We must legalize it now. Polygamy.

In actual fact I wish to have Polygyny legalized. I am morally opposed to Polyandry, a form of Polygamy and actually would declare that such a union is no union and no marriage. Group marriages are not recognized by God. Clan marriages are not recognized by God. As scripture tells it marriage is actually a relationship defined as being (among other things) "one man" and "woman." The concept of woman in scripture is embodied in the word 'ishshah which in Hebrew might best be translated as "joined, joiner or joining." Look it up. It's used to describe how five curtains are joined together as one in the temple, by God. The concept describing what a woman is is also the concept for marriage, among other things. I believe that marriage or the husband wife relationship is a continuum of relationship having it it, one living man.

The train has LEFT the station when it comes to legalizing Polygamy. Yisrayl (Buffalo Bill) Hawkins has been charged with Bigamy in Texas. Not FLDS members, Yisrayl Hawkins. He's a nut job. Certifiable. He thinks the world will end, was going to end, but now will end soon, but might not end soon as he said, but could end soon after that. Nutters. Wacked. Any pejorative term for crazy that you might want to choose. I've been looking forward with dread to the time when such a test case would occur. Now it has.

Why DREAD if I am a Polygyny supporter? Because with this case, and the fact that this month in California gays can start getting married we're loosing control of the perception of marriage and thus the legal climate in which it exists. As far back as 2004-2005 I said it was coming. Legal Polygyny. But it would come in the form of legalized EVERYTHING. Men with Goats, women with donkeys, five men with four women, ten gay guys, 20 lesbians, you name it.

Good, you say. Bring it on. However, the problem with that is we will not define our relationships legally. They will be legal, but they will be defined by the state. Suddenly let us suppose, you are in a Polygyny and your wife wants to start having sex with, your other wife. Sin is sin folks. Don't think it won't happen. Marriage laws being defined by the state, she and that other wife says, well, "WE want a divorce." Oh oh. Or maybe you have three wives, two turn lesbian, one sits on the fence and "doesn't want to get involved." You get the picture?

How about this. Your wives decide (the majority of them) that they want to marry another man. But wait. This is ADULTERY you say. Good luck. The state defines marriage as a LEGAL concept. The state also defines DIVORCE as a legal concept. You're out bucko, paying child support and arrested for pressing your nose up against the glass of what used to be your former household. Once Polygyny is LEGAL, the legal destruction of it or legal modification of it is a state matter.

If Buffalo Bill lives long enough he is going to be before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court might well have a decidedly liberal bent after January 20th, 2009. President Barack Obama might just appoint Hillary to the court. Who knows what deal they made yesterday?

You do not WANT the chaos that sudden court declarations make, instead you want to do it in an orderly fashion. Thus I suggest again Marriage Contracts. This is good for the "One Man One Woman" crowd. It works for the "Big Love" crowd. It works unfortunately for gays that wish to be "married" and Bisexuals who wish to express their sexual "preference" in the context of "marriage."

You can't control your neighbor, don't try. Texas just did and see where it got them? Arizona tried 55 years ago with similar results. In a legal climate where there are no cohabitation laws to restrict consenting people from having sex behind closed doors in whatever manner they wish, all you do is end up with people who can't produce a piece of paper to say the state knows about it.

What we need right now is a push to legalize Polygyny which unfortunately will result in other legal relationships. We also need to push at the same time for marriage contracts, maybe push for them even before that. With marriage contracts in place we can say for instance, that marriage is "One Man/One Woman" if we wish to. I think you people are nuts, but to be fair, you people think I AM NUTS. The point being I can help YOU preserve your marriage the way you see it, and you can help me preserve MINE.

Marriage contracts will allow us to do things like predetermine custody, asset splits, those sorts of things. We should go before our legislatures and if we have Neanderthal, backward, stone age concepts of marriage, so be it. I for instance want a marriage contract that says none of my wives can ever do anything but run off and leave. I won't get that, but I might get a contract that says she can run off, but unless she does so for specified predetermined reasons, she gets a check and a "so long." If anybody wishes to join such a "ridiculous" or "sexist" arrangement, that's their problem. You might wish to form a 50-50 partnership. I think YOU'RE nuts, but I can't stop you, that's your problem, not mine.

I cannot realistically ask the state to insulate me from all the consequences what they call a divorce based on my religious beliefs. I might be able to say "I get the kids" up front, unless abused is proved as a crime, in court (not as a custody issue.) If a wife wishes to "play the harlot" then, and leave me, I might still regard her in MY mind as my wife, but I keep the kids, she gets an asset check, she leaves, and the state says she is divorced from my marriage. That would solve a lot of FLDS problems, it would solve a lot of mine, and it might just be something that could be legally accomplished.

