Big Love, indeed. Mormonism, in all its incarnations, institutionalized what many people see as the inevitable successor to legalized same-sex marriage: the legalization of plural marriage, which many people are calling “the next civil rights battle.” In the words of polygamist Owen Allred, “The man who wants several women to be his sexual partners can have children by them, and the state will support those children. He remains free of any legal accusation ““ until he marries more than one wife. Marry them, and he becomes a criminal. It is the marriage that becomes the crime.”
An Internet search reveals that this civil rights issue is being pushed by many groups outside the Latter-day Saint tradition. Ironically, perhaps only with the prospect of legalization of polygamy in both its incarnations as polygyny (men with multiple wives) and polyandry (women with multiple husbands) will Americans begin to identify plural marriage with non-Mormons.
I wonder what the LDS Church will do if, like same-sex marriage, polygamy becomes legal. Will the “prophet” reverse Wilford Woodruff”‘s Manifesto? Or will Mormons and Christians be the only Americans whose doctrines will forbid them to have multiple wives?
As quoted by Lawrence Wright, “Lives of the Saints” The New Yorker, January 21, 2002. Online at Lawrence Wright
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
