I regret to report that a few minutes ago, the United States Supreme Court denied the petition for review filed in the “Sister Wives” case. The case is Brown v. Buhman, No. 14-4117. As lead counsel for the Browns, I was joined on the petition by co-counsel Thomas Huff and Adam Alba. My prior assistants, including my current assistant Seth Tate, and law students worked countless hours into many late nights to maintain this litigation. We are greatly in their debt for their pro bono work on this case. The attorneys and law students who worked on this case came from different religions and held different values. Many disagreed morally with plural families. However, we all believed strongly that every family has a fundamental right to follow their own faiths so long as they did not harm others. We all believed that the Browns were denied those rights when they are singled out for public condemnation and criminal investigation due entirely to their public support for plural marriage. It is particularly difficult to prevail on the merits in establishing constitutional violations only to be reversed on standing issues on appeal. However, our victory in Salt Lake City will remain as a cautionary decision for legislators who wish to marginalize or sanction this community in the future.
I also wanted to extend my deepest gratitude and respect to the Brown family which allowed us to represent them in this historic action. The Browns remained steadfast in their commitment to equal rights and have become the voice for not just plural families but many families which do not meet the strict definition of monogamy practiced by the majority of citizens. The Browns have kept their show and this litigation largely separate to allow the courts to fully consider the merits of our case without interference or aggrandizement. They continue to have faith in our country and our legal system despite this decision. More importantly, they have faith in the right of all families to enjoy the protections of our Constitution and will continue to fight to make that promise a reality for plural families throughout the country.
The petition asked the Court to resolve a longstanding conflict among the courts of appeals concerning the extent to which the government can strategically moot a constitutional challenge to a statute by announcing a new non-enforcement policy during the pendency of litigation. Last April, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued its decision in Brown v. Buhman, No. 14-4117, reversing the decision striking down the cohabitation provision of the Utah polygamy law. The opinion of the panel is attached below. The panel ruled entirely on mootness grounds and did not address the merits of the constitutional violations committed in the case.
In 2014, United States District Court Judge Clark Waddoups handed down his final ruling in favor of the Browns on the last remaining count. Previously, Judge Waddoups handed down an historic ruling striking down key portions of the Utah polygamy law as unconstitutional.
Notably, in his appeal, Buhman did not challenge the facts or holdings in the prior standing and mootness decisions. Buhman did not contest that the appellate panel should reach the merits of the decision below and did not claim that the case was moot. He also did not challenge the factual findings below. He did not challenge prosecutors targeted the Brown family after their public discussions of their cohabitation, including television interviews and university presentations. Defense counsel admitted to “endless” condemnations by the Attorney General of polygamists and express public condemnations of plural family members as “criminals.” Buhman admitted that the law is a “means” to make it easier to investigate and perform searches or seizures on plural families (while other families do not face the same risk). It was also uncontested that the Brown family “fled from Utah to Nevada for fear that they would be criminally prosecuted for practicing bigamy.” The lower court found that past prosecutions discredited assertions that no “credible threat of prosecution exists.” Judge Waddoups also found that “Utah County expressly declined to disavow that Plaintiffs may be prosecuted for bigamy” during most of the pendency of the trial proceedings. The court found that Buhman’s belated issuance of a new “policy” only was made after losing key motions in court and facing a final decision. The trial court refused to yield to such a tactical move and questioned both the existence of a real policy and the guarantee that the Browns would not be prosecuted.
The Tenth Circuit did not reach any of the constitutional violations of religious freedom, equal protection, due process, or free speech. Instead, it ruled that the district court should have dismissed the case after Buhman announced, in the middle of litigation, that he no longer intended to prosecute the Browns and others similarly situated. Even though Buhman continued to defend the statute’s constitutionality, the panel said that it would not consider his timing and motives in issuing this new “policy” change, expressly concluding that “it does not matter [if] the prosecutor ruled out prosecution because he wished to prevent adjudication of the federal claim on the merits.” The panel acknowledged that a future County Attorney could change this policy at will, but ruled that this possibility too was insufficient to defeat mootness.
The team is obviously disappointed by the denial but not surprised. It is often difficult to secure review with the Supreme Court and those odds have gotten worse during the period with only eight members (due to the passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia). The decision will obviously not end the struggle for equal protection and due process under the law. The Browns have remained committed to that cause and will continue to advocate on behalf of religious freedom and plural families.
