Emily Dotson Melanie Gagich ENG 102 5 March 2014 The Legalization of Polygamy in America Freedom of religion has been an essential part of this country since birth. But unbeknownst to most Americans, not all of our citizens have the right to live the lifestyle their religion mandates.  In fact, fundamentalist Mormons are denied the right to practice plural marriage in the United States. Illegalizing polygamy infringes on the right to practice one’s religion in a country where freedom of religion and separation of state is essential. Fundamentalist Mormons are not only denied the right to live their religious lifestyle freely, prejudice against their practices and the denial of equal rights also ultimately damages plural families. Some argue that polygamy is rightfully illegal because of its historical association with child and marital abuse. However, an FBI officer familiar and affiliated with polygamist crimes stated, “At least 99% of all polygamists are peaceful, law-abiding people, no threat to anybody. It’s unfortunate that they are stigmatized by bands of renegades” (qtd, in Duncan 332). Legalization of polygamy could alleviate some abuses prevalent in polygamist communities and lead to greater regulation laws addressing abuse and providing rights to the children and women in plural marriages (Duncan 333). The government’s actions to preserve the traditional image of institutionalized marriages are infringing on Polygamist’s freedoms. Polygamy should be legalized in America because preventing plural marriages encroaches on Mormon’s right to practice one’s religion, denies marital rights and adequate financial support to the wives of plural marriages, and causes damaging effects to the children of these families. To understand the seriousness of the injustice against Mormons, a look into the history of outlawing polygamy in the United States came to be is necessary. In 1862, after the territory of Utah had been patrolled by officials appointed by President James Buchanan, Senator Justin Morrill passed the Morrill act for the Suppression of Polygamy (Duncan 318). This made the practice of bigamy punishable under federal jurisdiction in which a person found guilty could be plagued with a “fine not exceeding $500 and… imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years” (Duncan 318). Angered, a Mormon by the name of George Reynolds made several appeals to practice his right of freedom and religion and in1878, Supreme Court declared polygamy illegal in the case of Reynolds vs. U.S., stating that it was an “odious” practice that in society and ruled that Reynolds freedom of religion restricted religious actions, but not beliefs; officially condemning the practice of plural marriage (White 449). In 1890, after numerous legal disputes between the United States government and the Mormon Church in an effort to cripple the religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officially discontinued the practice of polygamy as a church principle (White 449). This was done after six denied petitions for statehood in the territory of Utah in hopes the United States would finally accept them into a nation. In 1896, Utah was made an official state under the pretense that the Utah provisional government would force to prohibit polygamist marriage in the state’s Constitution. While polygamy is prohibited throughout the country, including Utah, it is not as strictly enforced in all areas in the country and the penalty for plural marriage varies between cases and states (Duncan 320). But how did polygamy establish reputation as child abuse? Though child marriages are prevalent in polygamous and monogamous marriages alike since the foundation of America, the stigma of abuse that bigamy carries today comes largely from the Short Creek Raid of 1935 on the border of Arizona and Utah. The raid turned the public’s eye towards the issue of polygamy when it was revealed that, “15 of the 17 women arrested were married and under the age of 18. An incredible 263 children from short Creek are placed in foster care, some for as long as two years” (Duncan 321). The raid became a turning point for the public’s view on polygamy. While the objective of the raid was supposedly to rescue children from a lifetime of “immoral practices”, the public had forever ingrained into their minds the images of hundreds of children being torn from their families and placed into the foster system (Duncan 321). Americans were appalled by the number of children who were married as well as the number of polygamist children now without parents and would not be adequately cared for in the foster system (Duncan 321). Ultimately, the public deemed polygamy as irresponsible and ill-equipped to provide for the children in these families. More raids of polygamist compounds have taken place since 1935, namely the raid of the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas in 2007. Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet and the leader of the clan, was arrested and convicted of child abuse after marrying a girl under the age of 16 (Inside Polygamy: Life in Bountiful.) This raid again showed the possible abuses that polygamy could lead to. Though fundamentalist Mormon compounds do exist, more than 15,000 polygamists in America live as independents and do not recognize any one prophet, which is something unknown to most Americans (Duncan 333). Despite this, past events, like these two raids, have convinced the general public that abuse is a common occurrence bigamist practices. Though polygamist historically practiced polygamy, much like most things in American history, plural marriage is becoming more contemporary and deserves to voice their claim to equality. Polygamy should be legalized in the United States because it encroaches on some Americans rights to practice their religion. As mentioned above, the Supreme Court justifies its reasoning for outlawing polygamy