Bizarre, Constitutional Law

Polygamy Beer Banned In North Carolina

Years ago, I handled a challenge to the decision of the State of Idaho to ban the sale of “Five Wives Vodka” due to the illegality of polygamy in the state. We succeeded in having the decision reversed. Now, however, another Utah brewery has lost its appeal of a decision to bar the sale of “Polygamy Porter” in North Carolina due to the fact that “polygamy is illegal.” It is an illogical and capricious decision that should be further appealed.

In July, officials banned the sales and Wasatch Brewery challenged the policy with the North Carolina Alcohol Beverage Control Commission, which has now ruled against it. The logic is that, since polygamy is illegal, depicting an illegal act on a label is barred. It is an example of long outmoded laws protecting public sensibilities. The puritanical boards has also barred  “Beergasm,” “Kissing Cousins,” “Daddy Needs His Juice,” and “Wine for the Super Hero.”

There are various beers with references to illegal acts like My Favorite Murder beer. Of course, the board may prefer Brouwerij De Molen’s Cease & Desist Beer.

37 thoughts on “Polygamy Beer Banned In North Carolina”

  1. I am surprised at the comparisons between polygamy and pedophilia. While pedophilia is unquestionably harmful to children, no study has ever established a causal link between polygamy and any harm to children. On the contrary, studies have shown that criminalizing polygamy puts women and children at greater risk, by denying them access to shared resources, and by denying them the protections of the court system by driving the practice underground.

    Regardless, by far the better comparison is between polygamy and interracial marriage. Like polygamy, interracial marriage was once illegal, was decried because it harmed society, and was considered especially harmful to the children produced by such unions. At the time it was legalized by the Supreme Court it had far less popular support than polygamy has today.

    1. Yes, You are right and I enjoyed that You said something out of the ordinary. One persons mind, may or may not be dangerous to others till it says so in a court of law. why is that?

  2. I believe we ahould always protect our children, first. Pedophilia is not allowed since it abuses those who do not have a voice to speak out. They revert and they stop talking.

    Culture war? No! Wars are never needed. Sitting down and discussing things out is. War should never gotten to the place it is now. I want peace not terror or war.

    1. No! Wars are never needed. Sitting down and discussing things out is. War should never gotten to the place it is now. I want peace not terror or war.”
      *****************
      Sorry but you want what never was and never will be. Contrary to popular bumper stickers, wars do decide things, and if you don’t want terror, war is your alternative. Peace is a lot like dancing: It takes a willing partner otherwise you look like a fool spinning out there alone and waiting for the next song. Typically, that song is a funeral dirge with John Donne admonishing against asking that age old question. The answer, like the song, is never comforting.

      1. granted it may not happen for 200 years from now, but in time we will learn wars do not always make you a winner if you come out on top. Wars are killers of millions of people on both sides and casualties. Wars are just over ego’d men or women. When we all stop the stupid shit out there… then maybe.

        But in all honesty, they are banning beer… its a drink, its something man made too. Seriously, a law to ban beer, how low does the world need to get before it realizes that they were stupid to do that (whatever happened or needed fixing, so called.) I am just one person, but one person can tip or change things just as much as a war can. So I ask if you think a war is coming and you are rooting for it to happen? You really want death and mayhem just to solve a small thing?

        1. A “small thing” like 9-11 called for a military response, rather than just filing charges in court, or “giving a good talking to” those behind it.
          Wars do break out over those “small things” like Pearl Harbor or 9-11.

          1. ‘A “small thing” like 9-11 called for a military response’

            The war in Iraq?? I don’t think so.

            1. I don’t think so either. And I didn’t to mention Iraq.
              Military action in Afghanistan, going after Al Queda and the Taliban, was certainly justified.

  3. I just had a whole post typed and then the page rest on me. I will be back with my post again. But for now
    .. i am not a sheep. I am bi, polygamous, happy, a lady and I am the girl next door. When did I agree to one mans interpretation of things in our history, on how or what was done then? I never did. I believe all the stupid things being done do to society thoughts on what us proper or not, is wrong. We started off here with no clothes back in history. Today, nudity is banned …. it was natural and now a single person tells the world clothing is a must…. wrong. This is done from a closed minded person.

    1. Angel – as a person who grew up in Montana there is a time and place for a parka. 😉

  4. Since most yeasts reproduce asexually, perhaps NC is performing a Truth in Advertising action.

  5. Silly to ban the beverage for its name. Piracy is also illegal, and yet we have Captain Morgan.

      1. What a ridiculous question/statement, polygamy is illegal not immoral. Pedophilia is IMMORAL AND ILLEGAL

        1. polygamy is illegal not immoral. Pedophilia is IMMORAL AND ILLEGAL

          Apparently the culture hasn’t moved the legislature to repeal the law making polygamy legal. Are you suggesting a culture war is in order to change the laws? one thing is certain, you can be guaranteed to have the support of the pedophiles that believe their lifestyle choice is as moral to them as polygamy is to you.

      2. Kelly E on August 17, 2019 at 10:57 PM
        What a ridiculous question/statement, polygamy is illegal not immoral. Pedophilia is IMMORAL AND ILLEGAL

        1. Read Karen’s original post:

          “Silly to ban the beverage for its name. Piracy is also illegal, and yet we have Captain Morgan.”

          Piracy, though, isn’t the problem in the Carolinas any longer it was in the days of Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and Stede Bonnet, while pedophilita is arguably as great a problem as it ever was there.