The underlying rights of religious freedom and free speech are certainly too great to abandon after prevailing on the trial level in this case. Judge Waddoups’ opinion remains a passionate and profound defense of religious liberty in this country.
This is a legal battle that began seven years ago with the airing of the first episode of the Sister Wives and the announcement of a criminal investigation by Mr. Buhman. It has been a long road for all of us and it is not the end of the road. Plural and unconventional families will continue to strive for equal status and treatment under the law. They will continue to seek the promise that led to the formation of this Republic: the right of every family to live according to their own faith and values. The refusal of the Supreme Court to hear their case will not make tens of thousands of families disappear or resolve the underlying claims of discrimination and harassment. These families will remain (as will their demand for freedom of religion and equal protection). All civil rights movements have faced such disappointments and setbacks. Yet, having just celebrated Martin Luther King Day, it is important to consider his assurance that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Jonathan Turley
Lead Counsel for the Brown Family
I don’t care who anyone lives with, sees, dates, or considers a “spiritual wife.” I don’t think it’s healthy for the female participants, but it’s also none of my beeswax. Just like it’s none of my business who cheats on whom, or whose wife knows all about the mistress. Those things make me sad when I hear about it, but I would never want government to police people’s personal lives.
I do not support legalizing polygamy, in the sense of giving legal status and benefits to plural wives. If it were to become legalized, we would all be forced to participate in it. I support gay marriage, but I am distressed that florists, photographers, bakers, etc are now forced to participate in gay marriage ceremonies when they do not agree with it. Whatever happened to tolerating everyone’s beliefs, and waltzing to our own tunes? To me, that means tolerating those who are gay and want to be married, as well as those who believe that is against their religion. Tolerance works both ways. I believe polygamy is harmful to the female participants, and so would not want everyone to be forced in a similar way to participate. What they do on their own time, or how they live their lives, are none of my business, as long as no minors are involved. I just do not want to be involved in it.
I watched a few episodes of Sister Wives years ago, and thought everyone seemed like nice people. I wondered why those women were content with a fraction of a husband. Sure, he seems nice, but why settle for a rotational schedule where you husband goes from woman to woman, and you get him every 4th day, after he’s checked in with all the other women’s children? My God, what it must be like to live in the same house where you can possibly hear everything…Not very conducive to self esteem or deep love.
The only women I could imagine who would be happy in a plural marriage would be those with absolutely no romantic interest in their husband, but also no intern the showst in seeking it elsewhere. Some people just lack that desire for a close bond with a man. They would be more like friends who occasionally sleep together.
I read that Meri, whom I quite liked, got caught in a catfish scheme and is now seeing someone. This was from those lifestyle mags, so veracity is of course uncertain. It must be nice for her to be with a man who’s not sleeping with anyone else, or focused on anyone else. Don’t know if that relationship will work out, but wish her the best.
So you supported legalizing gay marriage because it means tolerating gay people, who want to be married but you don’t support legalizing polygamous marriage for those same reasons?
How do you justify supporting marriage equality for one group but not the other?
She’s not interested in intellectual consistency. She’s interested in managing human relationships among her friends, ergo containing awkward table talk.
Well, being a straight guy, I cannot even imagine what a woman sees in a guy anyway.
But if I could see why, then I guess I could see why a woman would be able to share a guy with three other women.
Nature has sort of rigged up the ability of men to have more than one wife.
Nature has sort of rigged up the ability of men to have more than one wife.
You also have the ability to slit the throats of 5 year olds. Ergo you should be granted a license to do so?
Licensure has nothing to do with it.
It is what is mutually satisfying and fulfilling.
You can even do that without a license.
“How they live their own lives is none of my business so long as no minors are involved.” That’s an essential part of the problem with polygamy. There are ALWAYS minors involved. These people have children who emulate their parents, and they live in communities where teen girls are forced to become the 10th “wife” to old men and teen boys are forced out of the communities to live on their own on the streets. It is a seriously sick social structure that benefits nobody but the pervy old men. Polygamy is the most regressive of all social institutions, except slavery, and to that it runs a close second.