by stating that the government has no right to intervene and religious beliefs, but religious actions cannot be superior to federal law (Duncan 318). The federal government believes that polygamy is unnatural and harmful to the society. However, many Americans express their rights to exercise their religious actions which are many times harmful to society. For example, the Westboro Baptist Church actively expresses their religious opinions in which are damaging to the general public. The church regularly pickets churches, colleges, and military funerals with their “anti-gay” protests in the argument that “God hates America” (The Most Hated Family in America). The church has been sued numerous times, especially by the families of the deceased military men whose funerals were disgraced when the shouts of, “your fag is going to hell” reached the funerals (The Most Hated Family in America). Though legal action has been taken to try and hinder the church, there has never been any restrictions limiting the protesters, though they caused emotional distress, and sometimes violence to the general public (The Most Hated Family in America). While some zealous Christians are free of legal persecution and use the freedom of religion clause to exercise their religious beliefs and actions without restriction of the government, polygamist lifestyles are affected by this double standard in society. Fundamentalist Mormons, however, are committing a crime in the eyes of the government when trying to practice those same beliefs. Family is the primary principle and the center of the Mormon religion. Fundamentalist Mormons believe that in the celestial kingdom, one only spends eternity with their family. They believe that the more wives a husband has, the more status he will achieve in heaven; thus making the spouses in plural marriages Gods and Goddesses in their own right (Inside Polygamy: Life in Bountiful). By taking away the right to practice their religious actions, the federal government is also impinging on their religious beliefs as well and therefore, violating the right to Mormons to have freedom of religion. To truly have a separation of church and state, the government needs to persecute the abuses in polygamous families, and not the practice itself. As co-director of Principal Voice, a pro-polygamy group said, “It would be all about going after the crimes, and not the culture” (qtd. In Duncan 334). By allowing polygamists to practice their beliefs, Mormons would feel more protected in their rights and be more willing to report abuses, allowing the government to incriminate the criminals and not the practitioners (Larsen 224). Second, polygamy should be a legal lifestyle in America because the inability for wives to achieve marital status denies the rights married individuals are allowed in our country. Most fundamentalist wives do not have a certificate of marriage and instead have a celestial marriage performed by their church, sect, or priest holder (head male of the family) without any affiliation from the state. The first wife (first to be married in the family) is listed as the legal wife and the others will not apply for marriage certificates to protect their husbands from persecution for maintaining more than one state recognized union (D'Onofrio 377). While the wives of plural families do this to protect their husbands from the law, they ultimately hurt themselves by willingly excluding themselves from basic marital rights, such as joint custody of children and recognition from the state as man and wife. For instance, fundamentalist families have many children from each wife, but the children consider all wives in the family as their mothers. Most wives, however, are not able to obtain adoption rights to these children if they so wanted because they are not bonded to a legal marriage and have no rights to the children (Bennion). Since most wives are not legally tied to their husband, they are under no financial tie as well. With large families and religious restrictions on women in the workforce, many wives apply for government assistance to avoid poverty. Foods stamps are a regular occurrence in these families. Even the wives and children of the Kingston family, who are a polygamist family in Kansas and were once head of The Church of Latter-day Saints and are worth more than $150 million dollars, live in poverty and rely on food stamps to survive (D’Onofrio 381). But though these families have fathers to support them, it is difficult to determine the patronage responsible for the provision of these families, since these marriages are spiritual and have no paper trail of marital evidence (Duncan 326). By legalizing polygamy in the United States, the government could maintain and track a record of parentage and legal partnerships; thus allowing them to enforce the patron of these families to financially provide for their clan and but a stop to the scam of government assistance to polygamist families. By allowing these families to adopt and achieve official marital status, the government can not only provide the rights these polygamist wives deserve, but they can also help diminish the unnecessary government financial support these families can obtain by creating a legal marital and parental paper trail of evidence. Thirdly, plural families should be allowed to practice their beliefs and be accepted into mainstream society because the scorn and ridicule these families receive have damaging effects on polygamist children. The book, Love Times Three, was written by a polygamist family explaining the lifestyle of modern plural marriages. The Darger family has large family consisting of three wives, one husband, and 30 children. Unlike most fundamentalist Mormons, the Dargers do not live on a fundamentalist compound with other polygamist families. The Darger children go to the local public school and the family lives in a monogamous couple community. Because of this, the Darger family regularly receives ridicule and judgment in their neighborhood. In fact, Vicki Darger writes in her and her spouses book that, “it’s not unusual for my sons to come home with cuts and bruises from the other children throwing rocks at them on the playground.” Alaina Darger writes, “our daughters have had boyfriends cheat on them and been told they should have expected it, considering what kind of family they come from.”  