Montana man applies for polygamous marriage license

[mjr]

Yep...I believe I called it last week or so...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...ourt/29612673/

If they deny the license application, Collier plans to get an attorney and file a civil rights lawsuit, he said.

"Right now we're just sitting here with a lot of anxiety," he said. "We don't know if we're going to have a wedding, a civil lawsuit or a criminal defense."

[KabeRinnaul]

I still have no problem with this, so long as we work out the contract law and balance of power in the relationship.

[Gravekeeper]

Yep...I believe I called it last week or so...

Yes, you "called it" along with virtually every bobble head on TV for the past 5 years. Where do you think this guy even got the idea? You really didn't think that in a nation of 300 million there wouldn't be at least one knob that would try this? Especially a knob from reality TV? >.>

Remember, someone sued the whole country on behalf of God a little while back over Teh Gay(tm). You can file a lawsuit for literally anything.

[mjr]

Yes, you "called it" along with virtually every bobble head on TV for the past 5 years. Where do you think this guy even got the idea? You really didn't think that in a nation of 300 million there wouldn't be at least one knob that would try this? Especially a knob from reality TV? >.>

Going strictly by what he says, he got the idea from the dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court.

It wouldn't surprise me if this does end up making it to the Supreme Court. But if the definition of "marriage" now contains the phrase, "two legal-age, consenting people" (i.e. man & woman, man & man, woman & woman), why is "two" now the restriction?

Remember, someone sued the whole country on behalf of God a little while back over Teh Gay(tm). You can file a lawsuit for literally anything.

I don't think I recall that story.

[s_stabeler]

provided everyone involved consents I really don't care, but do accept some restrictions ( just that you need to prove everybody is actually freely consenting w/o outside influence)

[mjr]

provided everyone involved consents I really don't care, but do accept some restrictions ( just that you need to prove everybody is actually freely consenting w/o outside influence)

Sure, That's a valid point.

I've seen the counter-argument to that, though, that polygamy is "highly exploitative", because the husband usually has a "favorite" wife, among other things. And the other wives basically become subservient not only to the husband, but to the "alpha" wife, too.

[s_stabeler]

Sure, That's a valid point.

I've seen the counter-argument to that, though, that polygamy is "highly exploitative", because the husband usually has a "favorite" wife, among other things. And the other wives basically become subservient not only to the husband, but to the "alpha" wife, too.

it's neither inherent to polygamy, or exclusive to it. But I agree that such a situation would be unacceptable- however, it can be dealt with under the laws for spousal abuse w/o outlawing polygamy.

it's an issue with one party being controlling, basically- NOT with polygamous relationships in general.

[mjr]

it's neither inherent to polygamy, or exclusive to it. But I agree that such a situation would be unacceptable- however, it can be dealt with under the laws for spousal abuse w/o outlawing polygamy.

it's an issue with one party being controlling, basically- NOT with polygamous relationships in general.

Very true.

Do you think he has a chance of winning his case, if it goes to court?

[Jester]

I don't know the guy, and I am not on his legal team nor even a lawyer, but I think he could really make some Christian heads explode if he used the Bible as part of his argument, saying that polygamy was, in fact, considered "traditional marriage" throughout much of the Bible.

I don't know if that would work, or if it would even be a valid argument. I just really want to see some heads explode from that take on "traditional marriage as depicted in the Bible."

Yes, I'm evil. We've been over this. What's your point?

[TheHuckster]

The supreme court's ruling on gay marriage was based on the fourteenth amendment, specifically the equal protection clause.

So, the question is: would denying polygamy to people who wanted it be against this clause in the constitution (or any other clause for that matter)? If so, the supreme court has the power to strike down any anti-polygamy laws. Otherwise, it's up to the legislators to allow it.

Polygamy is a more complicated issue than gay marriage because with gay marriage it's still between two people. Tax laws, divorce and child custody law, and a myriad of other laws can remain exactly the same. If polygamy is ever legalized, either on the state level or federally, the laws regarding marriage that assume it's two people would have to be greatly thought about and changed. If one has a marriage to 10 other people, and one of them divorces, how does one split the assets and child custody? Did that one person manage to sign a prenup that forces the other 10 people out of the house? Should that person only have 10% custody of the children? And how much alimony should be paid? Should it be much less than the alimony one would pay if it was just two married people getting divorced? What if the entire marriage was nullified? Does each person get each child 10% of the time? If there were only one or two bread-winners, do they each have the burden of paying the rest of them alimony?

[s_stabeler]

The supreme court's ruling on gay marriage was based on the fourteenth amendment, specifically the equal protection clause.

So, the question is: would denying polygamy to people who wanted it be against this clause in the constitution (or any other clause for that matter)? If so, the supreme court has the power to strike down any anti-polygamy laws. Otherwise, it's up to the legislators to allow it.

