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
I understand your opinion about the16th, David.
It’s simply not rooted in the reality of Constitutional jurisprudence or in the reality of taxation (especially on the wealthy).
As for your gibberish about “the love of money”? That’s really funny considering you’ve just advocated against equal (and therefor universal) suffrage. And by “funny” I mean hugely hypocritical that you whine about the love of money being the root of all evil and yet you’d give the wealthiest more votes than everyone else.
Pssst!
Your black shirt is showing.
Too bad the courts disagreed with you and Bron in every challenge to the 16th since it was ratified in 1913, David.
Also, the tyranny of money does not come from taxation.
To think that is simplistic, wrong and shows a deep lack of understanding on the causality of corruption.
The tyranny of money – corruption – is rooted in the campaign finance and lobbying systems that allows corporations and the wealthy to manipulate pols like finger puppets.
But taxation? In the form of income tax? Is perfectly constitutional. 120 plus years of jurisprudence tells me so.
Gene H wrote: “Too bad the courts disagreed with you and Bron in every challenge to the 16th since it was ratified in 1913, David. … But taxation? In the form of income tax? Is perfectly constitutional.”
You don’t seem to understand my position at all. I never said that the 16th Amendment was unconstitutional. The 16th Amendment broke an otherwise good constitution. Prior to the 16th Amendment, it was unconstitutional for Congress to tax the people directly. Such was left to the power of the States. The proper ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913 changed that. Now direct taxation is constitutional, but that doesn’t mean that it is a good law. It means we now have a broken federal constitution.
What the 16th Amendment did was move power to the federal government. Now the people are taxed more heavily by the federal government than they are by local and state government. The local and state governments go to the federal government asking for the money to do what they need. Such has increased bureaucracy in the local and state governments by causing them to rely upon grant writing in order to receive more tax money for their projects. This is completely opposite to the way the country was originally designed to work. Previously, the States were more autonomous and held the purse strings. Now, since the 16th Amendment, a path of corruption exists because the root of the corruption is the love of money.
Concerning campaign finance and lobbying, that is just part of democracy. Wealthy people have more power than poor people regardless of what government does. No legislation is ever going to change that unless you get rid of the doctrine of equality and equal suffrage and move toward more fascist and authoritative government. Unless you are ready to take away from the wealthy their rights simply because they are wealthy, they have a right to vote with their money, and because they have more money, their voice will be heard louder by those in power who love money.
Ultimately it all comes down to the love of money. As long as the federal government has this enormous income stream of some $3 trillion, the people who love money will flock to get a piece of it, and the rulers over us will have hearts corrupted by money. Take away the money, and the people who love money will not flock to become politicians. At least some of the political leaders will not be corrupt politicians but noble leaders who serve for reasons other than money.
Davidm2575 & Gene H. — The 16th Amendment was never properly ratified. Two guys Bill Benson and M.J. Beckman in the early 1980’s went to all the State Capitals involved in the process at the time, and got certified copies of all the documents relating to the amendment including the vote counts, the amendment that was passed, or not passed, etc. They published all the documents in a two volume book called “The Law That Never Was” in 1985. It provides 100% evidence that the 16th amendment was “NOT” properly ratified. What the book shows is that the number of required States either did not pass the amendment at all, or they changed the reading of the amendment they passed. Note that the required number of States must pass the amendment, exactly as written and passed by the other States. If you can get copies of the hard bound volumes, they likely will someday be worth their weight in gold.
The ruling oligarchy has worked long and hard at abrogating the U.S. Constitution. Thinking that they are looking out for the best interest of the majority with such polices, is very naïve. As Jimmy Carter is reported to have said; An Income Tax is a Disgrace to the Human Race.
As you said David, the 16th amendment however is really moot in most situations, because the Supreme Court ruled on various occasions, that it gave Congress no new taxing authority and that it was not meant as a tax on private labor in a individual capacity. What is does tax is labor in a corporate capacity and that is clearly shown in the Congressional records on the various debates and discussions. A corporation is taxable on the profits of labor. However, and here is where the confusion exists, if you go to the IRS Code (IRC) you will find that the employees of Railroads are taxable even in their individual capacity. The key is that Subtitle A applies to employees of corporations domiciled in the District of Columbia. In this case, DC is acting as a State, making the so called Federal Personal Income tax really a State Income Tax and why Title 26 is not positive law, Federally. It is interesting that it is difficult to find that actually name of the so called tax. Goggle it and see.
