadian Supreme Court in British Columbia upheld the law. Putting these distinctions aside, the thrust of this article is how this decision is part of a larger trend toward the repeal or the striking down of morality codes, including the rejection of a cohabitation law in Virginia this year.
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The decision this month by a federal court striking down the criminalization of polygamy in Utah was met with a mix of rejoicing and rage. What was an emancipating decision for thousands of plural families was denounced as the final descent into a moral abyss by others.
Former senator Rick Santorum was among the social conservatives trying to claim the moral high ground. He tweeted on Sunday: “Some times I hate it when what I predict comes true” — referring to his 2003 claim that legalizing “consensual sex within your home” would lead to the legalization of polygamy and “undermine the fabric of our society.” (On Wednesday, with no apparent sense of self-contradiction, he expressed outrage over the removal of a Nativity scene at a South Carolina military base, tweeting: “Our Constitution protects free exercise of religion. No govt entity/official has the right to limit that.”)It’s true that the Utah ruling is one of the latest examples of a national trend away from laws that impose a moral code. There is a difference, however, between the demise of morality laws and the demise of morality. This distinction appears to escape social conservatives nostalgic for a time when the government dictated whom you could live with or sleep with. But the rejection of moral codes is no more a rejection of morality than the rejection of speech codes is a rejection of free speech. Our morality laws are falling, and we are a better nation for it.
In the Utah case, I was the lead counsel for the Browns, the polygamous family featured in the TLC reality program “Sister Wives.” They are members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, and they have one marriage license and three “spiritual” marriages among them. After the first episode of “Sister Wives” aired, state prosecutors threatened to bring charges under a Utah law that made it a crime when a married person “purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.” The Browns were under investigation for two years and were publicly called felons before they took prosecutors to court in a challenge to the constitutionality of the law.
The case was never about the recognition of multiple marriages or the acceptance of the religious values underlying this plural family. It was about the right of consenting adults to make decisions for themselves and their families. Judge Clark Waddoups, a conservative George W. Bush appointee,ruled that the criminalization of cohabitation clearly violated the due process clause and the free exercise clause of the United States Constitution.
In doing so, he departed from the prevailing precedent: the Supreme Court’s opinion inReynolds v. United States , which upheld a ban on polygamy in 1879. Waddoups wrote that courts today are “less inclined to allow majoritarian coercion of unpopular or disliked minority groups, especially when blatant racism . . . religious prejudice, or some other constitutionally suspect motivation, can be discovered behind such legislation.”
Indeed, in Reynolds, religious and racial prejudice were vividly on display. The court unleashed a tirade of indignation and condemnation, stating, “Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.” Just a few years later, the Supreme Court also upheld the criminalization of mixed-race relations in Pace v. Alabama .
The idea that polygamy was a “barbarous practice” and contrary to democratic principles drove the demand in the late 1880s and ’90s that Utah outlaw it as a condition of statehood. And in Mormon Church v. United States (1890), the Supreme Court labeled polygamy as “abhorrent to the sentiments and feelings of the civilized world.”
The stigma attached to polygamy continued to distort legal analysis into this century. As recently as 2006, Utah Justice Ronald Nehring began his opinion in a ruling upholding the criminalization of polygamy by lamenting, “No matter how widely known the natural wonders of Utah may become, no matter the extent that our citizens earn acclaim for their achievements, in the public mind Utah will forever be shackled to the practice of polygamy.” Nehring frankly admitted that this hostility “has been present in my consciousness, and I suspect has been a brooding presence . . . in the minds of my colleagues, from the moment we opened the parties’ briefs.” Rather than overcome that prejudice, Nehring not only yielded to it but warned any Utah judge of the peril of being the first to recognize the rights of polygamists: “I have not been alone in speculating what the consequences might be were the highest court in the State of Utah the first in the nation to proclaim that polygamy enjoys constitutional protection.”
