Polygamy Should Be Legalized In All Fifty United States.

Lets have a laugh shall we? Polygamy has been illegal in the united states since 1887 when the Edmund's-Tucker act was signed into law (even though technically the Morrill Anti-Bigamy act and the Edmunds acts got the ball rolling) And at first it may seem obvious why this was done. I don't think I need to site any references proving that most people find polygamy creepy, culty, dangerous harmful to the women involved. And of course all of these assumptions are based on fact. Every few years it seems some terrible monster of a man is paraded on television after he commits some terrible acts in the name of polygamy (and they always look like the kind of guys who should have trouble getting one wife. .. ). However I believe that the Federal government should make allowances for group marriage for the following reasons. 1. It should never have been made illegal in the first place. In the 1800s Mormonism was a hit topic. Public opinion, thanks to some sensationalist story's from the world of Mormon polygamy (some of which where invented to sell books. .. how things have changed), was heavily stacked against Mormons and Polygamy (1). What followed was a series of laws designed to take away power from the Church Of Latter day saints who where buying up large stretches of land and performing group marriages that the population did not like the sound of. (2) The only problem here is that the 1st Amendment protects freedom of religion (4). Islam and The Church Of Latter Day Saints allow Polygamy (Joseph Smith even went as far to say some men HAVE to take on multiple wives (3)). You know what this sounds like to me? The government had something to gain by taking ownership of parts of the Church of LDS, you had a population who found Polygamy and Mormons to be a little creepy and you had everything you needed to pass a series of unconstitutional laws limiting a religious practice on the soul basis that people found it a little bit icky. I guess religious freedom is only allowed if everyone is completely comfortable with it. 2. A registration of polygamous marriages would make them safer. Somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000 people are involved in Polygamy in the US right now (5). And we don't know who they are. We have no idea if these women are in danger. If we allowed civil polygamy to be legislated they would have to declare their marriage on the public register. Polygamy would become as safe and as protected as a conventional marriage. We already have laws that protect husbands and wives. To assume those protections would not help in a Polygamous union would have no basis. My opponent may argue that the practicalitys of legislating for polygamous would be a nightmare (to be fair, I would hate to be the guy who has to sort out how social security would work) and that these laws would be open for abuse (what would stop a corporation marrying all it's workforce for some kind of tax benefit? ) but these are not good reasons to leep an unconstitutional law that was only brought about because people thought Mormons were weird and getting too big for their boots. Thank you for reading, and my opponent, would you like to marry me and my three friends? (1) - . http://books.google.co.uk... (2) - . http://en.wikipedia.org... (3) - . http://www.i4m.com... (4) - . http://www.america.gov... (5) - . http://www.npr.org...