to their illegal practices by saying that Gods laws trump society laws.

They want to over ride the legal system and claim freedom of religion. Problem is that usually they are claiming the right to take away someone else’s freedoms and claiming the right to suffer no consequences as a result. They are writing laws of convenience for themselves. That opens the door too many other abuses of Society and by default the weaker members of society that happen to be born into these situations or families.

Not getting children immunized, the right to faith healing that has caused death in cases of very treatable illnesses, inadequate home schooling with the focus on religion. Look at other cultures who would claim the right to “female genital cutting” forced arranged marriages, honor killings, in the name of religion.

What would happen if a Muslim woman or a FDLS woman didn’t have the right to walk away from that religion? Because of her membership or affiliation with that religion the religious leaders feel free to retaliate against her, using their own laws and consequences.
This has happened in LDS history and continues to happen around the world. Look at men who kill their daughters because they want to date outside their “religion” and these people feel that they have a right to murder and that no one should question their judgment and the victim has no rights at all.

We can’t afford to have religious organizations making their own laws and doing an end run around the laws that would protect us from crimes in the name of religion and give individuals the rights and recourse if they are abused.

Fortunately, we don't allow human torture or sacrifice in the name of religion in the US. Nor do we allow mutilations, animal sacrifice, corporal punishments for not following commandments. Religion doesn't even protect harassers or trespassers. My encyclopedia says that the Bill of Rights does not protect polygamy because of the findings in two Supreme Court cases. So I have no misgivings about saying that I will not support or respect for anyone who uses polygamy as an excuse to break the laws the rest of us follow.

Anyone who wants to practice plural marriage can accept full responsibility for it and not expect any support from me.

When I first got into philosophy, I thought I had a great insight. I argued that if we legalized polygamy, it would come out in the open and we could then target the "real" abuses. I had to abandon that theory rather quickly as it is loaded with inconsistency. Adding liberty to the situation does nothing to ensure justice. This is one of libertarianism's most severe failings.

Think of life, liberty and happiness as human rights (since we already do). These rights become invalid the moment someone uses one against the other. The ruling principle is justice, which preserves the balance of these rights. When someone exercises too much of one right, it throws the balance of justice out of whack.

Human rights are strictly an individual matter. We can't add our individual rights together as a group to make them more powerful. Groups don't have human rights, and human rights are supreme above all other rights.

Matters concerning one's body fall under the heading of the right to life. So nobody can claim to be exercising their right to liberty if it compromises someone's right to life. If liberty is not equal, there is no balance, or, justice. Groups do not have religious rights. Only individuals have the right to religious freedom. So a group cannot prevail when the rights of an individual are compromised.

Mormon fundamentalists are not necessarily asking for religious liberty in the case of polygamy. What they actually want is to make polygamy a moral imperative in their society, and to them this imperative has more weight than the force of any law. But we can't allow that. Nobody can use their right to religious liberty to threaten the rights of anyone else. But under a societal imperative to practice polygamy, that is exactly what is happening. While men set about collecting as many wives as possible, women are put into the position of being morally obligated to ensure the religious liberties of the men, even if they don't want to. We all know what happens next. When the number of available women diminishes, then underage girls are put under pressure to marry whether they want to or not. Under these conditions, women are constantly under duress and therefore their ability to give consent is anything but clear. So not only are the underage girls under obvious pressure to abandon part of their right to life and virtually all of their right to liberty, adult women don't escape this pressure either. It only looks less offensive because they are adults; but nobody is going to convince me that they are in a position to give proper consent. They are groomed for the position of having lesser rights than men. It is inherent and unavoidable in Mormon-based polygamy. So legalizing polygamy in the interest of religious liberty is completely contradictory and therefore unjust. Under our system of government, everyone must have equal rights and we are obligated to immediately correct any situation that compromises this equality. To do otherwise is tyrannical and contrary to the American ideal.

Plural marriage is backward and injurious to the concept of equal human rights. We can never legalize it. Case closed.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2010 07:22PM by Troy.