Well, it wasn’t. A federal judge in Utah assumed that burden. Gov. Gary Herbert objected to the court making “decisions on social issues.” (He has not yet announced an appeal.) Waddoups, however, was not dictating a decision on a social issue but rather saying that governments could not impose a single version of morality. He limited prosecution under Utah’s anti-polygamy law to cases of bigamy, where someone acquires more than one marriage license — which is an offense more common to monogamous couples, who care about state recognition, than polygamists, who care about spiritual recognition.
Across the country, the era of morality codes is coming to an inglorious end. This year, the Supreme Court struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act barring the federal recognition of same-sex marriage. And this week, the New Mexico Supreme Court and another federal judge in Utah struck down the ban on same-sex marriage in those states — bringing the number to 18 states (plus the District of Columbia) where same-sex couples can marry. Meanwhile, Virginia recently repealed its 1877 cohabitation law and Colorado replealed a criminal adultery law from the 1850s — both relics of a time when states used their criminal codes to force citizens to comply with the religious values of their neighbors.
Most states have wisely turned away from absurd laws criminalizing masturbation and fornication. Obscenity laws have also been curtailed by the Supreme Court in deference to the First Amendment.
Still rightly on the books are laws against bestiality, which involves an obvious lack of consent as well as manifest harm. Likewise, incest bans are based on claims of medical, not moral, harm.
Once any crimes or abuses are stripped away in cases like the Browns’, what remains is religious animus. Yet, polygamy is widely practiced around the world by millions of families and was condoned by every major religion — from Judaism to Christianity to Islam — at one time. While plural families are called polygamists in our popular lexicon, “polygamy” actually refers to a broad array of plural relationships, from polygyny (one husband and multiple wives, like the Browns) to polyandry (a single wife and multiple husbands) to polyamory (couples who reject the exclusivity of sexual relations). The vast majority of these families are based on consenting relations among adults without abusive or criminal histories.
Critics often ignore these other plural relationships (and even polygynists like the Browns) in favor of a stereotype of “compound polygamists,” living in remote walled communities where women appear captive and molestation flourishes. It is Warren Jeffs, not Kody Brown, whom critics want to invoke in debating decriminalization — a sinister figure in a secluded compound where women wear prairie outfits and hairdos from the 19th century.
Obviously, there will always be abusers like Jeffs among polygamists — just as there are abusers among monogamists. However, it is no more persuasive to criminalize all plural relationships because of a small number of abusive individuals than it would be logical to outlaw monogamy based on the convicted spouse- and child-abusers in conventional marriages.
One of the great ironies about the focus on compound polygamists is the circular logic of criminalization. The government first declared polygamists felons and then pointed to their hiding as evidence of their guilt. But decriminalization will allow these families to be plural, open and law-abiding as they reintegrate into society.
In truth, 19th-century Americans were no more moral than we are today. It simply appeared that way with the imposition of official morals, including (as Santorum recalls so fondly) being told whom we could love in our own homes. It is not a single moral voice that is heard today but a chorus of voices. Each speaks to its own values but joins around a common article of faith: the belief that morality is better left to parents than to politicians.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and lead counsel in the “Sister Wives” polygamy case.
Washington Post (Sunday) December 22, 2013
David,
semantics are your forte…..
Bron,
upthread you suggested that a business owner should be able to decide who he or she wants to serve. I guess you agree with Sen. Paul in that an owner of a business should be allowed to discriminate against anyone. Do you truly believe that Civil Rights laws should not be enforceable to businesses? If so, what about laws against discriminating against handicapped persons?
Bron,
Many of us disagree with the world views held by you and Nick–as well as those of some other posters. We don’t consider you and Nick and many of those posters to be paid trolls.
Elaine M wrote: “Many of us disagree with the world views held by you and Nick–as well as those of some other posters. We don’t consider you and Nick and many of those posters to be paid trolls.”
Elaine, do you think that I am a paid troll?
What part of “not your choice/right” versus “your choice/right” is too opaque for you to understand, David?
You violated my choice. You infringed upon my rights.
You control/own your personal information here.
I control/own mine.
So does every single poster here.
If that presents a problem for you?