Focusing on the Tenth Circuit’s ruling on mootness, it is an intellectually dishonest opinion which encourages prosecutors to change enforcement policies in the middle of litigation just because they are losing. I bet that the 10th Circuit would never hold that Turley’s client’s could not invoke their 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination if questioned by the prosecutors in question. If that is so, the courts ought not to be able to declare moot a case such as this one, where prosecution was a realistic possibility, unless the law in question is repealed.
I’ve lost more than my share of appeals where the rationale set forth in the opinion ignored arguments I raised in my briefs, or where the judges “selectively” reviewed the record, or where the judges otherwise reached a result that they wanted to reach, the facts and/or the law be damned.
I can stomach losing when the judges honestly disagree with my arguments. But there is nothing more frustrating as a litigator than losing with the knowledge that the reasons given by the judges for ruling against your client are intellectual horse manure.
Without wading into the topic of plural marriages, it is unfortunate the Supremes did not agree to review the case.
I can stomach losing when the judges honestly disagree with my arguments. But there is nothing more frustrating as a litigator than losing with the knowledge that the reasons given by the judges for ruling against your client are intellectual horse manure
You have no objection to horse manure if it serves your interest. For Turley to get the social policy result he wants, horse-manure is a necessity, in briefs and opinions alike.
Desperately
You probably need more than Susan. Have fun Wallowing in your vitriol.
There is a case in Utah styled: State vs. Sleep, drink and pork Mary.
Tough loss, JT. But, being a lifelong Cub and Bears fan has prepared you how to handle defeat. I do see a possible new case for JT. Gloria Steinem declared all women marching on Saturday will register as Muslims if Trump requires registration. JT can fight for Gloria’s right to be a Muslim, wear a burka, and subjugate herself to me. That is the role of women in Islam. Maybe even a cliterectomy for Gloria, that is if it hasn’t dried up and fallen off by now.
Nick – LOL
I second that emotion, Nick. We are all Muslim or Spartacus or whatever!
As long as it applies to all combinations of genders. and that applied to all situations. For example the Military Conscription program which treats women as second class citizens suitable to be nothing more than stay at home baby factories. Equal means equal. Fix what is wrong here and now before going after more inequality.
The other answer is get rid of the draft or make it useful to provide people for non military jobs of equal dangere like teaching iinner city schools.
No Baby Factories! No Cannon Fodder!
Well, the only consolation prize here is, that the courts did not rule against them on the merits.
That means that the controversy is still alive and ripe for judicial review.
It was a sneaky, political decision on the part of the appellate court to dodge the issue by saying it’s moot, just because the prosecutor says he would not continue prosecuting.
The simple fact is that the statutes are still in place, and they should go.
It would appear that instead of getting standing from a criminal prosecution, they could/should regain standing on a §1983 civil rights action, or even a federal habeas corpus.
The simple fact is that the statutes are still in place, and they should go.
Why not try persuading the elected legislature of that?
Under our system of government, the (popularly elected) legislature protects the rights of the majority, and the courts protect the rights of the minorities.
And who defined this as a ‘right’ of the minority?
Judge Waddoups, when the trial court found the law unconstitutional. The appeal court did not question this, instead ruling that because the Utah AG had pinky swore he wouldn’t prosecute the Browns (until some indeterminate future date), the Browns no longer had anything to complain about.
Hey, whatever works.
Change the laws via legislature, or via finding of unconstitutionality in the courts.
Either would be fine.
No, either is not fine. Any act by the judiciary would constitute misfeasance.
Not true.
The courts are the legal enforcers and deciders of the law.
If legislators have made a law that is in direct conflict of a Constitutional right, then the courts have the legal ability, and indeed the duty, to strike them down as illegal.
I would have assumed that as a liberal, you would have taken the opposite side of plural marriages which subjugate women and children. Perhaps you’re not familiar with FDLS in Utah and other states where children and young adults are brainwashed and basically imprisoned in their homes.
As I mentioned before, the issue of having any specter of prosecution can curtail freedom because it can be arbitrarily forced upon a person at any moment by the state. We have seen cases recently were statutes remaining in force that though declared unconstitutional, were nevertheless enforced against a citizen resulting in jail even if briefly e.g. the burning of an American flag. The same notion can be applied in this case. The prosecution stated they would not attack the family, but it only requires a change in the mind of a politician to restore that threat and once again they are in the same predicament. And, possibly only to be thwarted on standing again if the state withdrawals the threat at the last minute.