Otherwise you're going to have marriage be constantly recreated as a legal concept by the state over and over and over again. The consequences of that are about as ugly as your imaginations can make them.

I think I'm pretty much done with the FLDS controversy. I am not an FBI agent, I don't have the resources of the press. I think I've exposed as much of what is going on as an unemployed man in rural Montana can.

I would like a NEW job, not in the car industry, but promoting legalized polygyny and marriage contract issues. I don't think I'm going to get that job, but you could fool me. Send money. Send enough and I'll incorporate as some sort of advocacy group, "not for profit" or otherwise. I'll do whatever political action thing is necessary to promote the cause. I'll go on Oprah if I have to. I'll finish my book. Whatever. Right now though it looks like I will have to go to work again in, in sales. Sooner or later my public self in business will be merged to my public self in terms of profession and I'll have to give up one, the other, or both. I do have a PayPal button and you CAN tell me you want me to do this. Or not. More →

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The Law of Unintended Consequences, Child Molestation and the FLDS.

I'm not the first to the table with this observation, but I did eventually come up with it on my own, to a rousing chorus of "duh" from those that had already figured it out. The "Virgin Population Clock" makes a joke out of it, estimating that 16% of the world's population has "lost it" at 14 and if you're 21 and a virgin, you're in an even bigger minority, 14%.

Another treatment I saw had teenage girls even more active than teenage boys after a quick start by the guys. Check the stats at Child Trends Data Bank which pretty much explains why one in four girls have a venereal disease. Page 4 shows that 20% of 9th grade girls (14 year olds) are "sexually active," 31% of the 10th (15), 41% of Juniors (16) and 52% of Senior girls (17) are "sexually active." Sexually active as defined will scare you even more. It means sexually active (had intercourse) in the last three months. The report also declares on page 1;

"Teen pregnancy rates, birth rates, and rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. are among the highest in the industrialized world."

12% of all pregnancies were teenage girls, and the declining rate of teenage pregnancy was due primarily to contraceptive use. By contrast 31 of 53 FLDS girls between 14 and 17 "have been pregnant" which means they do not adhere to the mantra of using birth control and since I'm betting they also do not have STI's, they have been in a "committed relationship." As compared to the population on the whole, we have evidence that 58% of FLDS girls have been sexually active at some time between 14 and 17, and 36% of the girls between the same ages in "the world" have been in the last three months. The "Virgin Population Clock" chuckles that the FLDS numbers are pretty normal.

The gripe centers on several "mores" that have crept into our society and into our laws. We want all kids to go to school, hopefully to college and marry at the age of about 24 or 25. By then says the Virgin Clock, less than 5% of the population are virgins.

We have constructed laws that criminalize older people or "adults" from having sex with people under our rising age of consent, but we have decriminalized sex for those people within about three years of one another.

Like it or not we've told our children to experiment with sex, to be careful, and to use the occasional abortion and birth control, preferably barrier devices like condoms to prevent disease and wait until they are tarnished and older, to marry.

Compare this then with the way the FLDS does things. Marry everyone in the community off, early. They stay for the most part in committed relationships not withstanding the occasional "forced divorce" and the "lost boy issue." The women are healthy and intelligent. The children are in good shape and the FLDS does not have a big issue with promiscuous sex and experimentation like we do out here, in the real world.

We have, without intending to, created a world of harlots and whore mongers. Damaged people some of which may have life eroding diseases, higher incidence of depression and a host of other ills.

What is our complaint? If polygyny is acceptable, we're complaining that older men in search of chaste women, of necessity end up marrying some younger ones. We shy away and call it all "creepy" and "abusive" but the women at YFZ ranch have yet to show that they are abused or feel the practice is "creepy." There is anecdotal evidence to the contrary of course, but exceptions prove general rules, not establish the contrary.

The real complaint is not that what the FLDS do is creepy, but what they do destroys the vision that the social engineers have. Men and women, side by side, as equals. Realizing themselves, having careers, and in the process, destroying many good things. On balance, do we do more damage with our lifestyle, or do they? More →

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Why a Polygamist (Polygynist) is your friend.

I know most of the conservative Christians out there are from the monogamy only side of the aisle. For you, marriage is "one man, one woman, the way God Intended." But look around you. Marriage definitions in society at large are already breaking down. You and I know, as Monogamy only advocate, and Polygynist, that God defines marriage, not society. Just as Bible Believing Christians do not accept that abortion is NOT murder because courts say it is not, we also do not accept that society can tell us what marriage is. If society says gays can "marry", that doesn't make them married.

So we are trapped between the ideal of marriage and what the world insists that marriage is, or should be. I daresay a lot of you think that there really isn't any such a thing as divorce. I have good friends who think that even if you go get one, you're still really married, in God's eyes. I do think there are reasons to divorce, and that it doesn't necessarily bind you to stay unmarried for the rest of your life. You see. There are differences.

