I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about the Texas polygamy case for a while now… and I’m still not sure if I’m going to go where I want to with this, but, at this point, it’s time to either do this or get off the pot, as the colloquial expression goes. Just as a heads-up, though, this is going to be a pretty long and involved post.

First, a bit of disclosure: For a brief point in my life, I was a Mormon. Got baptized and everything. It’s a long and not particularly interesting story how that happened - it mostly revolves around me trying to accommodate my ex’s religious viewpoint of the time - but, due to the experience and my exposure with Mormons through my ex, her family, and their church, I’ve developed a bit of insight on subjects like this. In fact, in the distant past, I even threw together a somewhat ill-advised post on polygamy, arguing that we shouldn’t have it because we don’t have the legal framework to handle it. For what it’s worth, I was dead right - as Ace pointed out recently, the Texas court system is doing its best to simulate the infamous Mac beach ball of death.

With that out of the way, let’s dig into some of the facts, near as I can ascertain them:

Who are the polygamists?

They belong to the Fundamantalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a splinter group of the church that most people refer to as the “Mormons”.

Are these guys Mormons?

Depends on who you ask and what you define as a “Mormon”. As far as the “official” Latter Day Saints are concerned (i.e. the ones based in Salt Lake City that bring missionaries to your door), the only Mormons are the ones that belong to the LDS Church, which means the FLDS group is not “Mormon”. That said, the FLDS do self-identify as “Mormons”, so what’s the real answer here?

Most anyone with any familiarity with the Mormons are at least passably aware of their beliefs, notably:

Take Christianity and add the following:
1. Joseph Smith is a Prophet of God.
2. The Mormon Church has a Prophet at the head of its Church, as determined by the Church.
3. No drinking coffee or tea.

They’re also aware that the Mormons practiced polygamy at one point, but claim they don’t now. To get into that, we first need to dig a little into the history of the Mormons. Christopher Hitchens, being the irascible atheist that he is, has a rather entertaining but reasonably factually correct view of how it all began - Joseph Smith claimed to find some gold tablets in his backyard, other people believed him, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was born.

What most people don’t realize is what happened after Joseph Smith died. According to the doctrine of the LDS church, it must be led by a living prophet. The entire point, doctrinally, of Joseph Smith being a Prophet of God was that it meant that the original Christian church (i.e. the one founded by Jesus’ disciples) could be reformed - according to Mormon doctrine, the original Christian church lost their way because they failed to pass down the power of prophesy (i.e. the power of God talking directly to and through a human being). However, before passing down that power to someone else, Joseph Smith was shot in a jail cell and died. This led to a problem - who should succeed Joseph Smith? Most people chose to follow Brigham Young, the highest-ranking church official of the time, into Utah. Some, however, believed that the next living prophet was a living descendant of Joseph Smith, which is how the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) was born.

Why am I bringing this up? It’s because the Fundamentalist LDS group that the Texan polygamists belongs to is yet another group that split off from the main LDS church due to doctrinal reasons - namely, whether or not polygamy is doctrinally allowed. In the late 19th century, the Mormons had a problem: If they wanted to remain a church, they needed to renounce polygamy. Back then, polygamy (along with pretty much anything else that happened in somebody’s bedroom) was a much bigger deal than it is now, politically speaking. That the Mormons were openly practicing polygamy in the first place was a big, BIG problem in Washington - big enough, in fact, that the Congress of the time passed a lot of laws that, nowadays, would be subject to some incredible press scrutiny nowadays, such as forbidding bigamous cohabitation (i.e. one guy and multiple women), revoking the right to vote from women in Utah, and seizing all LDS church property. In order to ensure some faint hope for survival, the LDS church forbade polygamy in the late 19th century, and, around 1910, began to excommunicate people that practiced polygamy. Obviously, this didn’t go over so well among some people, which is why the FLDS church was founded.

Okay, so these guys are Mormons, right?

Members of the LDS Church and the FLDS Church can both be considered “Mormons” in much the same way that Episcopalians and Southern Baptists are both considered Protestants. Yes, they share much of the same doctrine (Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, there are Prophets among us today, the power to prophesy on behalf of God is passed down through the living church), but, just as there are some wild doctrinal differences between Episcopalians and Southern Baptists, there are some big differences between LDS “Mormons” and FLDS “Mormons”. Consequently, making sweeping generalizations about Mormons based on the activities of the FLDS church makes about as much sense as making sweeping generalizations about Protestants based on the preachings of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

I heard they have sex orgies, the women have sex with each other, they’re raping children, they sacrifice goats to Joseph Smith, drink the blood of their enemies, and worship Satan. They’re evil, right?