So Congress is not bound by the same Constitutional limitations when legislating for the District of Columbia as when it is legislating for the 50 States, as the Supreme Court has ruled. Of course that is arguable. DC is surely it’s own jurisdiction in addition to being the Government of the United States and there are various State Government buildings in DC as evidence. A Supreme Court case also confirms this. There are at least 5 different definitions of the United States in the IRC. All that one must do is examine the definition of the United States, to see if a specific law applies to you. They don’t make the evaluation easy though. If you don’t believe me, try finding the Federal Statute and when it was passed because if you can, you will place a huge nail in the coffin of the Tax Honesty movement.
It has been clearly shown how the IRS is fraudulently enforcing the Federal Personal Income Tax against most Citizens. Sadly the Judges, the US Department of Justice and the IRS are all involved in the enforcement and cover up of the truth which is another reason why our nation is no longer a lawfully constituted government. To many unlawful abrogations have occurred that thwart the intent of the Constitution and instead of properly ratifying it, the oligarchy chooses to commit insurrection and they will retaliate or ignore any challenges to their power.
Happy Holiday everyone. Hopefully I didn’t just put a lump of coal in your stocking. Everyone should know all this stuff already. All the statutes and Supreme Court cases are their for all to verify. A number of IRS agents have even jumped ship when shown the evidence.
Nick, your reporting of murders in Chicago this year is as bad as your view of history and “neighborliness”.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/03/21738861-chicago-on-pace-for-fewest-murders-since-1965
Time to get a new meme.
Bron says: Did the Constitution prohibit private mail carriers?
I have never claimed that socialism requires exclusivity of the Government. In fact I have noted that Norway has socialized medicine but allows competition from private hospitals and clinics, which are successful despite competing against free health care, because they emphasize service, privacy and luxuries that the free system does not provide (and should not provide, in my view).
Madison had a valid argument, but one person does not speak for all founders. The founders collectively believed in government providing services that all people could use. Federal money that favored one state over another is NOT something that all people could use. Roads in every state ARE, and health care for all would be too.
It makes no difference if the founders agreed on a labor tax. They agreed that the Constitution could be amended by future generations to reflect environments and circumstances they could not possibly envision, and that is what happened: Not “machinations,” but the 16th Amendment that made it legal.
Tony C wrote: “Not “machinations,” but the 16th Amendment that made it legal.”
I’m with Bron on this one. The 16th Amendment broke the Constitution and opened the path to tyranny. Without the money, the corruption would cease to exist.
DavidM: No, people are the source of law. Society is the source of law. Not some imaginary being you only know of because some human told you about it, themselves informed by some human, going back so far that you have zero evidence or proof that your imaginary being was ever anything but a fraud perpetrated on others for power.
Tony C:
Did the Constitution prohibit private mail carriers? I am assuming the founders wanted to have a connected nation and figured the government would be the only entity able to do that at the beginning.
The Articles of Confederation did make the government the “sole and exclusive” power to deliver mail. The founders took sole and exclusive out of the Constitution. As for taxes, they were never meant to be collected on labor, as it was it took 125 years of legal machinations to pass that dubious amendment.
And as far as roads go, Madison canned the idea of using federal money to build canals in New York because the people of Georgia would not use them.
So I submit, it is you who has a poor understanding of our history and founding and the principles behind our Republic. It certainly isnt socialism or any form of tyranny for that matter.
Bron, Yet when I ask the IRS, tax attorneys, CPAs and everyone else I could think of, not one person has ever been able to tell me the name of the Act and what year it was passed, that requires a Citizens of the 50 States and th4e United States of America a Federal Individual Income Tax. If the IRS refuses to provide us the law, I would suggest that nobody else will be able to as well.