Dang. The key to the map didn’t print. Anyway, “black” is illegal. “Dark blue” is illegal but not criminalized. “Light blue.” is legal. “Green” is where it’s only legal for Muslims. Gee, look at where it’s legal! Africa and the Mid East Muslim areas. Yep! That’s who I want to emulate!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
@bams and desperate
Kudos to both of you! JT is wrong on this one, and I am glad he lost. Human civilization evolved past polygamy marriages a long time ago, including non-Christian societies. Here is map from wiki:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Legality_of_polygamy.svg/400px-Legality_of_polygamy.svg.png
JT’s blurb says he was born in 1962 (55 years old), and I suspect many of his core ideas arose in the 70’s, a time when rules were being cast aside in favor of “Do your own thing!” narcissism. Yet, we see many posts where JT comments on his family life, and the close knit relationship with the children. But supporting stuff like polygamy, gay marriage, decriminalized dope use, and a generalized sexual free-for-all insures that many, many children will grow up in homes full of sexually narcissistic freaks nd perverts- – – who wish most fervently that they had “normal parents.”
I wonder what is next? Maybe launch a nationwide movement to decriminalize “cool moms or cool parents” who don’t just let their own kids drink, which is already legal in some states, but extend it to all kids who are at that house. Because you know, a “cool fictional mom”, Auntie Mame, seems to be the secret muse of the liberal left.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
PS: Yes, I know about Marion Tanner.
Squeek, I adore Auntie Mame — I’ve read all of Patrick Dennis’s books. What a trip he was! Auntie Mame was the bomb – shaking up the Establishment.
I fear for the assault on parents who practice “free range parenting” and often are attacked for it – sometimes legally.
I saw a production of it, and enjoyed it. Heck, I enjoyed Arsenic and Old Lace. But neither was probably a “proper” home. But I think it must be have been difficult sometimes for Patrick Dennis growing up in a home with a bunch of drunk derelicts hanging out. Nobody gets raised in a perfect home, but when growing up, I had friends who told me they wish they had a “normal mom” like mine. Meanwhile, I was wishing I had a “cool mom” who would let me do whatever I wanted. Only age and experience changed that belief.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – my two other favorite Patrick Dennis books are Little Me and The Joyous Season. 🙂
I never even heard of those. But there are a lot of books that I haven’t heard of. I found one last week, Robert Graves’ “Difficult Questions, Easy Answers.” Which just came in, and talk about synchronicity—while I was fondling the book, I had The Blacklist on, and just as the evil villainess shot this dude, she said “I remember Majorca” or something like that. Which is where Graves lived at the end.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – if you decide to get either or both books they require word by word reading. The humor is very subtle. 😉
We should take away their status as a religion. Joseph Smith was a huckster with many arrests. He’d bury a few coins in a farmer’s back yard, and then tell him he was a treasure hunter. He’d offer to split the find 50/50. Then he’d get out his “dowser”, and start digging where he buried the coins. He’d show the farmer his “find” and then say there was definitely a pile below. Then he’d say he had to leave town immediately, and settle for, say $50, which the farmer was glad to pay him. See “No Man Knows My History”, by Fawn Brodie.
That epithet can be launched at any religion.
It is more of a freedom of association question.
Oh that sounds constitutional.
The Brown case was EPICALLY weak. It was hobbled from the start due to no prosecution. Today the highest court essentially said “COME ON GUYS GIVE US A LEGITIMATE CASE ALREADY.” They still should have taken the case, because yes there were serious constitutional issues that needed to be addressed, BUT YOU HAVE TO BRING A SERIOUS CASE where there was a demonstrable victim.
Mr. Turley, you lost this case because your clients weren’t seeking real marriage equality by seeking marriage licenses. If the Browns don’t have the guts to do that, then find someone who will. You owe it to the principles you were fighting for in this case. You owe it to these principles, to find someone who isn’t scared to seek real marriage equality, and who wants a marriage license for their second wife. It’s that simple. I’ve been saying all along (my name is Stacy Norton) that seeking marriage licenses IS THE ONLY LOGICAL STEP. The only step. Years untold piles of cash have been wasted by not realizing this.
facebook.com/multiwifefamilies
I agree. Mr. Turley should have gone the same route as the homosexuals and focused this case on obtaining marriage licenses for Kody Brown and his wives (i.e. – marriage equality).
