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In the HBO series, Big Love (on which I posted the first portion of my thoughts yesterday), the omnipresent problem facing the Hendricksons is hiding their illegal lifestyle (polygamy) from the government, just as it would be if they were a real life family living outside of Salt Lake City today. Which raises another important question, (on a moral and political level) why should their lifestyle be considered illegal–why should polygamists be forcefully discouraged from practicing their sexual, domestic and other such preferences as they see fit?

Here is the historical background: In 1862, the Protestant dominated Republican Party–which had declared polygamy a “relic of barbarism” in their 1854 platform–passed through Congress a law signed by Lincoln making polygamy illegal across the country. Many Mormons fought against this federal policy for years, declaring it a violation of their religious rights, however they gave up this fight by 1890 in order to achieve Utah’s statehood. And while a sect of the religion still chose to practice polygamy against the law, the Mormon Church, on behalf of the vast majority of Mormons who now staunchly oppose plural marriage, wrote “The Great Accommodation” which castigated the practice. Today, the Mormon Church as well as many other Christian denominations form an inpenetrable political lobby which would block any effort to legalize the practice. 

Much of the political opposition is not surprisingly religious, and given the religious impetus of the practice as well as the opposition, one would think that polygamy should be protected by the freedom of exorcise clause of the first amendment.

Additionally, I am led to question why, if gays are legally allowed to practice homosexuality at their own will, should polygamists not be able to practice plural marriage.

Given, just as gays cannot get “married” in the same way that a single man and woman can, it would not be expected that a man could get a marriage license with all X amount of his wives. But it should be expected is that polygamists be able to relate themselves with other people and practice whatever lifestyle they desire so long as they do it on their own volition. Essentially, polygamists should not require special privileges from the government just as gays should not, but they should be able to do whatever the hell they want just as gays are able to do whatever the hell they want with out the government stopping them.

All religious, legal, and cultural mumbo-jumbo aside, the question comes down to this: should the government be able to stop people from living their lives as they wish and interacting with other people as they wish, so long as those people are not coercing others?

The way I see it, that’s what most policy issues come down to at their core; and the answer should always be NO.

In the interest of full disclosure: I am not a Mormon, and I do not plan on practicing polygamy. Call me simple but I’ll be perfectly content with marrying just one woman.

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The Politics, Economics, and Big Love (Part II) by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.