Skip wrote: “Yet when I ask the IRS, tax attorneys, CPAs and everyone else I could think of, not one person has ever been able to tell me the name of the Act and what year it was passed, that requires a Citizens of the 50 States and th4e United States of America a Federal Individual Income Tax.”
I don’t know who you are asking, but you are starting to sound like Wesley Snipes. That kind of thinking landed him in prison.
The law is the Internal Revenue Code, known as Title 26 of the United States Code. Sections 1, 61, and 63 impose the tax. Section 6012 requires us to file a tax return. Section 6072 requires us to file on or before April 15.
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/26
davidm2575,
1. What is the name of the Act that Congress passed that created the so called Federal Individual Income Tax and what year was it passed?
2. Why do you think that Title 26 is not Positive Law?
Answer the two questions and be specific; the world is waiting. Do not dodge the questions either, by going into such issues as prima fascia law because the issue is really moot. Congress has never passed a Federal Statute requiring Citizens, as individuals of the 50 States to pay a Federal Personal Income tax on their individual labor. If they had, would not this law be splattered across every IRS document and we know how many IRS documents there are?
Remember David, I’m quite aware of the corruption, as Tony C. defines it, that especially the Federal Judges are doing. As an IRS agent once told a friend of mine at a meeting, Mr. __________, you may be correct, but that is not how the game is played.
Joe Bannister, by the way, is an ex-IRS Special Agent. He was prosecuted and won a major case against the IRS, so people can win.
Please though remember, I do not suggest fighting the IRS, unless you have a lot of knowledge and a lot of testicular fortitude. The system is way passed corrupt. Like I said it is no longer a lawfully constituted government and they get away with just about anything they want. Just remember it is really just your money they want, and everything else, as that IRS agent stated, is just the game.
Skip wrote: “What is the name of the Act that Congress passed that created the so called Federal Individual Income Tax and what year was it passed?”
The Act of Congress was called the “Internal Revenue Code.” In 1986, under Reagan, the Act of Congress was called the “Internal Revenue Code of 1986.”
Skip wrote: “Why do you think that Title 26 is not Positive Law?”
The designation of positive law is somewhat academic. Much of Title 26 has been enacted as positive law. The entire Internal Revenue Code of 1954 was enacted by Congress as positive law and is found in the United States Statutes at Large. Not having a Positive Law designation only means that the Codified law may not exactly match the text in the United States Statutes at Large. Often this is from typographical error. In such cases of dispute, the United States Statutes at Large prevails. For titles designated as positive law, that means that the Code exactly matches the Statute and there is no reason to go beyond the Code.
Skip wrote: “Congress has never passed a Federal Statute requiring Citizens, as individuals of the 50 States to pay a Federal Personal Income tax on their individual labor. If they had, would not this law be splattered across every IRS document and we know how many IRS documents there are?”
You have been duped by false information. I have already referenced for you the law. Splattering it across every IRS document is not necessary because it is the law as every CPA and accountant worth their salt knows. You are embracing the same belief Wesley Snipes did. I suggest you review how this approach got Mr. Snipes prison time. He had the money to defend himself too.
Skip says: When government no longer protects the unalienable rights of all it’s citizens, it is when a new government needs to be formed.
Here is the fatal flaw in YOUR argument: Who gets to say what the inalienable Rights are, Skip? By what authority? Your own? Some guy you like? Some God I do not believe in? Some dead philosopher I think is both dead and dead wrong? Why should I take your word for which Rights are inalienable? What makes you, by yourself, a better judge of my Rights than me, by myself?
You cannot explain any of that, your idiotic “philosophy” is based upon nothing but empty rhetoric that is all about not wanting to be subjected to rules. Too bad, you don’t get that, because the very fact that you think it should be so proves you are so dumb we need rules to restrain you from harming the rest of us; you do not have the foresight to be left unsupervised.
Tony C. wrote: “Here is the fatal flaw in YOUR argument: Who gets to say what the inalienable Rights are, Skip? By what authority? Your own? Some guy you like? Some God I do not believe in? Some dead philosopher I think is both dead and dead wrong? Why should I take your word for which Rights are inalienable? What makes you, by yourself, a better judge of my Rights than me, by myself?”
