From this morning's
Salt Lake Tribune:
Some called for polygamy to be decriminalized. Others suggested all polygamists should be prosecuted.
Those two views framed a wide-ranging public forum on polygamy Thursday night designed to highlight Utah and Arizona's efforts to address domestic violence and child abuse in the communities that straddle their borders.
Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (R) and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard (D) recounted their efforts during the past 18 months to reach out to polygamists with services and assistance. Among the achievements: increased funding for law enforcement, social services and domestic violence help.
They also renewed pledges to crack down on abuse and criminal activity while not targeting the lifestyle itself.
more after the break...
At the meeting,
Terry Goddard said "We're not interested in condemning a lifestyle here," said he hoped to dispel "decades of hostility and suspicion," and called the AZ government's 1953 raid on the Short Creek polygamist community a "shameful mistake."
Mark Shurtleff, a practicing Mormon, put it this way, "Utah will not target any group or people because of their religious beliefs. But we will not sit back and allow people to commit crimes in the name of religion."
For those of you unfamiliar with Utah polygamy, some of the crimes associated with the practice are statutory rape, underage marriage, spousal abuse, child abuse and neglect, failure to pay child support, truancy, welfare fraud, and tax fraud. These abuses are very well documented, but may not occur in all polygamist groups, of which there are many. Some of these crimes are arguably inherent in the lifestyle itself, or rather in the Fundamentalist Mormon brand of the lifestyle. All of the problems are worsened by the fact that polygamists, as permanent semi-fugitives, tend to live in isolated, closed communities where church patriarchs double as civic authorities and exercise more or less total control of the populace.
Mark Shurtleff is the only elected Republican in Utah whom I respect. I'll be bold and say that Shurtleff, more than any elected official in the country, deserves a medal for his bravery in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He didn't climb the rubble at ground zero with a megaphone, he didn't sing 'God Bless America' on the steps of the capitol - what he did was vocally come to the defense of three Utah residents of Arab descent who were expelled from a Northwest Airlines flight in Minneapolis, even threatening to sue the airline on their behalf. More recently, Shurtleff came out against the ballot initiative (which passed anyway) to amend the Utah constitution to prohibit gay marriage or civil union. And that brings us back around to the matter of "alternative lifestyles."
Polygamy often comes up in the debate over gay marriage, and Utah Democrats have a particular fondness for calling out the hypocrisy of Mormon-Republican politicians, often themselves descended from polygamists, who oppose gay marriage or unions. Utah was one of those states whose sodomy law were struck down in the 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas decision. Sodomy had been a class B misdemeanor, just like adultery, which is the statute that applies to polygamists who don't get multiple marriage licenses or "cohabit," which is difficult to prove (otherwise bigamy applies - a felony). So polygamists and homosexuals in Utah had been pretty much the same boat: their bedroom activities were illegal but generally permissible, while any legal recognition of their unique relationships was denied. In the spirit of the Lawrence decision, I think Utah should repeal its adultery law and remove the "cohabit" clause from its bigamy law. Who consenting adults choose to sleep or live with is no business of the state's.
My hope is that by decriminalizing polygamy for consenting adults, these people will have less reason to shut themselves off from the larger society and what abuses persist can be more easily discovered and punished.
~END~