We reported last December on how a Utah federal judge strikes down key part of anti-polygamy law:
Yes, this all was predicted long ago, and led to charges of fear mongering and false slippery slopes.The legalization of polygamy followed logically from the legal arguments against one man-one woman, as was predicted not just by me, but also by Professor Martha Nussbaum, one of the leading legal advocates for gay marriage, “Polygamy would have to be permitted.”And it’s coming true in a small step, as a federal court in Utah, while not holding that polygamists were entitled to state-sanctioned civil marriage, nonetheless struck portions of Utah’s anti-polygamy laws banning polygamous “cohabitation” and polygamous “purported” marriages.
Now the court has finalized it’s decision, as reported by The Salt Lake Tribune (h/t Instapundit):
In the final portion of his ruling Wednesday, Waddoups found the Utah County Attorney Jeff Buhman violated the Browns’ constitutional rights when he oversaw a 2010 investigation into whether the Brown family was committing bigamy. At the time the Browns lived in Lehi. They have since moved to Nevada. Buhman eventually decided not to file criminal charges, but Waddoups said the investigation stifled the Browns’ rights to free speech, religion and equal protection.Waddoups ordered Utah to pay the Browns’ attorney fees as a result of that finding.In court filings and oral arguments before Waddoups, attorneys for Utah have argued polygamy is inherently harmful to woman and children and the state had an interest in deterring it.
But why stop at polygamy? As long as consenting adults are involved, and they love each other, is it really a leap to incestuous marriages?
The argument has been made, as part of a presentation in 2009 (just before the rapid movement towards legalizing same-sex marriages), by Professor Martha Nussbaum, as we detailed in “Polygamy would have to be permitted”:
In the audio below, Nussbaum is questioned by a student whether he should be permitted to marry his parents, since there were valid estate and other tax reasons to do so.Nussbaum then addressed several aspects of the slippery slope. She rejected bestiality out of hand as lacking necessary consent.Nussbaum stated, as to polygamy, there really was no justifiable state interest in banning the practice, particularly if past unequal gender roles were addressed by more modern polyamorous considerations: “”Polygamy would have to be permitted.”More inflamatory was her position on incest between siblings. While willing to draw a bright line on parent-child incest because of the compelling state interest in fighting child abuse, Nussbaum nonetheless applied the deconstructive analysis to sibling incest and found the state interest to be marginal:
“But then when you get to brothers and sisters, well, you know, now we know so much about the genes, and we certain don’t forbid people with Tay-Sachs [garbled] to get married. So I feel that it’s just bad faith to forbid the brother and sister on these putative health grounds. If one at one time states did think they had that interest, they don’t have that anymore.”
Crazy you say?
Why do you hate love?
[Featured Image: Sister Wives]
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