A lot of the news stories out there are stuck in a Deviancy Amplification Spiral. The Jawa Report has a couple of great posts on the subject. Here’s an excerpt:

I’m sorry, many of the charges being laid at the feet of the polygamy cult are just way too over the top to believe and I’ve been saying this from the beginning. Young girls forced to have sex … in the compound’s temple… while others watched [and I’m getting this from TV reports] … doesn’t this sound like something out of a bad move made for Lifetime T?

Yet, a lot of people are going to believe this because we know that’s what must be going on with those people!

We tend to believe reports that reinforce our own world view and disbelieve those that go against them. This is the reason why I’m always skeptical of war crimes claims against our soldiers. The same applies to many on the Left who are quick to believe those same soldiers routinely rape, murder, & torture.

That’s why my Father continues to believe to this day that Satanic cults routinely rape and murder children–because that’s what Satanic cults do, right?

It could turn out that some of the allegations against the FLDS are true, such as claims of widespread statutory rape. But I have a pretty strong feeling that most, if not all, of the more sensationalist stories will turn out to be just that: sensationalist stories.

I could be wrong. Sometimes even the most sensationalist claims are true. After all, the moral of the Boy Who Cried Wolf story is not that there are no wolves, but rather that sometimes the wolf really is after the sheep. But 2 out of 3 times it just aint so.

Let’s see here… deviant group? Yep. Doing deviant things, like engaging in polygamy? Yep. Need to fill some air time? Yep. Time to blow this completely out of proportion by watching Caligula and claiming that’s what’s going on in the compound? You betcha.

Okay, so, if they’re not smearing dog blood on themselves in the name of Xorthax the Space Warrior, what are they doing in there?

Good question. You can follow along nicely here - Patterico is doing a wonderful job of following this story.

When watching the news on these people, keep in mind the following - these people left the main Mormon church because it was too liberal for them. Think about that for a sec - Mormons are the same people that think that electing Orrin Hatch is a good idea. Also keep in mind that these people really believe in their faith and their faith is written down on paper - lots and lots of paper. As a result, you’re going to see these guys trying to live out what’s on that paper is literally as humanly possible and trying to live like it’s 1859. Consequently, you can pretty much count on the following:

1. Orgies? Lesbian sex? Hell no… well, probably not, anyways. Let’s just say that same-sex sexual contact is very frowned on in the Mormon faith.
2. Disrespect of women? Oh, almost certainly… at least by modern standards. You can pretty much count on the women being treated like many wives of the late 19th century were treated - roughly. You can also count on the women acting like ideal wives of the 19th century, meaning they’re cranking out lots of children and backing up their man all the way.
3. Underage marriage? Almost certainly - remember, these are people pretending it’s the 19th century. They’re living according to the rules of 19th century society, which had very different views about when it was acceptable for a young woman to enter into marriage. So, yes, the 13 year-old pregnant girl definitely passes muster on this one.
4. Incest? Probably, but not directly because of religious belief - there’s just not that many families in this group. Consequently, I doubt there’s much of the father-daughter stuff going on, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find first cousins playing around.

If you really want to know what to expect, there’s a government-issued primer here, which is used by law enforcement agencies in Utah and Arizona. It also explains why the police aren’t particularly aggressive with these groups.

Where are these women coming from?

They’re home-grown. The bigger question is what happens to the boys… and it doesn’t look pretty.

Muslims practice polygamy too, right? What would happen if we found a colony of polygamist Muslims running around?

That’s a very good question.

So… what do you think about this?

I think we’re going to see a lot of sensationalism - it’s hard not to when you have over 400 kids involved in a weird, esoteric polygamist sect in Texas. I also think the kids are going to be royally screwed no matter which way this goes - they’re either going into foster care, where, if they’re lucky, they’ll be adopted by families with beliefs that are radically different from their own, or they’re going to go back home, where they’ll either be kicked out when they turn 14 because they happen to be male and can start getting women pregnant, or they’ll be stuck in a life of doing nothing more than living in a severely warped domestic hell of sharing their husband with a few women, popping out babies on command, maintaining the household, and taking advantage of Texas’ single-mother welfare laws (did I mention that our legal system doesn’t adapt to polygamy well?). No matter which way it goes, the kids are going to suffer, if only because we’re talking about splitting apart the closest thing they recognize as a family.

Personally, nothing would gratify me more than seeing the parents locked up for welfare fraud and child abuse. It would also be great if the kids could find decent homes. I also suspect we’re going to go 0-for-2 on that - the lawyers (all 100+ of them) are going to have a field day, this is going to stick in the news for the better part of a year or so, there are going to be appeals for time eternal, and absolutely nobody is going to be satisfied with how this ends.