Leave.
Gene H wrote: “You violated my choice. You infringed upon my rights.”
For somebody with a law degree, you sometimes say the most stupid things. I have not violated your choice or infringed upon your rights. As Thomas Jefferson taught, what is in the mind of a person is private and under his control, but once he speaks it, then it becomes under the control of others. When you chose to make your schooling known to the public, it became part of the public domain and no longer was it under your control. I did not violate your choice or infringe upon your rights.
Gene H wrote: “You control/own your personal information here.”
No I don’t. Once I share that personal information with the public, it is no longer under my control. When I posted my name here, within minutes I received a phone call at my place of business from someone who read my name on this blog. That’s the way it is. Personal information shared publicly becomes public information.
DavidM:
When someone disagree with their world views, they immdediately think that person is a paid troll. I have seen it before.
I wonder how many people get paid to promote a progressive agenda on this website?
David,
Can’t you take an hint…. You’re free to post anything you want so long as it’s not personal about someone on here….. If that person decides to reveal the information then in that thread you are free to use it….. Other than that…. Leave it alone….
Mike Spindell wrote: “Well in that case you can respond to this comment by revealing your full name in the body of the comment.”
I tried, but WordPress snagged it. Maybe a guest blogger can free it.
Skip: Unalienable Right: ones ability to sustain ones life, liberty and property as long as one does not initiate force or fraud against others or their property?
No, we will never agree, because I do not believe in any “unalienable” Rights; I think all Rights are conditional; even our right to life. Certainly our rights to liberty and any rights to property.
I do not believe in your property rights, or any right to exist within the borders of my country without any obligation to pay taxes or provide public service to your fellow man.
I believe in society, and I believe that the more one profits from society the greater their responsibility to it and to those that are profiting from it least. I do not believe money earned from your labor is entirely your property, it is impossible to earn that money without consuming many resources of society and society deserves its fair share for its contribution of the environment in which the money was earned.
I think I know what you believe in, it is a creed I consider so short-sighted that I reject it as unsalvageable. How could I possibly trust you to craft any rights in direct opposition to your creed?
Tony C.
And who is to choose what rights I have and which rights I do not have. When do I know if I should fight back against someone or some group who is trying to take away one of my rights?
So if someone came and tried to harm you would you or would you like others to be able to try to stop them from harming you.
This is what we are really talking about. If you neighbor is being harmed by someone, would you help the or wouldn’t you.
Tony C. wrote:
I believe in society, and I believe that the more one profits from society the greater their responsibility to it and to those that are profiting from it least. I do not believe money earned from your labor is entirely your property, it is impossible to earn that money without consuming many resources of society and society deserves its fair share for its contribution of the environment in which the money was earned.”
Do you think the system today is fair, because under this system the stats indicate the wealthy are getting richer and the poor poorer?
What type of system would you see that could actually make this happen?
That is the problem with you ideology. It beautiful and I agree with it whole heartedly but there is no known system that can do this in a just and companionate manner.
Like I said, I’m all ears.
“I just put my knowledge about his education in a little different context for Skip.”
Since we don’t have your real name it is impossible for us to verify your educational claims. Would you kindly post your real name so that we could see if you are correct in what you say about your degrees, or would that be an invasion of your privacy? Hskiprob has used his real name on occasion and I imagine that’s because he feels he has nothing to hide and is proud of himself. On the other hand many of us believe that you come here with a hidden agenda and are associated with an organization that disseminates a particular point of view on the internet, but since you remain anonymous, we cannot know that for a fact. Anonymity is your right here and so you can remain the fictitious David M. However, you do not have the right then to research anyone else here and make that information public on this blog. As Professor Turley put it is was “creepy” and as I put it suspiciously ominous considering that I don’t believe you are an independent operator.
Mike Spindell wrote: “Would you kindly post your real name so that we could see if you are correct in what you say about your degrees, or would that be an invasion of your privacy? … many of us believe that you come here with a hidden agenda and are associated with an organization that disseminates a particular point of view on the internet, but since you remain anonymous, we cannot know that for a fact. … I don’t believe you are an independent operator.”