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.
The acceptance of unalienable rights is really just a contract or agreement amongst “enlightened” people, just as our Constitution attempted. Adams suggested “the Great Legislator in the Sky” as the authority. He was of course, as a Unitarian, being cleaver with his words, as not to offend others. Any though of a higher power is a merely just a system of faith and as we know, they cannot be proven to be valid or invalid. You cannot prove there is a God nor can you prove there isn’t. Even if I see God or talk to him, do I really know if it is him and should anyone believe me? If I have not, does that make me unworthy? What can I say, I like contract law, but it must be voluntarily entered into, for me to accept it’s conditions.
It’s like trying to prove that there is no federal individual income tax law. You can’t prove something doesn’t exist, you can only prove it does exist.
Skip says: Do we believe in the golden rule or not.
Well, in accord with the golden rule, I would do unto others as I would have them do unto me: Coerce them to pay 50% of their income above $50K per year, in 2013 dollars, toward the common welfare, including subsidizing the poor, education, building and maintaining infrastructure, health care, defense and scientific research. I do not mind being subjected to that rule (and I would pay twice the taxes I do now) if all citizens are subjected to it as well. So sure; I believe in the Golden Rule. Let’s implement my plan, I will be coerced just like everybody else.
Tony C. I have taken an oath my dear friend to protect your unalienable rights as well as my own. I wish that you would do the same for me. should I send you over the oath?
You continually fail to acknowledge that the collective has become the usurper and that is the fatal flaw to all your arguments. When government no longer protects the unalienable rights of all it’s citizens, it is when a new government needs to be formed. And if we are unable to get a 2/3 vote of the Citizens, for a new constitution, it is better to live without one, than under the tyranny it has and will continue to render upon it’s Citizens.
Skip says: The US government is no longer lawfully constituted
Ultimately no government is “lawfully constituted,” the word “lawfully” suggests laws are in place, and therefore a government is in place that can authorize the formation of … itself.
Governments are either impositions of force by a dictator, strong man, King or Emperor or Religious authority, or they are agreements of a populace to abide by and enforce certain rules. In our case, that agreement was the Constitution, but it was not “lawful” because before it, no law existed by which to judge it lawful or unlawful. It was an agreement.
You should not try to use words which you do not understand. For you, that is apparently most of them.
Tony C wrote: Ultimately no government is “lawfully constituted” …
This is true only for the atheist who believes government is the source of law.
Tony C. In relation to being formally Constituted. Our nation did go through an extensive formal process starting with petitions for redress of grievances, than the Declaration of Independence. The British of course, choose to retaliate bla bla bla and then we created a Confederacy of States, than a Constitution, ratified by the States and the people. It’s formally constituted, based on the best system they had at the time and better than anything since.
We surely can argue the lawful issues of any derived legal authority, as Lysander Spooner did. I may argue for anarchy, but I would surely except, a formally and lawfully constituted government over what we have now. My contention is that we have had so many illegally contrived abrogations, that the Constitution for all intents and purposes is moot.
The ruling oligarchy will use it when it favors them and ignore it when it does not. The like to give us little piece offering, now and then, like this case, to continue the illusion that they are continuing the lawful execution of our Constitution. They really only want our money and to quell dissention, so they can get as much money as possible. They appear to care less about anyone or anything else. That my friend is also corruption and one I do not care to be a part of.
@davidm2575
Keep your religion out of my peanut butter.
No, blood tests are NOT often required to get a marriage license in the United States. In fact, no state or D.C. requires them. Mississippi was the last hold out, but it was repealed in 2012. The reason for the blood tests, which came into vogue during the beginning of the 20th century, was to stop the spread of disease by making sure infections such as rubella and syphilis would not affect child bearing women.
While I know of no province in Canada that still requires medical exams (including blood tests), they are still required in most of Western Europe.
ishobo wrote: “No, blood tests are NOT often required to get a marriage license in the United States.”
Sorry, I meant WERE often required. Past tense. I fail to see what any of this has to do with religion or your peanut butter.