At the same time, I’m still shocked that the Supreme Court would allow a law that criminalizes simple cohabitation to remain in place.
Why are you shocked? There is no ‘right to cohabit’ in the federal charter and general police power repairs to state governments. If you have a complaint about legal proscription of concubinage or adultery, take it to the state legislature.
You actually believe that there’s no right to cohabit with whom one chooses in the United States??
Count me doubly-shocked!!
But let me clue you in on something that has apparently escaped your notice.
The Brown family lost this case for one reason and one reason only – they weren’t arrested and/or charged.
If they had been, the Tenth Circuit would never have been able to dismiss this case as moot and we would have been looking at a very different outcome.
You actually believe that there’s no right to cohabit with whom one chooses in the United States??
There is no such right. You cannot in the text locate any such right.
The right to marry is a fundamental right as all courts have ruled. It is not specifically cited in the US Constitution because it needn’t be. Is the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law in the text of the Constitution? Do you doubt it exists?
Of course there is, it is enshrined in the 1st Amendment, and the rights to free association, free speech and free assembly.
I don’t think most people here know what “general police powers” are, and thus why so much Federal stuff has to be squeezed into “in interstate commerce.”
Sooo, wiki has an adequate explanation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_(United_States_constitutional_law)
Which is also why all the Roe v. Wade atrocities, and the gay marriage silliness needs to be overturned one of these centuries.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Never fret, JT. There are all sorts of causes, just waiting for your expertise in an attempt to destroy the status quo and the family unit in this country. Tell us–what will you do when a Muslim litigant requests your counsel and representation in, what will surely be, a landmark case regarding rewriting the laws pertaining to child marriage? After all, Mohammed raped and married a nine year old child, so, if by your definition, you are committed to preserving the freedom to practice one’s religion without government interference, are we to assume that you will now actively fight for those who wish to marry children? Huh? Don’t be such an infidel! After all, the concepts of right and wrong are only a matter of custom and culture, which are easily manipulated. Right? Of course, it will be argued that such barbarity, condoned in Islamic teachings, is to be respected and honored, since it is only in our closed and infidel minds that marrying babies is verboten. Any argument that an innocent child is being harmed or that she has no right to consent are mere trivialities, which, you know, can easily be overcome. Great to know that you put your precious time and effort behind such important and vital causes such as multiple marriages. Fighting for the legalization of child brides and child rape cannot be far off.
However, we all believed strongly that every family has a fundamental right to follow their own faiths so long as they did not harm others.
And the sensible people in this country believe the community has interests at stake and discretion to exercise that conspirators in the legal profession cannot take away from them: the franchise to refuse to extend recognition and dignity to concubinage, especially polyamorous concubinage. These people are freaks. Let them wade through the family court and civil court rubble heap as best they can without pretending they are married.
Thanks for posting your comment, because you are dead on correct. There is nothing meritorious or freedom loving in pursuing legal theories which will in real life result in the occasional sexual slavery of women (or girls!).
Perhaps Turley can next combine the freedom to engage in harems and concubinage with the fashion of using American flags as burkas? This would have the potential to effectively ratify a complete oppression of women.
Why are so many Americans ashamed of the myriad of virtues in post-Enlightenment Western Civilisation? When Lenin spoke of selling to the West the rope with which we will hang ourselves I wonder if he could have imagined just how self-destructive we would become.
People should be able to choose who they cohabit with, who they sleep with, how they voluntarily care to associate with other people.
The is fundamental.
To stick the collectives’ noses into other people’s private business is the very essence of communism and totalitarianism.
But does your “theory” work? Because if you think about it, our inner cities are a prime example of the “sleep and procreate with whoever, whenever” attitude. How is that working out?
And you can’t pass the buck by saying that you are all for their “freedom”, but that they should pay the bill for it. Because we live in a society that is going to pay the bill for it, one way or another. What goes on in people’s bedrooms doesn’t stay in people’s bedrooms.
