In a story labeled as "bizarre", a man was exposed as a bigamist. Is bigamy really bizarre? Isn't that kind of talk hate speech? There have been some great historical figures who have been bigamists, and our public schools should teach children about them and their bigamy in a positive light. But I digress.
Here's the report I found at Time.com by Nick Carbone.
An already-married Grand Rapids, Mich. man had what NewsFeed can only assume was a joyous wedding ceremony last July. But it turns out Richard Barton, Jr. already had a wife, whom he married in 2004.
When photos of Barton and his new Michigan wife turned up on Facebook, his old (but still current) wife, living in Rhode Island, took issue with Barton. She alerted authorities, who arrested Barton for polygamy.
He now faces polygamy charges and a four-year jail sentence.
My questions are: 1) why is his second marriage a crime and 2) why is it not a valid marriage?
Isn't marrying the person you love a fundamental right? What if he loved both women? Don't judge him – love is love, right?
Haven't we heard over and over again that another person's marriage doesn't impact anyone else's? Neither state is a community property state, so that's not an issue. According to the article, he wasn't returning to the first wife. So how was she harmed by his marriage to another woman? I'm sure someone will bring up tax issues. But we've heard over and over again that same-sex couples should be able to get marriage licenses because they pay their taxes. People often pay taxes in more than one state. If Barton has paid his taxes in both states, how can he be denied the right to marry in both states?
Didn't both states economically benefit from the wedding ceremonies? That's another reason given for the need to issue as many marriage licenses as requested.
Wasn't the marriage beneficial to the second wife? Women have been oppressed in this country, so didn't she have a right to such benefit?
It is legal for him to have sex with the second woman. So denying him the right to marry her encourages sex outside of marriage. Conversely, their right to marry promotes stability, so shouldn't it be legal and not a crime?
Someone may cite informed consent on the part of the women. But neither woman would need his informed consent (nor his consent at all) to divorce him. Neither would need his consent (nor would either woman need to indicate she was informed) if she went to abort his child, or, conversely, if she wanted to continue the pregnancy and he didn't want to be a father (after all, if neither sex nor marriage are about children, marrying these women or having intercourse with them should not be considered consent to paternity on his part.) He could have sex with both women without the other one consenting. Requiring spousal consent for something one does without the spouse is antiquated and void as not only abortion and divorce laws indicate, but according to the spirit of Walker's ruling against the California Marriage Amendment.
So why is one union, traditonally understood to be marriage, a crime while the other union, not historically considered marriage, a right that compels states to license it as marriage?
Of course, same sex marriage that limits marriage to two people is as discriminatory under the same arguments as marriage between a man and a woman. But polygamy doesn't serve the doctrine of gay activists, so they deny any duplicity in their version of the argument.
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