America, Protect Polygamy

Dear Readers,

Wow, I thought I had posted all my old college essays on Telemoonfa Time, but I just found one that I missed. I think I never posted it because I was embarrassed about it. It's a research paper I wrote for an English 102 class at Eastern Arizona college in 2004. As you'll see, I was a poorer writer then. I'm not only embarrassed by the quality of the writing, I'm embarrassed by the content. I probably sound like a lunatic.

Let it be known that I don't totally agree with the thesis of my paper, which is that polygamy should be legalized in the United States of America. The college professor who assigned the essay said that we didn't have to actually agree with our thesis; we just had to write a persuasive essay.

I don't know how I feel about legalizing polygamy today. I think I feel the same way about polygamy as I do about pot. I don't support full legalization of either pot or polygamy, but I support decriminalization. It's a happy medium.

It's absurd in our legal system that if a man has a wife and a few other girlfriends, there's nothing wrong with that, (Oh, except I think adultery is technically illegal, but it rarely gets enforced) but if a man wants to call several women his wives and take responsibility for them, the man can get thrown in jail.

I think I make that point in this essay. So I guess I'm repeating myself. So I guess I'm repeating myself.

Anyway, here's the essay. Enjoy.

America, Protect Polygamy

Throughout the history of the world, polygamy has played an integral part of the religious practices of various societies. For example, anciently, Jews, Muslims, Christians, and other religions have practiced polygamy. Today in America many people from many different cultures and spiritual backgrounds co-exist, including some who feel that God would have them marry more than one person at a time, all guaranteed, by the Constitution, the right to believe and worship as they see fit. Considering the diverse religious climate in America, polygamy, as a religious practice, must be protected under the first amendment to the Constitution.

It is common knowledge that America was founded by people who were seeking to establish a democratic government, which would allow for religious freedom. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson and others sought to create a document that would establish laws to protect religious freedom. In America, there would be no state church; citizens were to be free to be Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, or any other religion. Citizens could also choose to not unite themselves with any denomination. They could even be agnostic or atheist. They could attend church services, preach in the streets, pray, own and distribute sacred writings, and live how they believed God would have them live. This would be a drastic change from the history of forced religion that was happening in most of the world, where one converted or was punished in some way: fined, imprisoned, or even killed. In short, the people of the United States of America could believe what they wished and practice their religion, without the threat of the government violating those rights.

However, even with these guarantees found in the Constitution, history has sadly shown that the government has not always protected the religious rights of the people. In fact, sometimes the government has denied the peoples' right to practice their religion, when practicing their religion meant doing unusual things. Such is the case with polygamy. While the uninformed may think that polygamy is a practice long extinct, with virtually no supporters, there are actually several religious groups in the United States today whose teachings do allow or have allowed for polygamy. Among these groups that teach polygamy are five that will be discussed: 1) Christian Polygamists 2) members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 3) the fundamental members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 4) Muslims, and 5) the Universal Unitarians.

First, some Christians, coming from many different denominations, support plural marriage. Although it cannot be said that all Bible-believing Christians support polygamy, there are some Christians today who acknowledge the righteous practice of this ancient principle in the Bible and who think that God still wants it practiced today. These conservative Christians point out that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon and other prophets had more than one wife. Many are familiar with the story of, Abraham, a prophet respected by many religions, who takes on another wife. Abraham, then called Abram, and his wife, Sarai, are unable to have children. Since it was so important to them to have an heir, Sarai, “took Hagar her maid the Egyptian… and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.” (King James Version, Genesis 16.3). Some argue that Abraham was not approved in the sight of God in taking more than one wife. Yet after this event, Abraham still receives communication from God and is regarded as a great man and prophet by his descendants, such as the Pharisees and Sadducees in the New Testament (St. Matthew 3:9). So, using the Bible as their justification, a few Christians have banned together to advocate polygamy as an activity approved of God. The internet has many websites available, established by Christian Polygamists. Two of these are Biblicalpolygamy.com and truthbearer.org. In these websites, the authors argue that polygamy is Biblical, and it should be practiced today, responsibly and spiritually.