Skip: You are wrong. Governmental authority is derived from the people. Government has the authority to regulate marriage for the same reason government has the authority to regulate murder, theft, assault, fraud, or anything else: The people gave it the authority to regulate. You won’t find its authority to outlaw rape or murder in there, either, but it has that authority.
Skip says: Live you own life as you please and try to influence others with knowledge, wisdom and common sense. If you have good ideas others will follow, if they are bad ideas, they will not.
And when that doesn’t work, and the people I am trying to influence with knowledge, wisdom and common sense insist upon beating me, enslaving me for their profit, stealing from me and coercing me? What then? Accept my fate? Preach to them, even though that doesn’t work?
My good idea, based on knowledge, wisdom, and common sense, is that we can collectively protect ourselves from those that would kill us, enslave us, steal from us, rape us, defraud us, exploit us, or harm us for their own greed. People like you, Skip.
Bron says: But why do you need a marriage license from the state?
I don’t think that is a material question. The state has an implicit right to make law, and does, the justification for any individual law was presumably convincing to the elected officials that passed it, or refrained from opposing it. Also, there is nothing about marriage in the census provision.
Bron says: Many of these laws are brought about from a misunderstanding of the philosophy upon which our country was founded.
No, you misunderstand the philosophy upon which our country is founded, because you want to believe it is about absolute and unfettered freedom. It wasn’t. In both the Declaration and the Constitution the founding fathers believed very strongly in regulation and laws and governance. The King refusing to let them pass local laws to govern themselves was a chief complaint.
The Constitution doesn’t say anything at all about restraining the size of government. It specifically gives the Congress the Power to lay and collect taxes (Article I, section 8) so certainly the founding fathers expected them to do so. Also in that section, to borrow money and to regulate the value of money, so they expected that to happen, too.
Also in that section to establish a national Post Office and Post Roads, which I note is is an endorsement of an explicitly socialistic government operation that is in direct competition with private for-profit letter and package carrying services. The founding fathers believed in their government supplying common services on the grounds that essentially everybody needed them.
All of that is evidence that it is you that misunderstands the founders. They believed in government, funded by taxes, both borrowing money and controlling its value, and performing services for citizens.
Tony C. The US government is no longer lawfully constituted and therefore all the States are operating outside the law. Nor was government ever given the authority to regulate marriage. The right to contract, happiness or not and association are unalienable rights protected by the 1st and 9th Amendments.
Davidm2575,
We must all concede that over time the precise definition of words change, change through usage as society changes. I was disappointed that Professor Turley used the term “bigamy” like it has always referred to the meaning he was giving it. It certainly has not! And he exposes some ignorance in his article, ignorance not contained in the opinion. I suspect that Professor Turley’s legal assistants and attorneys actually working this case know the difference and are a bit surprised that he does not.
I doubt that the term bigamy is even contained in the opinion. So far I have read half of it and do not recall reading it. But is it long and memory can be short. The term referred to is polygamy. And the Plaintiffs wisely avoided any claim to have married more that one man to one original wife. The other wives are not plural wives, the old term used for polygamy, but spiritual wives. And this use of the term “spiritual” keeps them out of trouble and away from the concept of state licensed marriage and focuses the issue only on religious cohabitation. The judge makes this point quite clearly. And although some commentators claim that a Utah statute appears to recognize common law marriage via cohabitation, it appears not to apply to those who are otherwise ineligible to enter into a licensed marriage, i.e. those who are already legally married to one spouse.
Most uses of the term bigamy refer to one man attempting to marry a second wife, often without either the first or second knowing about the other. Often those occur in different states such that licensing process does not turn up the first marriage. But occasionally a couple will think that they were divorced when they were not, often due to some delay, and then attempt prematurely to marry another partner. This usually results in the mistake being discovered and the divorce being completed, then the new marriages go forward. But if the mistake goes undiscovered, it is bigamy. Few accidental bigamists are prosecuted. I know of a case where the mistake was not discovered for years leading to the situation where the second marriage was never recognized and a marital community did not form. The spouse knowing of this “mistake” was compelled to treat the faulty marriage as valid and had to divide assets anyway. No sense rewarding someone who knowingly makes a mistake. This clearly is not an area of law familiar to Professor Turley. Yet he is a great attorney. If I recall correctly one such case was Marvin v Marvin, Actor Lee Marvin’s case.
