The liberal argument for polygamy

In 2004 Jonathan Turley wrote an article in USA Today urging that laws and court decisions banning polygamy in the U.S. be overturned. His main argument is the standard liberal one: all human beings and situations are equal and there is a single standard for all human beings; therefore it is “hypocritical” to outlaw polygamy:

I personally detest polygamy. Yet if we yield to our impulse and single out one hated minority, the First Amendment becomes little more than hype and we become little more than hypocrites. For my part, I would rather have a neighbor with different spouses than a country with different standards for its citizens.

I know I can educate my three sons about the importance of monogamy, but hypocrisy can leave a more lasting impression.

This is a perfect example of the one dimensional, anti-human thought process that is liberalism. Like President Bush who can think of no legitimate reason why an Arab country should be treated differently from a European country when it comes to the security of U.S. ports, Turley can think of no legitimate reason why polygamy should be treated differently from monogamy when it comes to the fundamental institution of human society. And indeed, within a strictly liberal accounting,—common morality dispensed with because that is oppressive, equal rights for everyone, the law as neutral arbiter—there is no reason to treat polygamy differently from monogamy. If we do so, we are morally bad people who are using the law to enforce our own irrational prejudices against those we hate. Turley’s reasoning shows us that within the liberal dialectic no moral order can be upheld, other than that of liberal equality itself. The justifications for prohibiting polygamy come from outside liberalism, from our religious, ethical, and civilizational traditions, from our very being and identity as a people. Liberalism, the so-called “Creed” of America, divorced from and operating independently of the constraints of American culture and civilization, is revealed as a pure destructive force.

Now it could be said that liberalism is not so nihilistic as I have just said, that liberalism recognizes the equality of individual rights, and therefore it should ban polygamy because it oppresses women. But liberal equality of rights also means that people are free to engage in any consensual behavior that does not violate the rights of others. If a woman chooses to enter into a polygamous marriage, why should society be able to stop her? Without the guidance of a moral and cultural order that is not itself liberal, there is no reason not to allow polygamy, or homosexual “marriage,” or the takeover of America by foreign peoples and cultures.

Mark D. writes:

I recommend you read the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. United States (1878), affirming a Congressional statute that banned polygamy in the territories of the United States, which at that time included Utah. I think you will find the discussion a bit more sophisticated than portrayed by Professor Turley.

It’s interesting that Turley would invoke religion, and particularly the Old Testament, in support of his favored view. Would Professor Turley admit the legitimacy of the Old Testament, as of legal significance, in legal controversies relating to the civil rights of homosexuals, for example? I hardly think so. His reliance on Islamic practice is even more egregious and hypocritical.

Turley’s implicit inference that opposition to polygamy is based on uninformed and irrational religious belief is a straw man. The U.S. Supreme Court did not rely upon religious practice or belief to uphold the statute; it relied on the legal precedents of Western civilization, and particularly those precedents originating in the English parliament and English common law, of which we are the inheritors. This legal history underscores your point that Western civilization and Christianity are not co-terminus, though mutually supporting.

Turley’s analysis is of course of some logical force following Lawrence v. Texas. This does not mean that polygamy should be affirmed; it merely suggests that Lawrence is a legal abomination. One would think that, if a line of precedent led to the logical conclusion that polygamy should be affirmed as a matter of law, then something has gone awry in that line of precedent, not that polygamy should be affirmed. Turley is not so acute; I’m confident he is satisfied with the result in Lawrence.

On more general terms, it’s also striking that Turley is more comfortable with his children living in a society populated with polygamists as opposed to a society that practices some form of social discrimination, no matter how reasonable and no matter that it promotes genuine social goods.

This discussion underscores Jim Kalb’s general observation that Liberalism has no limit. Its demands are insatiable.

I have read Davis v. Beason, upholding a law of the Idaho territory against polygamy on similar grounds to Reynolds, that is, not on the basis of Christianity per se, but on the basis of the whole tradition of Western civilization, and it’s extremely impressive. It provides a sound basis for the constitutionality of laws embodying traditional morality.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 11, 2006 06:54 AM | Send