Slippery slope? No way, they said. Just because gays are fighting for the right to marry doesn't mean that polygamists or others will, they said. It's totally different, they said. But if the traditional definition of marriage is altered it will open the floodgates to an anything-goes mentality. Not a chance, they said. Don't make such a big deal about it. It'll never happen. A recent Newsweek report demonstrates otherwise:

"We were taught not to make a big ruckus." Not anymore. [Marlyne] Hammon, who's involved in a polygamous relationship, is a founding member of the Centennial Park Action Committee, a group that lobbies for decriminalization of the practice. She's among a new wave of polygamy activists emerging in the wake of the gay-marriage movement—just as a federal lawsuit challenging anti-polygamy laws makes its way through the courts and a new show about polygamy debuts on HBO. "Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights battle," says Mark Henkel, who, as founder of the Christian evangelical polygamy organization TruthBearer.org, is at the forefront of the movement. His argument: if Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy.”

There you have it. The doors are open and you better believe that everyone claiming to be in love with whomever or whatever is going to walk through it. With precedents being set in other non-traditional marital arrangements, there are now legal grounds on which polygamists, and others, can stand:

There's a sound legal argument for making the controversial practice legal, says Brian Barnard, the lawyer for a Utah couple, identified in court documents only as G. Lee Cooke and D. Cooke, who filed suit after being denied a marriage license for an additional wife. Though the case was struck down by a federal court last year, it's now being considered by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Barnard plans to use the same argument—that Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 sodomy case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals have "the full right to engage in private conduct without government intervention," should also apply to polygamous relationships.

Next up...incest. Wait and see.

Labels: David C. Price