Face it. The world will have it's due. They're going to interfere with WHEN we think we can marry in terms of age. They're going to tell us that men and women are equal in divorce. They're going to tell us that divorce can occur for any reason. They're going to tell us pretty soon that two guys can marry a gal, or three gals can marry a guy and then those two groups can marry each other.

The BEST that can be done is to draw a line in the sand now. Up until now the only version of a "marriage contract" has been a prenuptial agreement and in many ways that is what a marriage contract is. You can't stop someone from leaving a marriage. I learned that all too painfully. You can claim they're still married to you, but even if in God's eyes you are, they'll behave as if they are not.

So the Polygynist (Polygamist) is your friend. The MONOGAMISTS friend. We want to define what marriage is to us, and in the process, we'll allow YOU to define what marriage is to you. Why is it for instance, that I can't agree in advance who gets custody? Suppose you are a monogamist and you say "the only way out of a marriage is adultery" and there is no adultery and your wife leaves you. She's going to get the kids. What if, however, you had entered into a legal agreement that automatically assigns the children to the wronged parent? She leaves you for some hot guy at the coffee shop, you have an agreement that says she can't. She CAN, but she loses things like property and custody in the process.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Society is at odds with us in the marriage agreement. Why can we not incorporate as many of the things we believe into a contract and have that be the predictor of the direction of the marriage? If your husband goes gay or bi and wants to bring his new friend into the relationship, he cannot. You've previously agreed. If he suddenly starts reading my blog and decides, "By Jingo, I think I'll get me some more wives," he can't, unless you and he agree to amend the agreement together. If you leave, the settlement of property is already lined out, in the marriage contract.

Society changes what the contract is and believe me, you are in a contract with your spouse as the winds of fashion blow. It may not have been possible to divorce easily in such and such a state 20 years ago, when you GOT married, but your spouse can go here or there now and divorce for reasons you did not think they could before. Protect yourselves. Line up behind the concept of Marriage Contracts. More →

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Polygamists MUST unite NOW.

First Harry said yes, then he said no. But he meant YES. The pet I probably loved more than any other was my Siberian Husky, Valena. What a wonder. She even taught me something new about sales. Valena would position herself askance in doorways and place her head between her forepaws and only her eyes would move. She was watching our feet. Our feet told her what we would do next. Don't listen just to what they say, watch what they do.

WASHINGTON-(The Salt Lake Tribune)- "A senior Justice Department prosecutor will work with Utah, Arizona and Nevada to review how the federal government can help attack polygamy related crimes.
That revelation comes in a letter penned by Senate Majority Harry Reid.
Reid, writing this week to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, said that U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has appointed a senior, career prosecutor to work with the Western states' officials on how federal authorities might help "tackle this complex problem" of crimes in polygamous sects.
The move is essentially seen as a preliminary step toward a federal task force on polygamy.
'Working together, I believe federal and state authorities can do even more to address the epidemic of lawlessness in polygamous communities throughout the southwestern United States,' Reid wrote."

Sure, no war on Terror. We got some terrorizing at home to do. Political action requires money. If I get into any, I'll start some sort of Political Party or Political action group.

I have no illusions that a Political Party based on the values of Polygynists is going to elect Presidents, but it does serve as a tool to get the message out. I'm open to advice on the subject. I'll take the steps to get the job done. There's a narrow window of opportunity here for us to protect ourselves.

I do not have two wives. My polygyny days are over, at least for now. I can make myself a target and there's not as much to come after me over as there may be with others. I volunteer. But I need help.
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"Christophs" reply is good enough to make a post out of it.

This reply to this post was good enough, and even tempered enough that it rates a reply in the open.

"Having sex with pre-pubescent children is, and always has been, profoundly evil."

I think it is not a profound evil. I think it's a bad idea. As a believer in parental permission for marriage and arranged marriage it would be my position that scripture does strongly suggest the appropriate time for sexual relations comes some time after puberty. Since even if I did betroth my child to another, let us say as young as the ages mandated in Catholic teaching, I would not give my son or daughter in active marriage until they were ready. I see this as my responsibility as a parent to keep my child safe and healthy. Scripture does say that even the evil among us know how to give good things to their children.

Matthew 7:9-11: "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

In making the point that God will give us good things as his children, Christ also says that even evil people know what's good for their kids. This is of course a general rule as we know that sometimes some do not. As a general rule, they do though. I would say this also elevates the judgement of parents, in general, over that of the state and it's laws. We still must obey laws of course, where they do not ask us to do wrong, but where law permits, I'm relying on parents. Frankly you can keep your paedophilia laws. They don't keep 13 year olds from having sex, and I don't mean that in the sense of "they'll do it anyway", I point out that the law allows a married 13 year old to have sex and I disagree that a 50 year old man does damage to a 13 year old girl with his genitalia because his genitalia are 50 years old. You think it's creepy, I say don't marry your daughter to a 50 year old man then. Fine by me. The 13 year old can have sex anyway with another "child" if that child is within a certain number of years of their own age and neither child will be charged with a crime. I submit the "paedophilia" laws are just to codify what we think is creepy and punish people for what we think is creepy. I think that is way too intrusive.