My name is David Miller. I graduated from Pascagoula High School in 1978, University of Southern Mississippi in 1982, and University of South Florida in 1985. I left the Ph.D. program at the University of South Florida in the latter half of 1987 without graduating. Research my background as much as you like.
davidm,
“I have known that Elaine was a teacher. I only feel safe to mention that now because another commentator recently mentioned it without being threatened with banishment. However, I don’t remember where I first learned that information. It probably was from outside this blog.’
I have made it known on this blog that I’m a retired teacher/school librarian who also taught at Boston University for several years. One can also click on “Elaine M.” and be taken to my children’s literature blog where you’ll find a brief bio. My bio doesn’t note where I attended college. I’d assume a poster did some investigating into my background if that person mentioned it here.
Skip,
The Professor has had our bios for some time. As most people know, Jonathan is a busy man who is also devoted to his family. He has not found time yet to post our bios.
That said, I don’t see why knowing where I or the other guest bloggers attended college is so important to you and davidm. As far as I’m concerned, it’s what one does with one’s education that’s of much greater import. I know extremely intelligent and successful people who did not attend prestigious colleges…or even attend or graduate from college. I believe it’s important to be a “self learner.” George W. Bush attended both Yale and Harvard–and he certainly isn’t considered to be the brightest bulb on a string of Christmas lights. I don’t judge people by where they went to school. I judge them by their actions, by what they can do/have done, by what they have achieved outside of school, by how they treat other people, and by the content of their character.
Elaine M wrote: “I don’t see why knowing where I or the other guest bloggers attended college is so important to you and davidm.”
It is not important to me. I was shocked to be threatened with banishment for mentioning it. Education is important to Gene. Gene and Tony mocked Skip’s education. Gene constantly holds out his education as what makes him an expert and authority that should never be questioned. Gene has brought up education, not me. I just put my knowledge about his education in a little different context for Skip.
DavidM:
there is that aspect.
I hope you stay and fight the power!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ4y7GPeFBY
The metaphor of the boom box is quite apt here. The boom box represents free speech and the wall represents our ideas. The bat is the power to ban, the batter, I leave that up to you.
However, the batter should have the right to deny what goes on the wall in his establishment if one believes in individual rights and property rights.
One of my favorite scenes is from the movie Giant, Rock Hudson wants his grandson served and the restaurant owner refuses. A brawl ensues and Jordy loses the fight, the owner then throws a sign on Hudson which says “we reserve the right to serve who we want to serve.”
Both men are fighting for what they believe is right and both are right. In a proper world the owner of a private establishment would have the right to deny service and the customer would have the right to go somewhere else.
That is what is going on here, if you dont like the rules then you are free to leave. I hope you dont, you have some interesting ideas and you present them well.
David,
Did you read my reply to Skip a few minutes ago at 10:15AM? Then Bron’s comment immediately following mine at 10:28AM?
If you feel you need to dig up stuff on people and use it in arguments with them, you have a piss-poor argument to begin with.
For a person to “own” their personal information is not weird at all, and is the rule on almost all blogs.
OS wrote: “For a person to “own” their personal information is not weird at all, and is the rule on almost all blogs.”
It is not weird to own one’s personal private information, but it is weird to have such a strong expectation of privacy concerning information that the person has chosen to make public.
Nevertheless, I do hear Bron’s point that repeating it here might make it easier for people to connect who the blogger actually is. So it appears that the speech rule concerns the idea of a guest blogger maintaining some level of anonymity even when they are not allowed to be anonymous by virtue of the rule concerning a guest blogger not being allowed to be anonymous.
Tony,
No offense taken. It’s not the first time I’ve been called “it”. 😀
______________
David,
You’ve been told what the policy is. If you continue to have an issue with it, I suggest you take it up with our host directly.
Skip, don’t try to rewrite history. On Dec 24 at 10:29 AM you wrote:
I will protect “all” your unalienable rights, no matter what, how or who you think you derive them from. I do not want to choose what rights you wish to utilize nor do I care who are where you derive them from.