Dale wrote: “I doubt that the term bigamy is even contained in the opinion. So far I have read half of it and do not recall reading it.”
The term bigamy is used a lot in the opinion. Keep in mind that bigamy is simply a starting place for polygamy. Bigamy literally means “twice married” whereas polygamy literally means “often marrying.” So using the term “polygamy” traditionally has implied bigamy.
Dale, who cares whether it is called bigamy, polygamy or stupidity. People should be left to live their lives as they see fit, as long as they do not take away the rights of others. Is that not basically the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Do you want your neighbor stealing from you or forcing you to live life a certain way?
I don’t understand why so many people wish to force or coerce others into obeying what they believe. Live you own life as you please and try to influence others with knowledge, wisdom and common sense. If you have good ideas others will follow, if they are bad ideas, they will not.
Sea Shepard’s apparently does a good job as people contribute $million to that Corporation. People must be happy with products from WalMart, as million of people buy their goods and services. Apparently their shareholders are pretty happy also. Obviously, we need to increase wages but that is not just with WalMart, that is a systemic problem within the private sector, plaguing most socialist and communist countries.
Do you want Muslins, Jews, atheist, Hindu’s, Christian’s, socialist or communists telling you how to live your life? Then don’t tell them how to live their lives.
One day perhaps the world will learn some truth that combines the powers and love of the human spirit to live in harmony. But until such time, we cannot as human being continue to allow the initiation of force and coercion to be legalized based on some majority or authoritarian rule. However we can accept voluntary associations and the protection of individual rights as our basis of a rule of law.
Do we believe in the golden rule or not. Either we obey it for all or we can continue to have a free for all, were the rule of law is control by those with the most political power and money. I think the choice is a no brainer.
Skip wrote: “If you have good ideas others will follow, if they are bad ideas, they will not.”
If only life really worked this way…
Skip wrote: “Do we believe in the golden rule or not.”
A significant number of people do not believe the golden rule, which is a big reason why we need government to punish those who do not live by the rule of love.
Look at it this way. Without government, we cannot have a truly civilized society. Prosperity and progress comes through getting along with one another and working together. Government is the organizational framework for making that happen. The result is civilization rather than barbarism.
Marriage is of public interest because it forms the basic building block of society, the family. There are numerous societal differences where the members are all just screwing around making babies irresponsibly with men not taking responsibility to raise families and societies where a man and woman commit to the child rearing process. It is impossible to pretend that marriage has no effect on relationships in society at large.
In the case here, when wealthier men are allowed to maintain multiple wives, it has a different impact upon society than when marriage is restricted to one man and one woman.
I fail to see how the simple rule, “let people just do whatever they want” is sufficient. At one level, we need the law to address it, but at another level, we still have to make moral judgments about the expediency of behavior otherwise still judged to be legal.
David, are you suggesting that only the institution of government can mitigate our differences, prosecute crime and provide justice? I think that you might want to reassess your opinion. There have been numerous times in history when justice was privately administered. The entire code of trade law adopted by most governments today was created by private enterprise and voluntary association; the Law Merchant. The US adopted it as the Universal Commercial Code (UCC).
Skip wrote: “David, are you suggesting that only the institution of government can mitigate our differences, prosecute crime and provide justice?”
No. What I am saying is that societies that develop a government with good laws to take over the management of these functions do better than societies that leave such matters solely in the hands of individuals. For example, compare a nation like the United States with tribal societies in Africa or India, or compare a country like England or Spain of the 17th century with the American Indian societies in America.
Tony C:
I am guessing the requirement for a marriage license is found in the part on the census.
But why do you need a marriage license from the state? You can write a contract and have it witnessed. Are we dogs? We need permission from the state to be married? That is pretty fked up if you ask me.
Many of these laws are brought about from a misunderstanding of the philosophy upon which our country was founded or worse, a systematic destruction of that philosophy using the courts.
