Connor Boyack, president of the Libertas Institute, which defends the cause of individual liberty in Utah, issued a statement Saturday saying the ruling represents “a new beginning and an important invalidation of an unjust law.”
He said that while child brides and abuse must be appropriately prosecuted, consenting adults in a plural relationship should not face penalties.
The “ruling will help integrate these communities into society so that when abuse does occur, it will be more willingly reported and investigated,” he said.
The practice of polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of the Mormon church. The mainstream church abandoned polygamy in 1890 as Utah moved toward U.S. statehood. Today, it strictly prohibits the practice.
“The polygamists and polygamist organizations in parts of the western United States and Canada have no affiliation whatsoever with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, despite the fact that the term ‘Mormon’ – widely understood to be a nickname for Latter-day Saints – is sometimes misleadingly applied to them,” Mormon church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement Saturday.
The two largest organized polygamist churches are Warren Jeff’s Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on the Utah-Arizona border and the Apostolic United Brethren in northern Utah. About 15,000 fundamentalists don’t belong to any church.
Utah’s bigamy law is stricter than the laws in 49 other states – most of the other states prohibit people from having multiple marriage licenses. Utah makes it illegal to even purport to be married to multiple partners or live together.
Under Waddoups’ ruling, bigamy remains illegal in Utah only in the literal sense, such as when someone fraudulently acquires more than one marriage license.
Utah officials had sought to have the lawsuit thrown out. They first argued that the Browns couldn’t challenge the bigamy law because they hadn’t been charged. State attorneys later argued for dismissal because a prosecutor had pledged not to prosecute them for bigamy.
Kody Brown said in a statement Friday that the family was “humbled and grateful” for the ruling.
Article Appeared @http://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal-judge-rules-parts-of-utah-anti-polygamy-law-unconstitutional/