Perhaps it’s because I spent 10 hours today in a class on a rather intricate computer-based PBX system, but I feel the need to go off on rationality and the need for a rational basis between right and wrong. Especially after this wonderful thread on Something Awful. Yes, I know Soemthing Awful really isn’t a great source of hard-hitting journalism, but if there’s one thing that Teens-4-Christ has proven to me, it’s that people really need a clue.

Things are right or wrong not because God or some other invisible being said so but because they either benefit us as individuals and as a group OR they don’t. For example, murder is wrong because doing so ends the existence of whomever is murdered as an individual (clearly doesn’t benefit them) and, if every person lived in constant fear of their life, nothing would ever get done. On the contrary, you’d probably be inclined to listen to any leader willing to promise to end the murder, even if they’re the ones perpetrating it. This would be a big part of the dynamic that leads to some of the more “popular” leaders in poorer countries.

With that in mind, allow me to rant on… gay marriage and polygamy.

The problem with gay marriage is in the name - those of a religious persuasion believe that gay marriage demeans the institution of marriage. Slate had a wonderful article explaining this a little further, which brings me to my solution:

Split the religious institution of marriage from the civil institution of a contractual union between two people bestowing the legal rights and responsibilities of a marriage. All people that choose to engage in a union with each other will engage in a civil union (or some other similarly catchy name). If they choose to get married, they can find a priest to do so. The priest-run marriage, however, will not have any legal standing, unless accompanied by a civil union certificate (same as a marriage license, only with a different name). So, in short, judges will no longer be marrying people - they can unify them in a civil ceremony, but that would be it. However, that doesn’t stop someone from getting a civil union certificate, getting a notary to sign off on it, then running down to some Pastafarian and getting married in the religious ceremony of their choice. If two men feel like getting married, great! As long as they can find a religious figure willing to accommodate that and as long as they get their civil union certificate notarized, their marriage will be just as legally legitimate as that of a straight couple. Would it be equally religiously significant? I’m running for President, not for Pope, so it’s not my problem.

Now, the slippery slope… if we allow gay marriage, why stop there? Why not allow marriage between people and animals? What about polygamy?

Let’s rule bestiality out right now - animals do not possess the cognitive capabilities to engage in a mutual contract, much less understand the ramifications of one, so it’s pretty easy to shoot that down. Besides, that’s just cruel to the animal. Polygamy, however, is a slightly harder nut to crack. I say “slightly” because it really doesn’t take much to explain why gay marriage is legally acceptable and polygamy isn’t.

It’s all about legal precedent.

To understand where I’m going here, you have to remember something - marriage, legally speaking, is a contract between two people that, if a party chooses to break it, defines how assets, rights, and responsibilities are divided between the two people. This includes things like alimony, child-related issues (support, visitation, custody), dividing up of assets (house, furniture, retirement funds) and debts (credit cards, loans, etc.), and so on. Since existing laws are now much more gender-neutral than they used to be, thanks to decades of hard work from women’s rights groups, it doesn’t take much to just write out the genders entirely and let it be between any two consenting adults. The rules would still be identical; there’s little legal distinction between a husband and a wife these days, so it wouldn’t take much to take existing laws and apply them to a gender-neutral union.

Polygamy, on the other hand, is a different story. All of our laws are designed with a civil union/marriage having only two parties involved. Consequently, if we needed to rewrite the laws to authorize polygamy, how would we approach it? Consider the following:

1. If a husband has five wives and one of them choose to leave, does the ex-wife get half of the assets of the family or just 1/6 of them?
2. If a wife leaves and had two children with the husband, does the husband have sole responsibility to pay child support, or do the responsibilities get subdivided evenly between the husband and the other participating wives? If it’s divided between all members of the family, what happens if one of the wives wasn’t in the family before one of the children was born?
3. Take #2, but it’s one wife and her kids and five husbands. Now what?
4. Extremely ludicrous but still worthwhile to consider scenario: Let’s say I decide I want to run a sweatshop. If polygamy were legal, what would stop me from finding 10 impoverished women, engaging in a “civil union” with them that ties into a pre-nup that guarantees them absolutely nothing if they choose to leave (perhaps even having a provision where they have to pay me to leave), then working them as my “wives” and thus avoiding all minimum wage labor laws?

Point being, legalizing polygamy isn’t just as easy as saying, “Eh, let’s do it.” We’d have to rewrite significant portions of marriage law to do it, which is not something that should be done lightly. Since I don’t see a whole lot of people volunteering to rewrite that particular social contract, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.