Bron wrote: “But why do you need a marriage license from the state? You can write a contract and have it witnessed. Are we dogs? We need permission from the state to be married?”
You are being seduced into the false thinking that marriage is simply a contract. Marriage defines a family relationship: husband-wife, father-daughter, father-son, mother-daughter, mother-son, etc. Each relationship has obligations and duties toward each other. The law is involved to safeguard these. Dead-beat dads don’t get away with failing on their obligations. Property is fairly shared. The license is a step in making sure those about to enter into marriage are qualified to do so. This is one reason why a blood test often is involved in getting the license.
Skip says: I see no where in the Constitution where I’m required to get a government authorized marriage license.
That is because the Constitution is not supposed to be a list of laws or Rights, it is sets out the rules for a Government to define such things. The framers of the Constitution did not specify Rights in the Constitution. That is why the Bill of Rights is a collection of Amendments, they were not ratified with the original document.
The Constitution defines what shall be a valid law and what shall not. There is nothing in it that says you need a marriage license because that is not the place for such a requirement, it is a valid law passed in accordance with the rules of the Constitution.
If you expect to see such things in the Constitution, you don’t understand the purpose of the Constitution. The whole point is to define the machinery for passing hundreds of thousands of laws, none of which are intended to be incorporated into the Constitution itself. There is a separate procedure for making such modifications, which is much different and with more stringent requirements than the procedures for passing regular laws or state laws.
As I said before, you argue like a 5th grader.
Tony C. – a fifth grader?
Tony wrote the below in response to my comment “I see no where in the Constitution where I’m required to get a government authorized marriage license.”
Tony wrote: “That is because the Constitution is not supposed to be a list of laws or Rights, it is sets out the rules for a Government to define such things. The framers of the Constitution did not specify Rights in the Constitution. That is why the Bill of Rights is a collection of Amendments, they were not ratified with the original document.”
Yea, Tony, we did learn that in 5th grade – thanks for the refresher course.
So the Bill of Rights are not a part of the Constitution, because they were not ratified with the original Agreement? When I say the Constitution, it does not include the Bill of Rights? They do not specify the various unalienable rights? The 9th amendment does not allow me to marry without a government granted marriage license?
Since you do not appear to know what a right is nor acknowledge our founding fathers as being correct because they are dead and educated in a different time, I can understand your misconceptions.
Do you want to get into the various issues of the General Welfare and Commerce clauses and how the Judiciary has used them to usurp our Rights that are supposed to be protected by the various Constitutional Amendments. Hint, constitutional Amendment are part of the Constitution and you are correct, a firth grader would be able to most likely argue this better than you.
From Wiki,
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed to assuage the fears of Anti-Federalists who had opposed Constitutional ratification, these amendments guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government’s power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public. While originally the amendments applied only to the federal government, most of their provisions have since been applied to the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment, a process known as incorporation.
The amendments were introduced by James Madison to the 1st United States Congress as a series of legislative articles. They were adopted by the House of Representatives on August 21, 1789, formally proposed by joint resolution of Congress on September 25, 1789, and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791, through the process of ratification by three-fourths of the states. While twelve amendments were proposed by Congress, only ten were originally ratified by the states. Of the remaining two, one was adopted 203 years later as the Twenty-seventh Amendment, and the other technically remains pending before the states.
The Bill of Rights enumerates freedoms not explicitly indicated in the main body of the Constitution, such as freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, and free assembly; the right to keep and bear arms; freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, security in personal effects, and freedom from warrants issued without probable cause; indictment by a grand jury for any capital or “infamous crime”; guarantee of a speedy, public trial with an impartial jury; and prohibition of double jeopardy. In addition, the Bill of Rights reserves for the people any rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution and reserves all powers not specifically granted to the federal government to the people or the States. The Bill was influenced by George Mason’s 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, the English Bill of Rights 1689, and earlier English political documents such as Magna Carta (1215).
Read it again Tony C. so that you really understand why the Bill of Rights is part of our Constitution.
hskip:
there are few things I agree with Tony and Gene H about but one is that human beings need government to protect their rights. I am for a very limited government as we had at the time of our founding. But some form of government is needed.
