Polygamists Are Coming Out of the Closet

The war for polygamist rights has been waged in the United States, Canada and Israel. Local authorities in Malaysia have organized rewards for husbands, who have taken care of their wives the best.

American activists for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals have made great strides over the past two decades. A half-century ago, when Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, 22 out of 50 states had laws against mixed-race marriages. In those days, marriage between two men or women was out of the question. Intensive lobbying by the LGBT community has changed the American outlook toward homosexuals and gay marriage.

Sex According to the Founding Fathers

When a Georgia policeman discovered two gay gentlemen engaging in oral sex in a private residence in 1982, he promptly arrested the pair. Three years later, the American Supreme Court ruled that the Georgia law against oral and anal sex is in compliance with the Constitution. The privacy arguments of one of the lawyers representing the gay men were dismissed by Justice Byron White as not serious.

In 2003, the Supreme Court decided in the case of Lawrence v. Texas that the government has no say in the intimate life of the American citizen. The decision made the chances of gay and lesbian plaintiffs in other cases significantly better. In one decade, the moral American landscape was radically altered, as even the recent California decision to include gay history shows.

Currently, gay marriages are legal in six states, and the recent New York decision to legalize gay marriage has convinced many activists that the day of legalization of gay marriage in all 50 states is not a question of “if” but “when.” An important official of the Roman Catholic Church, Timothy Dolan, warned Catholics that the next step in the altering of marriage will be to redefine it so as to accommodate polygamy and infidelity.

The Government in the Bedroom

The opinion that polygamists will start advocating for marriage after the gay community scored victories in that field is very widespread. In 2004, Michele Bachmann, the conservative hopeful for the White House, warned her followers that a legalization of gay marriage would lead to polygamy and “things much worse” in her native Minnesota. For a long time, polygamists quietly lived in the Western U.S., and local law enforcement pretended that it didn’t exist.

In mid-July, Kody Brown, a handsome polygamist, was summoned to court, after he came out of the closet with his four wives by starring in the reality show “Sister Wives.” The popular program, which follows the Browns’ family life, documents the marriage between Kody and his four wives — Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn — and their 16 kids. The program caught the interest of law enforcement in Utah, where polygamy is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Kody can find himself in prison, even though he is officially married to only one wife and only spiritually sealed to the other three. In accordance with local law, sexual relations with multiple women is a punishable offense.

In order to avoid punishment, the Browns moved in January to Nevada. In the Utah court case, Kody’s lawyer, Jonathan Turley, invoked the Lawrence v. Texas case in order to make the case that the anti-bigamy law is unconstitutional. The renowned lawyer is also trying to expose the inconsistencies in the law, whereby a monogamous man can have several lovers on the side. The moment he starts referring to them as wives, a man like that can face prosecution.

Does Kody Brown have any chance at winning? Probably not. As explained by Professor Rick Banks of Stanford Law School, the Lawrence v. Texas ruling could potentially be extended to polygamous couples, but so far has not been done so by any court.

“This is a difficult case, mainly because of the hostility in America toward polygamy. Of course, one could argue the right for every American to determine the nature of his relationships, provided that they cause no harm to others,”* explains Professor Suzanne Goldberg, the head of the New York-based Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. She predicts that most judges will be unwilling to extend the Lawrence ruling to polygamists. “The law is not totally separated from politics,”* she says.

Polygamy is outlawed in all 50 states. A Gallup poll from two years ago showed only 7 percent of the population regarded polygamy as morally acceptable.

The Brown case, which was covered by the major news networks, caused quite a controversy. The conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel even suggested that Turley took money from the bin Laden family in order to do the radical Islamists’ dirty work.

The famous polygamist and his lawyer are not fighting to legalize “spiritual wives.” His aim is to have the state leave him alone. Banks predicts that it’s possible that polygamy might be decriminalized someday, but that actual legalization is out of the question.

Terrence McKeegan, the second in command at the Catholic and Human Rights Institute, believes in the eventual legalization of polygamy. “The first attempts will be doomed to fail. But in two or three years, at least one judge in a liberal state will rule it to be legal,”* McKeegan asserts, noting that polygamy activists might use the same arguments that their gay marriage activists used in the past.

Goldberg also does not discount the legalization of polygamy. “It’s possible, but it will be a long road. The movement that pressed for gay marriage has been doing so for 20 years,”* she notes. She also points out that there is no established community pushing for polygamous marriage, as with gay marriage. However, McKeegan points to the American media, which has sought to clean up the image of polygamists. The HBO show “Big Love” is one of those initiatives, whose protagonists are members of a polygamous family.

A similar struggle is taking place in Canada, where gay marriage has been previously legalized.

The Polygamous Paradise

The Muslims in Malaysia do not have problems with the law when it comes to polygamy. Men can legally and openly marry up to four wives. As of next year, the men who take the best care of their wives will receive gifts and trinkets from the local authorities. “We only intend to reward husbands who provide good care for their wives, children and parents,” says Wan Ubaidah Omar, who is responsible for the rewards system.

The best polygamists can receive, among other things, large picture frames for equally large prints of their entire families. Wan also mentions cash payments, whereby the men can take their entire family out for dinner. Polygamist marriages currently make up about 5 percent of all new nuptials in Malaysia. Malaysian activists, however, are fighting for more stringent rules to discourage men from marrying multiple wives. They contend that multiple marriages place the first wife and children at a disadvantage. Proponents of polygamous marriage, on the other hand, say that it reduces the possibility of infidelity, and that it makes better the lives of single mothers and former prostitutes.

Polygamous Jews?

Similar arguments are used by the Orthodox Jewish sect called Habayit Hayehudi Hashalem (The Complete Jewish Household). According to them, lifting the thousand-year ban on polygamy would not only curtail infidelity and improve Israeli society, but would also give the Jews an edge in the demographic war against their Arab neighbors. Polygamy would allow many widows and divorcées to marry again and increase the population by about 10 percent.

The head of The Complete Jewish Household, Rabbi Yehezkel Sopher, recently spoke to The Jerusalem Post and said that the ban on polygamy was influenced by outside sources, mainly Catholicism. He asserts that other key rabbis are opposed to polygamy, as they receive money from the government.

“If you ask them [many of these rabbis] behind closed doors, they will say it’s allowed,” Sopher remarked, stressing that polygamy is more advantageous for men than women. “This is an appeal of women to change the law; they are voicing their protest; they are not enabled to establish a family, have a future. They are miserable.” he goes on.** Other rabbis cited by The Jerusalem Post were opposed to polygamy.

“This is despicable villainy,” remarked Rabbi Ya’acov Harrar. “I am even less bothered by homosexual relations than such an instance in which a man takes two wives. In a homosexual scenario there are two people who decide to live their life that way. Here a person is putting two women into a conflict,” Harrar said.

*Editor’s Note: These quotes, accurately translated, could not be verified.

**Editor’s Note: This quote is attributed to Rabbi Dov Stein of Jerusalem.