The stars of the TLC hit show, Sister Wives, has been granted until September 10 to file a petition of certiorari to have the nation’s top court review their case challenging a ban on polygamy, which could mark the first time in 100 years that the Supreme Court has tried a case based on the practice.
Fox13 is reporting on the case of Kody Brown, a polygamist from Utah who sued the state in 2012 over its ban on plural marriages. The family consists of Brown and his lawful wife, along with three other women whom he refers to as “wives.” The popular reality stars, along with their large brood of children, were forced out of the state after the show aired and they became the subject of an investigation for bigamy. The family claims the state’s ban on plural marriages infringes on their religious freedom and right to privacy.
However, the Browns lost their suit when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that they cannot sue Utah because the family never faced charges – and local prosecutors refused to prosecute “consenting adults” who lived with multiple wives.
This decision reversed an earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups who ruled in favor of the Browns in 2013 when he said the possibility of prosecution drove the family out of the state and that key parts of the state’s bigamy law violated their right to privacy and religious freedom.
“There are about 30,000 polygamists in Utah, according to court documents,” Fox13 reports. “They believe polygamy brings exaltation in heaven — a legacy of the early Mormon church. The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice in 1890 and strictly prohibits it today.”
According to the Daily Caller, Brown’s attorney, Jonathan Turley, has that this case is not so much about “recognizing plural marriages” but fighting against the “criminalization of private consensual relations.”
“The cases are actually different in that the Brown case is about the criminalization while today’s case was about recognition. We have not argued for recognition of plural marriages. Indeed, the Browns have never asked for multiple marriage licenses,” Turley said in an e-mail statement to the Daily Caller last year shortly after the Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage.
“Like many plural families, they have one state license for one marriage but chose to live as a plural family with ‘spiritual marriages.’ In that sense, our case is more like Lawrence v. Texas that was handed down ten years ago.”
The Lawrence v. Texas case struck down the state’s prohibition against sodomy, toppling similar laws in 13 states and legalizing same-sex relations in the U.S.
In other words, the Supreme Court may soon rule on yet another marriage-related issue – that of allowing families to consist of more than two spouses – thus causing further erosion of the most essential social structures in society – marriage and the family.
This case is one of the most compelling reasons why the upcoming presidential election is critically important for either halting or accelerating the moral decline our nation has been experiencing during the last eight years.
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