You cant have an independent court system and police force and military. It would devolve into all against all with the strongest force being the maker of the rules. I think that is called dictatorship.
Government gets out of hand because the people let it by giving government the power to tax and to spend on them. What is necessary is to educate people in doing for themselves rather than relying on government to cure all of their ills. Government should be the last resort before you want to kill yourself.
A democracy needs a well educated population. Our history and the philosophical underpinnings of our Republic need to be taught in schools, the real history, not the watered down gibberish they teach today. What they teach today has a certain skew to it to send people looking to government to solve all of our problems.
So I think you should re-evaluate your contention that we dont need government, I dont think it is a workable solution and I think it would lead to some sort of anarchy/totalitarian system.
Bron wrote: “there are few things I agree with Tony and Gene H about but one is that human beings need government to protect their rights. I am for a very limited government as we had at the time of our founding. But some form of government is needed.”
As I said on several occasions Bron, I will take limited government, as you are arguing in favor of, all day long instead of what we have. You misinterpret my inability to argue in favor of the known political systems, as my absolute position.
Did not Churchill say something to the effect, that Democracy’s is the worst form of government, it however is better than all others. This of course does not make sense to me and knowing why all democracies and democratic republics fail over time is disheartening because it is impossible for us to see how the world would be without one.
The problem is, If something doesn’t work, how can it be the best. Perhaps we have just not figured out how to make it work or we have not yet figured out how to make a civil society without government work. What I keep arguing is that there has to be something better than what we have, as you said, some form of government but it may not require the initiation of force as the idea that government must take away our rights to protect them, is irrational.
I make the argument for this; if one nation attacks another nation and provides the Citizens greater rights then what they had, it would be likely, they, the Citizens, are better off under the new government. So many people fear the New World Order. What would happen though, if the New World Order gave us more rights then what we currently have? The problem however, it is very difficult to conclude which rights are of greater preference over others. I personally like all my rights to be secure, but I just haven’t figured out how to do that yet and my government will put me in jail if I try to protect them all.
Bron also wrote: You can”t have an independent court system and police force and military. It would devolve into all against all with the strongest force being the maker of the rules. I think that is called dictatorship.
Sure you can. There are many private courts right now, that allow people to mitigate their differences without using the government court. They are called mediation companies. The Law Merchant, that our own UCC mirrors, was created to specifically get around not having to use the very biased, slow and costly government courts around the world.
People all over the worst have to hire their own private security firms so private police companies already occur.
The second part of your assertion Bron: “It would devolve into all against all with the strongest force being the maker of the rules. I think that is called dictatorship.”
It appears to me that in our world today, we have the strongest groups (governments) initiating force against, not only their own citizens but the Citizens of other much weaker countries. I think this is called fascism and America and it’s allies are sadly one of the strongest groups. We all acknowledge that the military industrial complex is out of control and way to large.
Government, as we know it today, allows for the consolidation of power in the hands of a ruling wealthy oligarchy, which arguably and with much evidence, does not often provide for what is in the best interest of the majority.
The only system that I can come up with, just so happens to require a governing body, but takes away much some of the centralized authority but not through the typically political process that we are all familiar with.
pdm:
I dont want a country without government. I want a country which follows a program of individual rights for all and a limited scope for government which protects its citizens and supports individual rights.
I might point out that most of the lynchings and Jim Crow laws were engaged in by democrats. I always wondered why the socialists chose the Democratic Party to infest. Maybe they were ripe for the picking since they didnt have a very good record on individual rights to begin with?
Bron,
Government has always usurped the individual rights of their Citizens.
Do you want me to go down the list of the current list of usurped individual rights and constitutional abrogations.
Hoping that society can change something that has never occurred in 6,000 years is __________________?
pdm, Replace all of the lynching w/ 600 murders in Chicago alone this year! And despicable numbers of violence like that occurs in every major city every year. You have a political, and in your Jim Crow example, regional agenda. I’m giving a historical perspective, you disagree based on lynching, so be it. I’m macro, you’re micro, c’est la vie.