Which is why civilizations enacted sexual laws, domestic relations laws, and marriage laws in the first place. Why do you think that horny goat-herder patriarchs in old Israel adhered to a “thou shalt not commit adultery” commandment? My GUESS is, because bad things happened when they didn’t.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
It is a slippery slope though.
Once you can justify telling people, by virtue of criminal sanctions, what they can and cannot do with whom, and within their own private lives, because something they do there may have public (i.e. collective) economic consequences, well then you might as well toss out the whole freedom of association thing.
With that justification and logic, you can tell people to eat properly, exercise regularly, don’t smoke, read only calming literature, don’t join gangs (aka, clubs or associations) have kids or not have kids — all also under threat of criminal law, because all those things have public economic impacts in one form or another.
It is better/simpler and more moral to let people just be themselves without second guessing their choices, and claiming some public good or bad from their private choices and behavior.
Rather, they must be held to be responsible only for the direct things they may do to others, or failure to uphold their intrapersonal responsibilities, like taking care of their children.
You cannot indict and pre-suppose that because some people can’t handle those freedoms, that all people must be deprived of them.
It is not a binary choice between no regulation and complete regulation. Setting up reasonable standards of behavior which people must adhere to is not a form of tyranny, it is a necessity for civilization. That is why the earliest civilizations had rules and laws. I have posted this before. From about 4,000 years ago.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp
Rules had to be made because they were preferable to “no rules.”
As I asked before, how is a lack of rules working out in the hood? Do you want to live there? Do you think you would be safe there? Would you want your wife living there? Would you want your children going to school there?
If the answers are “No!”, then you prefer a society where there are rules and stability and more order.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
True.
The more primitive the society, the more intrusive the laws reach into the private lives of people.
Only the more enlightened societies trust their own citizens to be let free to live their private lives as they see fit.
Hence “That is why the earliest civilizations had rules and laws” that prescribed the minutia of peoples’ private lives.
The failure rate of monogamous relationships is quite high, with plenty of cohabitation and single parenthood to go around, so when you ask “How is that working out?” I’m gonna have to ask “Compared to what?” We live in a broken culture, and singling out PM seems a bit ingenuine.
Further, banning PM didn’t eliminate the need for women’s shelters and foster homes, nor is legally recognizing it going to change that. At best, it may draw whatever abuse does exist into the light so it can be more easily discovered and dealt with, but I doubt you’ll find the rate of misbehavior to be much different from any other demographic.
Also, if you insist on bringing the patriarchs of old Israel into the argument, note that polygamy was practiced by many of them, and scriptures never rebuked them for it.
The failure rate of monogamous relationships is quite high,
It isn’t a ‘failure rate’. About 80% of all divorces are initiated by one party contra the wishes of the other, usually for reasons of consumer preference. That’s a consequence of a rancid public ethic, which you wish to make worse.
I thought it was for reasons of the no questions asked return policy.
They do. And it creates a helluva social and legal mess. Let them wade through their own mess without any assistance from the courts or the county clerk’s office.
Does it create a mess worse than what we already have, with plenty of people having children by multiple partners? And I don’t just mean the stereotype of unmarried poor inner city women; lots of people today are on their second or third marriage, with children from each. Family law courts have already learned how to deal with this. Recognizing PM won’t make this any worse.
Recognizing PM won’t make this any worse.
ROTFL
Couldn’t agree more. Polygamy is the engine that fuels Muslim imperialism; Sex-starved bachelors ravaged three continents to get women. Nearly everywhere they conquered is still impoverished, filthy and cruel. One needs only to glance at the closed polygamous society in Eldorado: Xenophobic, wife-beaters, force women to cover themselves and fight each other , old men marry children, become impoverished, chisel the government, inbreed and dump young “Lost Boys” (not chosen to have three wives) into inner cities.
Does anyone connect the 85% marriageable age males streaming into Europe with the effects of polygamy?
Do these damned academics understand the biology of human sexuality? We are the only species of large mammals where males can rape females. God gave the gift to women of being able to enjoy sex whenever she pleases, so she can barter for security in exchange for sex. Polygamy dehumanizes both sexes. Each extra wife, and some men go through a dozen, means some young man has no wife or children. Polygamous wives have no chips to barter for her security or humane treatment.
Government should not be involved in marriage between consenting adults. It doesn’t matter who or how many or what gender.