That was in response to my question “who decides what the unalienable rights are?”
So either you did not understand the question, or you evaded the question by refusing to answer where they came from and just saying you would defend them.
If you do not care where I derive them from, then you do not care what I think they are, so I provided an example for you in which that DOES matter.
It DOES makes a difference where these unalienable rights come from; if ultimately they are just unproven assertions of men, then who cares? Why should your assertion carry any more weight than mine? Why should Locke’s, or Jefferson’s, or that of some anonymous Bible writer 1800 years ago?
The point of my argument was that Rights must be derived from reason that society can agree with, they cannot be based on the unsupported statements of somebody you like and think should have authority. Because if the society you live in does not recognize their authority, if we disagree with their reasoning, we will not agree to honor and protect your “unalienable” Right, and it becomes mere whining rhetoric you sob about to comfort yourself while being punished for behaving outside our rules.
There are no unalienable Rights if your society denies their existence. There are some Rights that most people have agreed upon for many hundreds of years, but they are only Rights as long as people continue to agree we must honor and protect them; our Rights require a society to honor them, and defend them, and protect them, and punish the violators of them. Ascribe them to whomever you wish, but the reality is they are nothing but rhetoric until society acknowledges them and puts muscle behind them.
Tony C.
Under the below definition and example would you agree to protect my unalienable rights, if I agreed to protect yours because essentially it’s an agreement amongst individuals, just as our constitution was, except it was signed by representatives and not all people agreed with all the elements of the Constitution, such as Jefferson.
Unalienable Right: ones ability to sustain ones life, liberty and property as long as one does not initiate force or fraud against others or their property?
Also, feel free to amend the definition, if you have problems with any of it’s wording. Hopefully we should be able to come to an agreement on the wording.
DavidM:
Gene knows a couple of things about me that he has never released even though we go round and round on a regular basis.
As smart as you appear to be, why is it so hard to just ignore personal info? There is another blogger who is an open book and is not well received by the regulars, I have seen none of the regulars violate that persons privacy.
Did you ever think that there might be more than one Gene H out there in meat space and that is why he doesnt want too much info to come to light in one location? Just because we have info posted in a couple of different places doesnt mean you want it duplicated. That makes it easier for someone to figure out who you really are, and seeing as how there are crazies on each side of the political spectrum, it would seem like the prudent course to take. Especially since we debate controversial issues.
I dont agree with Gene but that doesnt mean I would not feel very bad if something I posted about his private life resulted in him being injured physically or financially in some way.
Skip,
You seem to be missing the point that both Gene and I were making. There are a couple of points I would like to make:
First, each individual, whether a front page writer, lurker or commenter should be in control of what information is disseminated. In other words, if I choose to not share something, then leave it alone.
Second, what has where someone went to school, or where they live, have to do with the quality of their argument? Or the lack of quality for that matter? An example is whether I went to Ole Miss. That may have been relevant in the story I wrote about the disruption of the “Laramie Project” play about the murder of Matthew Shepard. Having said that, it probably was NOT relevant, since I could have gone to school somewhere else and written the same story. It is totally irrelevant in other stories. David mentioned he went to USM. I guess my response to that is “so what.” If the discussion is about the excellent psychology department at USM, where I know most of the people on the faculty, then it might become relevant, but I doubt it.
If one has to rely on personal information to bolster their argument, then the argument is so thin as to be lost before it began. It is called the argumentum ad hominem fallacy.
As for bios, yes, we have discussed that. It will require professor Turley to do some reprogramming of the site, so it is not a small deal. Going back to the beginning, it should be up to each individual to choose what is posted “in the clear” about them, not somebody with an axe to grind.
There is much outrage among people of all variety of political views regarding government snooping into private lives and communications. It is the height of hypocrisy for anyone criticizing that to do the same thing themselves.
OS wrote: “If one has to rely on personal information to bolster their argument, then the argument is so thin as to be lost before it began. It is called the argumentum ad hominem fallacy.”