  6. Bring on the Polygamy Porter and…yes — “Scabby the Rat”:

    “Born in Chicago, Scabby the giant inflatable protest rat may be banned from picket lines by national labor board”

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-scabby-giant-rat-balloon-union-protest-ban-20190807-fbqnn7rorne75oc2w72wel3ise-story.html

    “But soon, Scabby the Rat — who comes in a variety of sizes and designs — may be out of work.

    “The National Labor Relations Board previously gave the giant rats a wide berth but it’s shifted its stance under the Trump administration. The board is weighing whether to crack down on their use, on the grounds that the rats may be scaring away customers from “neutral” businesses not involved in the labor dispute.”

    1. good! unions get a pretty wide berth to protest. that’s ok. unions are important institutions.
      but yeah hurting neutral businesses is past the line.

  7. Why don’t Baptists have sex standing up? They don’t want anyone to think they are dancing.

  8. It is an illogical and capricious decision that should be further appealed…It is an example of long outmoded laws protecting public sensibilities. The puritanical boards…

    Come on Turley, you can’t see any logic in the decision to ban this label? Using your logic, Pedophile Porter would have your full support to be on the shelves tomorrow. How do you know public sensibilities don’t support this boards decision? And if public sensibilities need anything, it’s not protecting, but restoring.

      1. Agreed. Incubators of democracy, right? The assumption is the people of NC are speaking their sensibilities through this boards actions. There is a good article regarding this point that I found linked from another very good article.

        The Declaration, in other words, does not guarantee individual rights as reservations from the jurisdiction of the community. It is meant to secure the community’s capacity to govern itself.
        https://www.lawliberty.org/2013/07/04/what-the-declaration-doesnt-say/

        Here is the original article link:

        https://www.lawliberty.org/2019/08/15/the-inspired-mary-ann-glendon-and-her-dismal-critics/?utm_source=LAL+Updates&utm_campaign=7802591c61-LAL_Daily_Updates&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_53ee3e1605-7802591c61-72413845

        1. Olly, thanks. I think the professor is a bit too egalitarian. I wish he had a size 14 foot and had to use the one shoe (10) fits all way of doing things. Then he would be walking in other people’s shoes.

    1. James – if we brought piracy back to the Carribean, show of hands how many would sign on to crews?

  10. An economist who studies regulations coined the phrase “Bootleggers and Baptists” to describe how some regulations get put into place.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists

    The phrase comes from how alcohol sales came to be banned on Sundays in the early 20th century. The “Baptists” wanted the Sunday ban because they believe excessive alcohol consumption leads to increased social dysfunction. That alcoholic men find it difficult to hold a steady job and support their families; they are often abusive to their wives and children, and so on. The Baptists believed the ban would get the alcoholic men in the pews on Sundays where the preachers could help them see the error in their ways. The end result would be less social dysfunction and the once abusive alcoholic men would be transformed into responsible husbands and fathers.

    The Bootleggers supported banning Sunday alcohol sales because they were in the business of selling alcohol illegally. They expected a lucrative black market for alcohol to emerge after the ban.

    So the Bootleggers and the Baptists created a coalition to get the ban on Sunday alcohol sales through. But the politicians always sold it as a morality play – invoking the arguments made by the Baptists, never the Bootleggers.

    Don’t think this is only about offensive brand names. Already established brewers don’t want to cede market share to new competitors and new brands entering the market. I’d bet they are pressuring the liquor control boards to ban these offensive brands as much as the “Baptists” are – but the regulators/politicians are framing their rationalizations using the moral language of the “Baptists”.

  12. I have to admit that Wine for the Superhero sounds better than Dandelion Wine.

  13. “The puritanical boards has also barred “Beergasm,” “Kissing Cousins,” “Daddy Needs His Juice,” and “Wine for the Super Hero.”
    *****************
    Anytime there is a standard someone is sure to find it “puritanical” and hence challenge worthy. If you throw open the gates here what’s to stop Drunk Lazy Ni**er Beer,K*ke Manishevitz Wine, W*p Chianti, St. Pauli’s Fat Girl Stout, Pol*ck Vodka, Blind Girl Grain Alcohol, or a personal favorite, Phuck You Brew. The State doesn’t have to indulge anyone’s commercialized bigotry or crude sentiments on First Amendment grounds.

      2. Allan – That was pretty bad. There was an article yesterday that the bartender’s boss was present, and witnessed the exchange. He said that everyone teased him about mercilessly for quite a while, a fact he regrets now.

        There is a terrible double standard for men.

      3. I wouldn’t want to spend a day in the Hamptons let alone a summer. I am too plebian for those quarters. And I would never buy Don Lemon a darn thing.

        I recall when i was in college and one of these east coast punks with a popped collar presumed to lecture me and then made this mistake of poking me in the chest. my lawful response to this offensive touching was to bend his forefinger back until it touched his forearm. from his wincing and crying aloud, I infer that I broke his finger, a fact I enjoy recalling to this day.

        and if Don Lemon– who is he, the obnoxious fool on CNN? if he had committed such an offensive assault and battery on me as that, I might have exceeded the appropriate scope of self defense in reply such as, by biting his filthy finger off and gouging his ugly eyeball out with it, gleefully! I would not have run to church for consolation, i can tell you that.

        The plaintiff must not be a very forceful person, which is why the bully Don Lemon was picking on him in the first place. Let me ask an obvious question: is the plaintiff a homosexual? how very like a prominent liberal to pick on a gay dude. Maybe Lemon is a champion of gay rights just like the fat pig Harvey Weinstein was a woman’s advocate!! sickening!

        https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-don-lemon-alleged-assault-witness

  15. Then there is: Trump Red Wine; Ferguson Riot Beer; Fake News Vodka; Jack Mehoff Bourbon; Harold Doneroughukedme Rum.

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