I hate harems.
But that would be none of my business.
This isn’t about the government injuring these people. This is about shmucks insisting that common institutions extend to them a dignity they do not deserve and legal deference they do not deserve.
Why would these “schmucks” have a lesser right to dignity under the constitution than gay “schmucks”?
I would not give homosexuals or polygamists any recognition. Both are assaults on social ecology for reasons of consumer preference.
I did not know they were the same family. Color me surprised!!! I am not surprised at the court not taking the case. They are gutless. However, that’s just me. 😉
Does this mean that in Utah, I cannot have another female spend the night if I am married?
James Stevenson – depends on whether your wife approves.
No. It means if you have four common law wives, don’t sign a TV contract tossing it in the face of those who run a State that frowns on such activity, a State w/a long history of exploiting women.
Joseph Smith’s lifestyle comprised seducing women already married w/children away from their family to be with Smith. Upon meeting Smith in prison for sedition, the men of the families whose lives Smith threatened w/his wife-seducing, realized the sole remedy for their problem was to give Smith his well deserved dirt nap, which they did.
Smith’s informant warned him in prison of the mob’s approach. His friends broke him out of prison. When the mob caught up with him, he cried out, “Have pity on the poor widow’s son!,” thus proving his Free Mason past. But they’d have none of it. They hung him from the nearest tree. (Don’t believe me. Read “Under The Banner Of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer.)
Look for an assault on the rights of gay and trans people after the Trump appointee is confirmed. Hope the Brown family stands strong for LGBTQ rights
What’s wrong with telling homosexuals and recipients of hormone therapy that their problems are unimportant and their user-defined affiliations of no interest to anyone and not meriting any official recognition?
You do realize Trump held up the Rainbow Flag at one of his Rallies.
What is with you people and all the lying.
Your quasi-white baby Jesus Obama really protected those homosexuals in the FL night club, no?
There was a commenter here on the blog who said that the “standing to sue” issue was paramount. Can he or she chime in?
“The Tenth Circuit did not reach any of the constitutional violations of religious freedom, equal protection, due process, or free speech. Instead, it ruled that the district court should have dismissed the case after Buhman announced, in the middle of litigation, that he no longer intended to prosecute the Browns and others similarly situated. Even though Buhman continued to defend the statute’s constitutionality, the panel said that it would not consider his timing and motives in issuing this new “policy” change, expressly concluding that “it does not matter [if] the prosecutor ruled out prosecution because he wished to prevent adjudication of the federal claim on the merits.” The panel acknowledged that a future County Attorney could change this policy at will, but ruled that this possibility too was insufficient to defeat mootness.”
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Rough break — but the courts will always use any semblance mootness to avoid ruling. One of my great surprises as a lawyer was learning that judges don’t like to rule at all. Nobody likes to make half the people who come before you mad by disagreeing with them. Human nature at work again.
And, sorry, but I’m not buying the flag wrapping sentiments as the motivating factor for this case. No, unfortunately, despite the purest hearts of the lawyer, human nature works a little darker for some litigants.This is a guy out for promotion of his show and what better way that a winning/losing Supreme Court case to cement his righteousness/victimhood and hence his celebrity. He wins either way! Ain’t freedom grand?
You identified the one great problem with a society that creates laws to govern in lieu of whomever is elected, appointed, or born to rule. The concept of sacred words have been around for thousands of years and offer a ‘greater power’ than that of the moment but can be perverted through selective interpretation, case in point the second amendment, and used as a default due to complacency and/or incompetence; yet in the end they are the greater option. The combination of the law and common sense seems to be the answer, however, common sense takes time and effort and with most judges that energy dissipated earlier in their careers as lawyers when confronted with the futility that they experienced. Perhaps Turley could illustrate, on an equal basis, those moments where a judge with a true love of the law addressed the confrontation with more than just an escape plan, for lunch, golf, scotch. In the subject of our police and judicial system we need to be forever vigilant and aware of transgressions and violations by our public servants but we should be equally notified of their honoring of their responsibilities. There should be equal coverage of our public servants ‘doing the right thing’ and/or solving problems using common sense and inventive responses. Along with assuring the public that every encounter with the police will not end in being shot or tazed, it would stand as an example/benchmark for those public servants. We need better examples published for our interest.