This kind of treatment from society is why most fundamentalist families choose to live on polygamist compounds, cut off from the rest of the world. But living on a compound has many detrimental effects on the children as well. Most are homeschooled with no government regulation in their education. Those who do attend compound public schools receive a skewed education system. Many former polygamist children reported they, “received no sex education, were taught that the Holocaust never happened, and that the government fabricated the story of man landing on the moon in order to hide tax money” (Duncan 329). If the government were to legalize polygamy, the practice would eventually be accepted and children would be able to have a more normal upbringing. The ridicule these children receive because of their families results in some children receiving a narrow mindset education. In order for these children receive their best chance at a healthy childhood, their lifestyle needs to be integrated into society. However, many who oppose legalizing polygamy argue that plural marriage often leads to child and marital abuse. Events like the raid of Sugar Creek and the Yearning for Zion Ranch have portrayed polygamy as a male controlled, brainwashed society. In fact, Charles Darwin, the esteemed evolutionist, concluded that men have historically practiced polygamy as a way to both satisfy their lust and maintain their position as the dominant figure in the household. People like Warren Jeffs have convinced the general public that the men in these communities are power-hungry and prey on young woman. While it is true that child brides, false prophets, and abuse exist in polygamist compounds, polygamists, like monogamists, are diverse and varied in their beliefs and practices. Not all polygamists marry child brides, conduct forced marriages, or mistreat their children. In fact, one study concluded that these instances of abuse are rare and are the result of a “particularly dysfunctional” lifestyle of some polygamist families rather than a common occurrence in compounds (Duncan 332). Most Americans do not realize that one polygamist family could consist of tens to hundreds of members. Therefore, if one family commits an abuse, the media portrays it as hundreds of polygamists committing and experiencing abuse. For example, the Blackmore family is a polygamist family in Bountiful, Canada who were featured on a National Geographic in a special documentary, consists of 25 wives and hundreds of children. The family was once followers of Warren Jeffs, but after hearing that their false prophet was found guilty of forcing a 14-year-old girl into marriage and sex with her 19-year-old first cousin, the family cut ties with the church and refused to marry any girls assigned to the family from Jeffs’ sect (Inside Polygamy: Life in Bountiful). Doing this, Winston Blackmore, the head of the family, risked his immortal soul and achieving a higher rank in the celestial kingdom. Though this action showed that the family was against underage and forced marriage, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched an investigation concerning marital and child abuse in the family. The investigation however found no evidence of victimization in the family, but Blackmore family in response invited the media into their homes to prove they had nothing hide and to process the injustice of the investigation (Inside Polygamy: Life in Bountiful). As seen by the Blackmore family case, condemning every practicing polygamist to prevent the abuse of some is counterintuitive. Regardless of whether polygamy is recognized as a legal or illegal practice, polygamy will continue to be prevalent in the United States in whatever way fundamentalist Mormons choose and for as long as it holds religious importance to them (Bennion). Much like the 18th Amendment that banned alcohol consumption in America, the prohibition of polygamy has spurred an underground practice which makes it difficult for prosecutors to differentiate between religious practices and moral abusers (Bennion). By legalizing polygamy, the government could create and adopt legal framework around polygamy to better regulate truly deviant practitioners (Duncan 337). Though child and marital use exist in polygamist families, the legalization could diminish the underground abusers in polygamist families by establishing regulation and government involvement in fundamentalist Mormon communities. In order for there to be a true separation of church and state in the United States, polygamists should be free to practice their beliefs without persecution from the state government. By making polygamy illegal, the government has restricted Mormons from not only practicing their religious duties, but also has infringed on their beliefs, violating Mormons freedom to exercise their religion. By condemning polygamy, the federal government has inadvertently created an underground marriage chain that makes it difficult for government involvement. Wives are unable to receive the rights and marital status that women are entitled to in this country because of the illegal status of their marriage and children are ridiculed and suffer because of the stigma there families lifestyle carries. Polygamists have the right to be equal members in society and do not deserve to have their practices restrict. Remember that we are all Americans and we all deserve the right to practice our beliefs. Dotson 9