Second, the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does not presently allow for polygamy, but less than one hundred and fifty years ago, it did. This belief comes in part from a passage in the Doctrine and Covenants. In this book, believed by Latter Day Saints to be divinely inspired, the Lord Jesus Christ explains, “if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second… then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him” (Doctrine and Covenants 132: 61). Encouraged by this verse and the teachings of Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the said Church, many of the early leaders of the LDS church had more than one wife. Polygamy was practiced peacefully among the Latter Day Saints for over fifty years. However, their peculiar way of life began to come to a close with the Supreme Court case of Reynolds vs. United States in 1878. George Reynolds was a personal secretary to Brigham Young, the second President of the LDS Church. Reynolds was convicted of polygamy and not allowed to take on any more wives. Furthermore, on March 14th 1882, congress passed a bill declaring polygamy unconstitutional. In order to become a state, Utah had to acknowledge the federal law opposing polygamy and comply with the law. On October 6th, 1890, Wilford Woodruff, then the President of the LDS church, published an official declaration to the world regarding the Church’s policy on polygamy. This official declaration states that God commanded the LDS Church to discontinue polygamy. It also warns that any member caught marrying more than woman, or having any association with the illegal formation of plural marriages, would be excommunicated (Doctrine and Covenants OD-1). Since latter day saint doctrine allows for continuing revelation, in which eternal truths stay the same, but some policies change according to God’s will, Latter-Day Saints believe that the switch from allowing polygamy to forbidding it was sanctioned by Deity. Because polygamy is no longer allowed among its members, the LDS church is not currently trying to get plural marriage legalized.

Third, fundamental latter day saints uphold the doctrine of polygamy. When the LDS church officially barred members from continuing polygamy, some of its members rebelled, not following the teachings of the President Wilford Woodruff, and other leaders. These members who insisted on continuing polygamy broke off from the main LDS church and came to be called the fundamental members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, even though they are not officially associated with the LDS church. They see their teaching of polygamy as a foundational tenet of their religion. Rulon Jeffs, a Fundamentalist LDS prophet, preached in 1964, “The great and grand purpose of the Law of Celestial Marriage is to perfect a man and his wives, his dominion in this order under the family Order of Heaven, and to bring forth and bear the souls of men” (Perkins 1). Fundamentalists are thriving today, practicing polygamy in secret, illegally. Currently there are trials under way trying to get their way of life legalized. On August 4th, 2004, the Deseret News published an article covering one such trial. Barnard focused on how the fundamentalists’ religious rights were being violated when they were forbidden to marry more than one wife. Barnard also pointed out that fundamentalist doctrine requires men to practice polygamy in this lifetime in order to achieve salvation (Welling).

Fourth, the Islamic religion teaches polygamy. In the Koran, the scripture of Islam, Allah officially condones polygamy, declaring, “marry such women as seem good to you, two, three, four;” (Koran iv, 3). Muhammad, the great prophet of Islam, obeyed this principle and married many women, and several of Allah’s followers did the same. Thus we see that sacred scripture, the Koran, requires Muslims to marry more than one woman. Muslims in the Middle East continue to practice polygamy today, but there are some Muslims in America who would like to enjoy plural marriage.

Finally, the Unitarian Universalists is another religion in the United States whose doctrine allows for more than one spouse simultaneously. Relatively recently, a group of 183,000 Unitarian Universalists have united, calling themselves Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness. Their purpose is to advocate “polyamory”— defined by Sally Amsbury, who serves on the national board of directors of the Unitarian Universalists, as, “the philosophy and practice of loving or relating intimately to more than one other person at a time with honesty and integrity.” (Lattin). Thus polyamory is a type of polygamy, but in it homosexuality and bisexuality are more common, whereas polygamy is generally thought of as a heterosexual activity. Nevertheless, these religious individuals believe that God supports and condones polyamory, and are advocating this principle on a political level. Whether one agrees morally with polyamory, we must acknowledge that some Universal Unitarians see this type of multiple marriage as a religious practice, and as supporters of the first amendment, we must protect their right to practice their religion.

The Christian Polygamists, Latter Day Saints, Fundamental Latter Day Saints, Muslims, and some of the Universal Unitarians all teach that polygamy was instituted by God. Regardless of one’s opinion about how marriage should be defined, it must be acknowledged that these religions passionately believe that marrying more than one person at a time is ordained by God. Because there are so many different religions thriving in America, many teaching polygamy, it is necessary to protect it as a religious practice.