One thing I do agree with is that this post from me to Skip about Gene was very much ad hominem. I did that because it is throwing back at Gene what he does to others.
Remember the argument you and Gene had previously made, that if a statement is true, then it is not ad hominem? I disagree with that, but based upon my understanding of ad hominem statements, yes, I am guilty of that in the post being discussed. It was a true statement, but it was directed toward the man rather than what the man said.
The problem is that the speech policy being discussed is not that ad hominem statements are not allowed, but that public information from another site is not allowed to be brought into our discussions on this site.
OS wrote: “There is much outrage among people of all variety of political views regarding government snooping into private lives and communications. It is the height of hypocrisy for anyone criticizing that to do the same thing themselves.”
Surely you recognize that mentioning someones school of twenty years ago is not the same thing as hacking into their cell phones and computers to gather personal data such as where they currently live and who they currently talk with. I simply mentioned his Alma Mater from 20 years ago to compare his education to mine and to raise a question about his bias and theme of indoctrination.
Oops. I said “discredit it” when I meant “discredit him [Gene].”
Skip: For your chicken and egg problem, evolution provides the answer. The egg came first. At some point in time, an egg-laying animal that was nearly a chicken (by modern standards), but not quite, laid an egg with a random mutation in its DNA that hatched the first animal we modern people would come to look upon as a full-fledged “chicken.” That chicken mated and passed along its mutation to its progeny, thereby becoming the first ancestor of all chickens.
I hope that helps.
Tony C.
And where did that egg-laying animals come from that the chicken mutated from?
Tony C. There are some things we may not ever be able to prove how they came about. Evolution is a good theory to explain many things, but it is difficult for humans to understand the concept that something comes from nothing. How do you prove that? That all of a sudden a species starts laying an egg for the first time where before they did something else. Most lightly a live bearer that created a shell to protect it from something but most live bearers, it not a fetus but a baby. The idea that one species can evolve into another is difficult to comprehend, thus we call it a theory. A fish or human to a mermaid. LOL
It’s however, the best theory we have but we can only guess how it might have happened. Who came first the baby or the parent/monkey? Many believe that life went from single cell bacteria that most likely used cell division to reproduce. Where did that bacteria come from? Some say from asteroids, so where did the asteroids come from? I DON’T KNOW!!!! Space? Where did space come from? Anti space?
Personally, I’d rather use my spare time trying to stop wars, poverty and such. I just used the chicken or egg as an example of the difficulty of proving some things and of course you challenge it. Go figure. Lets argue about everything. Let’s argue like an attorney on what the definition of is, is, not really caring about the answer, as long as his client wins and he of course get’s paid.
Let’s try to improve our world. Who knows how much time we have. Are we really creating global warming. I don’t know but what I’ve been told by a geologist is about 400 years ago the earth was also warmer, and it ushered in a period of 2 to 4 feet higher sea levels, according to data from Holland, apparently they only country that kept such records.
I believe right now we have the ability to produce excess heat from cold fusion and more and more highly creatable scientists are coming on board as they see the evidence. That means electrical energy at approximately 80% less retail than we are paying today With No Pollution.
Try getting the money. We need about $37 million to build a factory to produce a system that can run your home that should cost you less than $6,000 installed. My light bill is $240 this month and $400 during the summer. I can have almost free energy in 20 months.
Skip,
First, I’m not going anywhere.
Second, why would I (or anyone) seek to have you banned? You haven’t run afoul of the rules. You argue poorly but that is perfectly acceptable. Agreement is not required. It is, in fact, discouraged. That’s how a marketplace of ideas works. You plead your case and people either agree or they disagree with the option of providing a counter-argument. The best idea wins although technically a stalemate is possible and some problems don’t have any good solutions just less bad solutions.
The rest of what you say is simply frustrated petulance, but no one has even thought about let alone suggested you be banned because people disagree with you. If that were a criteria? Bron would have been gone a long time ago because almost nobody agrees with him about anything.