Polygamists’ Bigamy Convictions Challenged In Light of Texas Sodomy Ruling

SALT LAKE CITY, December 2, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Tom Green, a polygamist in Utah with five wives, argued at the Utah State Court Monday that his bigamy convictions should be overturned based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision against the Texas sodomy law.  In a related case, Rodney Holm, who has three wives and 21 children will argue that Supreme Court decision in the Texas case throws the constitutionality of Utah’s bigamy law into question.  Green’s lawyer John Bucher noted that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that what homosexuals do in the privacy of their own homes does not concern government.  “It doesn’t bother anyone, (and with) no compelling state interest in what you do in your own home with consenting adults, you should be allowed to do so,” Bucher said applying the same argument to his client’s case.  The argument is compelling and demonstrates the veracity of the warnings conservative lawmakers and faith and family groups have been making against the institutional sanction of homosexual unions.  In fact, some advocates of traditional marriage have noted that polygamy is more defensible than homosexual ‘marriage’.  Maggie Gallagher of MarriageDebate.com argued this summer that “Polygamy is not worse than gay marriage, it is better. At least polygamy, for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children.”  The state seems at a loss for a counter argument and is asking the court to disallow the appeal based on Green’s failure to raise the issue at trial.  Green has been convicted and is serving time on a host of other charges including child rape for having sex with one of his ‘wives’ while she was 13, and criminal non-support of his 30 children.  See Gallagher’s column in National Review:  https://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-gallagher071403.asp   See the AP coverage of the Utah cases:  https://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1201prosecutingpolygamy-ON.html