Polygamy is a more complicated issue than gay marriage because with gay marriage it's still between two people. Tax laws, divorce and child custody law, and a myriad of other laws can remain exactly the same. If polygamy is ever legalized, either on the state level or federally, the laws regarding marriage that assume it's two people would have to be greatly thought about and changed. If one has a marriage to 10 other people, and one of them divorces, how does one split the assets and child custody? Did that one person manage to sign a prenup that forces the other 10 people out of the house? Should that person only have 10% custody of the children? And how much alimony should be paid? Should it be much less than the alimony one would pay if it was just two married people getting divorced? What if the entire marriage was nullified? Does each person get each child 10% of the time? If there were only one or two bread-winners, do they each have the burden of paying the rest of them alimony?

actually, those problems disappear largely when you consider the actual situation: alimony is support for the spouse, so no, they receive the same amount of alimony. as for custody, then it would likely be split 50-50 between the remainder of the marriage and the divorcing spouse.(remember that the kid only has two biological parents- which is usually what matters for custody.)
as for splitting the assets, that again doesn't have to be complicated: the actual rule is that each spouse gets a fair share (basically, if one spouse contributed far more to the accumulation of said property, they get more) so generally, a divorcing spouse would indeed get around 10% in that situation.

as for prenups, then yes, technically, if a prenup was signed, the divorcing spouse could kick the rest out of the marital home- however, in that situation, the court may well invalidate the prenup as being so unfair as to be ridiculous to enforce.

in short, it isn't actually any more complicated than splitting up a two-person marriage.

[HYHYBT]

I wish they'd stop conflating the two concepts of 1) a single marriage among more than two people and 2) one person entering into more than one marriage, each to one other person, at the same time. Removing "two," the description those claiming this as a natural extension of same-sex marriage generally use, would be the first one. Polygamy is the second.

[LewisLegion]

I don't think this is going to win, and they have a very prohibitive amount to overcome if they even wanted to have a chance at winning. I'll outline below:

1-First, they'd have to prove discrimination is inherent in the number restriction applied to marriage. It's not, as the number restriction applied to marriage applies to EVERYONE- that is NO ONE is allowed to marry more than one person.

In the SSM marriage debate, the gender restriction was not applied equally. Some people were allowed to marry one gender, and some people were allowed to marry the other gender. That and there was discrimination also in the civil right to privacy wherein people are allowed to choose their spouse (Came in during Loving V Virginia). That is, the right to choose: some people got the right to choose their own adult, consenting, non-blood related spouse and some did not, based solely on gender. No one gets the right to choose more than one consenting, non-blood related spouse.

So proving discrimination is going to be a bear.

2-Then, they'd have to prove all the well-studied and vastly researched harms that come along with polygamy have been rectified and are no longer cause for consideration. Things like a reduction of women's rights, a lowering of the age of consent, sex trafficking and genital mutilation, the drastically increased rates of abuse toward women and children in polygamous relationships, the higher infant and child mortality in polygamous relationships, the drastic increase in poverty in polygamous relationships, the 'lost boys' polygamy inherently generates, the increased social adjustment issues of children raised in polygamous households, the increased welfare rates of polygamous households...on and on and on. There are literally thousands of studies and libraries of research that's been done on the inherent harms of polygamy both on the individuals involved in it AND on society around them, spanning over a century.

Despite trying for over a century in various first world countries, no one has yet been able to overcome these enormous hurdles. That's not even getting into the legalities of the matter such as alimony, tax split, legal relationship and asset partitioning, etc. Such as 'if six women marry one man, are all the women considered legally married to each other too? If so, how does custody and inheritance work? If one wife divorces do the other wives and husband ALL have to pay alimony and child support? If one wife dies do the other wives and husband all have legal rights and guardianship to the children?

And on and on.

So...they can TRY but unless they can prove discrimination in the law exists...which it doesn't...and all those harms are mitigated, rectified, or non-applicable...a nearly impossible feat...they're going to fail in court just like they have for over a century, including all the way up into this half-decade (the last major court decision over such in the first world being in 2011).

[Gravekeeper]

What Lewis said.

Plus this guy is a knob from a TLC reality show. TLC reality tv "stars" have proven themselves a tad inept at legal issues so far. >.>

[AccountingDrone]

I still have no problem with this, so long as we work out the contract law and balance of power in the relationship.

I would love a second husband .... =) I have a very long term boyfriend, some 15 years - but he lives in Germany and we don't get to see each other more than once or twice a year. If we could add him to the marriage I wouldn't lose my military benefits and he could streamline the process for getting a green card. It isn't like he doesn't have a valuable skill, he flew some 4000 hours in the military in a CH53G so he could pilot here doing anything from hospital rescue to firefighting.