Is polygamy the next same-sex marriage? Fundamentalist Mormons, Muslims, and others argue that federal and state statutes on religious freedom protect the practice. Some liberals have joined the cause, using arguments about sexual liberty, equality, and autonomy. Traditional criminal prohibitions against adultery, fornication, abortion, contraception, and sodomy, they argue, have all now been eclipsed. Criminal prohibitions against polygamy must be repealed, too.
Cases challenging the constitutionality of anti-polygamy laws have been filed in the United States, Canada, and Europe. A federal district court in Utah has declared the state’s laws against polygamy partly unconstitutional. The first rounds of public debate about legalizing polygamy have appeared in newspapers, journals, and blogs. Shows like Big Love and Sister Wives portray polygamous arrangements as happy and normal, affecting our cultural imagination and stoking sympathy for what was only recently thought of by most as a domestic aberration. With polygamy becoming the newest front in the culture wars, we seem to be on the same trajectory that brought us same-sex marriage.
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