Utah Judge: criminalization of "cohabitation" unconstitutional; conservative pearl clutching ensues

[moonshaz]

Utah Polygamy Court Ruling On 'Sister Wives' Case Confirms Fears Of Social Conservatives

(RNS) Fueling debates over marriage and religious freedom, a federal judge declared on Dec. 13 Utah laws criminalizing polygamy are unconstitutional, ruling on a case involving the Brown family from TLC’s reality series “Sister Wives.”

Comments

[halfshellvenus]

Only Utah could permit polygamy while still banning same-sex marriage. :(

I'll admit, this is an area of personal discomfort for me-- because it's always multiple wives, not multiple husbands, and because the wives tend to get younger and younger over the course of the religion involved until 12-13-year-olds are getting married off to old men.

There's such a strong element of coercion/brainwashing that I can't buy that this is truly "freely chosen." In some cases, perhaps, but more cases involve women who feel they have no rights and no choices, and are threatened with losing their children if they try to leave. That is not mutual love and consent. It's cultural enslavery. :(

[halfshellvenus]

That would be nice, though a lot of them live in remote areas where the "police" are also in the same cult/religion, and other avenues are far away (requiring cars, and getting all the kids together in case you're lucky enough to not come back).

It just isn't easy. I really feel for those women and their kids. :(

[ebay313]

I think it would. Having watched the Sister Wives one thing that came up was even though they all state that there is no abuse, and they are happy in the marriage, they have discussed that each has had times when they questioned the marriage and Janelle even left for awhile I believe, but Christine in particular has also expressed a fear that talking about being unhappy would result in their family being forced apart. That there is this silence and fear about ever talking about it, and silence like that helps keep abuse hushed up too.

[ebay313]

I'm very glad for this decision. Which as pointed out doesn't even legalize polygamy in the law, it just says that you can't be guilty of it by cohabitation alone. I'd be happy to see it made legal though. I wish the laws and governments would focus on the real problems that occur in some polygamous communities- ie the abuse- instead of using polygamy as a scapegoat and pretending like the only way we can prevent child abuse is to not allow polygamy. Our laws and enforcement ought to be such that the actual harmful behaviors can be effectively caught and punished instead of relying on having to "get" perpetrators on other crimes.

Sort of related- what happened to Sister Wives? Are they still on or did the series get canceled?

[yndigot]

Article makes it sound like they're still on ("which entered its fourth season earlier this year"), but you don't hear about them much anymore compared to when they were first on the air.

[ebay313]

The spacing between seasons feels super long right now to me.
I hate when I don't know that a show has been cancelled until I realize "oh, it's been years since the last season, guess they aren't coming back..."
But maybe it hasn't been unusually long for Sister Wives. idk.

I also never got a chance to see the special thing TLC aired "My 5 Wives" which is about a polygamous family who are not practicing mormons (I think).