OnePimpTiger
07-16-2011, 10:49 AM
Just read an article (http://townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/2011/07/14/kody_brown_and_his_four_wives/page/full/) that presents an interesting perspective:
prosecutors opened a criminal investigation.
So Brown went to court claiming that his constitutional rights have been violated in various ways. Though it may come as a surprise to hear, he's got a perfectly reasonable argument.
Brown and his lawyer, George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley, don't say the state must sanction such arrangements in law. Nor did Brown try to get multiple marriage licenses, in defiance of the state ban on polygamy.
His case is about freedom, not state recognition. Unlike gay couples who say they should be allowed to legally wed, Brown isn't asking the state to officially accommodate his chosen form of matrimony. He's just asking to be let the hell alone.
Other people, after all, are exempt from such control. Turley says Brown and his women "would not be prosecuted if they claimed no religious obligation and merely had casual or purely sexual associations."
He notes, "Monogamists are allowed an infinite number of sexual partners, and consequently have the right to bear children with multiple partners, so long as they do not claim to be committed to such partners in a union or family."
The law doesn't prevent any man from living with several women, having sex with them and siring their offspring. This behavior is a problem only when a man claims to be permanently wedded to the women -- only, that is, when he behaves more responsibly than a tomcat.
He does make a very good point. I have little question how those who oppose gay marriage will feel about this...I assume supporting marriage being between a man and a woman in the gay marriage debate would lend itself to supporting marriage between only one man and one woman.
The first question that came to mind is how do those who support gay marriage feel about polygamy?
The second question is how people feel about the point made that government should have nothing to do with "marriage," that it is a spiritual/religious institution, not a legislative one? Anti gay marriage folks offer the option of civil union instead of marriage for gays...what about civil unions for everyone in the eyes of government and "marriage" completely taken out of it?
prosecutors opened a criminal investigation.
So Brown went to court claiming that his constitutional rights have been violated in various ways. Though it may come as a surprise to hear, he's got a perfectly reasonable argument.
Brown and his lawyer, George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley, don't say the state must sanction such arrangements in law. Nor did Brown try to get multiple marriage licenses, in defiance of the state ban on polygamy.
His case is about freedom, not state recognition. Unlike gay couples who say they should be allowed to legally wed, Brown isn't asking the state to officially accommodate his chosen form of matrimony. He's just asking to be let the hell alone.
Other people, after all, are exempt from such control. Turley says Brown and his women "would not be prosecuted if they claimed no religious obligation and merely had casual or purely sexual associations."
He notes, "Monogamists are allowed an infinite number of sexual partners, and consequently have the right to bear children with multiple partners, so long as they do not claim to be committed to such partners in a union or family."
The law doesn't prevent any man from living with several women, having sex with them and siring their offspring. This behavior is a problem only when a man claims to be permanently wedded to the women -- only, that is, when he behaves more responsibly than a tomcat.
He does make a very good point. I have little question how those who oppose gay marriage will feel about this...I assume supporting marriage being between a man and a woman in the gay marriage debate would lend itself to supporting marriage between only one man and one woman.
The first question that came to mind is how do those who support gay marriage feel about polygamy?
The second question is how people feel about the point made that government should have nothing to do with "marriage," that it is a spiritual/religious institution, not a legislative one? Anti gay marriage folks offer the option of civil union instead of marriage for gays...what about civil unions for everyone in the eyes of government and "marriage" completely taken out of it?