Muslims, the New Mormons

In 1890, the U.S. Supreme Court â?? in upheld laws intended to disenfranchise Mormon polygamists. The 1882 Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act required voters to swear that they were not polygamists, and the Idaho Territory had passed a statute requiring voters to attest that they were not Mormons. In Idaho, church member Samuel Davis was convicted of conspiring to swear falsely in order to sidestep the recently passed statute. In Davis v. Beason, the Court ruled that â??however free the exercise of religion may be, it must be subordinate to the criminal law of the country.â? Idaho could disenfranchise Mormons, polygamists and monogamists alike. In Davis, the Court held that polygamy was an affront to the values of Christianity and civilization, which it viewed as inseparably connected. (See Sarah Barringer Gordonâ??s The Mormon Question).