If the floodgates weren’t already open, they are now.
A federal judge in Utah has struck down part of the state’s ban on polygamy.
That’s right, in a land founded by Mormons and populated mostly by Mormons, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, it may no longer be illegal to marry multiple wives as the early Mormons were known to do.
The phrase in the law “‘or cohabits with another person’ is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is without a rational basis under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups ruled.
The ruling is another victory for Kody Brown and the four women he lives with on the TLC reality television show Sister Wives. The family and their 17 children are members of the Apostolic United Brethren, which subscribes to plural-marriage doctrine.
We probably should have seen this coming. Last December, a U.S. federal judge struck down a portion of Utah’s bigamy laws as unconstitutional. Nevertheless, polygamy remained illegal in all 50 states until today.
Will the mainstream media start pushing polygamy the way it does polyamory? On the one hand, polyamory is only illegal in 21 states, so it may be less of an uphill battle than polygamy. On the other hand, polygamy could be an easier push into the mainstream because of the marriage-like aspects. Some have called polyamory the next civil-rights movement that will vie for full marriage equality, but polygamy may be running alongside it in the race toward immorality.
To be sure, polyamory is the new darling of an amoral media, but could polygamy be next? Will it be positioned as a moral solution to adultery? Will we start to see TV shows featuring polygamy? (Oh, wait, we already have Sister Wives with the Browns…) Will we see activist judges in other states decriminalize polygamy the way they have decriminalized marijuana and sodomy? Where do we go from here? And what’s worse? Legalizing marriage of multiple spouses or the mainstreaming of polyamory? I think that’s like comparing fornication with adultery. It’s all sin.
There’s a saying in the gay community that goes something like this: “You can’t pray the gay away.” I once asked the question: Can we pray the polyamory away? Now I am asking a similar question: Can we pray the polygamy away?
Although we see polygamy in the Bible, I don’t believe that’s God’s best plan for mankind. God created one male and one female and joined them in marriage: “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh,” (Mark 10:6-8). Notice Jesus didn’t say “the three shall become one flesh” any more than the Father joined “Adam and Steve” in gay marriage in Genesis.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If we sit by and complain or stick our heads in the sand, arguing that Christians should not be discussing these issues, then we’re admitting defeat and displeasing Christ. But if you believe that God can deliver some from the grip of immorality—whether that’s adultery, fornication, masturbation, pornography, homosexuality, polygamy, bestiality, polyamory or some other sexual sin—then drop to your knees and join with me in intercessory prayer. It’s not only about setting the captives free—it’s about protecting the next generation of young minds that the media is molding.
Jennifer LeClaire is news editor of Charisma. She is also director of Every Nation Prayer Room in Fort Lauderdale and author of several books, including The Making of a Prophet and The Spiritual Warrior’s Guide to Defeating Jezebel. You can email Jennifer at jennifer.leclaire@
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