"While I don't use the Bible as my guide because I am not a Christian, I think you're right in reading the Bible and also that your interpretation conforms to the culture of the time including the most likely facts surrounding the age of Mary when she was pregnant with Jesus. The Bible appears to allow for marriage and further to say this is right in the eyes of God, at puberty. Certainly the Catholic church does, as you've proven."

I disagree and state the culture arose from conformity to scripture. Granted certain things that scritpure would see as acceptable were also found in the surrounding culture, but Christians and Pagans do a great number of things that are the same. Most of the things we do in fact are the same. We sleep, we eat, we go to the "lavatory." The lumberjack song is coming to mind....

"I think your Biblical case for that is strong and it amused me that the 'fundamentalist' Christians would immediately ban you for expressing it. I read your post there and it was sensible."

That is because most of us have become culturally acclimated, as opposed to Mary and Joseph who were not. When we discover that we've been following largely what society has said we're afraid that we will cease to be Christians if we change and as a result we for the most part, scream, cover our ears, throw dust in the air and rush upon the messenger bearing such news.

It is also because we are busybodies, like the culture at large. It's simple. As I said before, if you don't think a child of yours should marry as early as 13, 14 or 15 for whatever reason, a sort of "ageism" or for subjective developmental reasons, so be it. You are their parent. It is true that many children are still children at 14 or even 17. I think though we increase those numbers by not asking our children to learn and be accountable. In the FLDS sect it seems they are largely successful in keeping such early age marriages together. There's something different about the way they socialize their children and in makes them successful in marriage at a much younger age. In that respect I think we can learn from them.

"It seems to me that whether one believes God created us or one believes nature did it, the only logical, non-arbitrary point we're meant to begin reproducing at would be when we can. Reproduce, that is."

Agreed.

"But you go further:

'Paedophilia in fact is simply a secular legal concept.'

I don't know when the laws came into being or when paedophilia was defined. I doubt very much it's all that modern of a concept. However, I'd hope we can all agree that sex with anyone under the age of puberty is wrong so 'paedophilia' is a valid concept. Jesus Christ was very adamant about about not harming children and that it would be better to drown in the depths of the sea.

I agree with him."

Then harm should be your guide. Speaking as one sexually experienced (I'm sure that's NOT a surprise) I don't think a young girl would be an ideal sexual partner if she has not matured sexually. I would not give a girl in puberty or one not having gone through it. If I had betrothed her at a younger age, which is in fact marriage as scripturally breaking it required divorce, I would wait until she was in my view ready. I care about my children. Practically speaking it's hard to find men for my daughters. We've taught them to be boys. I had not realized that arranged marriage was such a good idea until after my children had become a little older so I did not betrothe them.

"Paedophilia sure as hell harms children emotionally and physically: higher suicide rates, promiscuous behaviour following the abuse, STDs, physical pain and damage, etc."

Marriage is simply not paedophilia and the law agrees. If a child is educated in sexual behavior there should be no reason to expect physical harm. STD's come from promiscuous behavior, not from sexual behavior at a young age.

"I believe that criminalizing sexually motivated self-determining behaviour (as a result of their hormones and normal natural feelings including emotions and desire to form relationships) in adolescents from having sex — and people from having sex with said adolescents — is in practice difficult to enforce and probably gives mixed returns at best. I believe, if anything, young people should be encouraged to marry rather than engage in promiscuous unmarried sex, which is the alternative, realistically, for many of them."

I think that's pretty close to what I think as well.

"I've talked to many adult women about sex and one of the questions I've asked — out of curiosity — is how old they were their first time. The ages vary, but certainly include immediately after entering puberty. This and every year after that is common. I find it hard to conclude this is a great evil nor that our laws against it are particularly effective. They seem to dissuade open long-term relationships and marriage, more than they do sex."

The unintended consquence of our culture and our laws is to make a generation of whores and whore mongers out of our young men and women. We can preach all we want that sex before marriage is not a very good idea but what happens, even in the churches, is that they go ahead and do it anyway. Marrying them off might not be such a bad idea. Early. Society is not constructed to do that so that is why people who believe such things live in compounds or ranches.

"I believe society has a legal right to set the age of consent and I respect it as you are obligated to, your religious beliefs to the contrary notwithstanding."

Ok then, but even the laws of Texas permit a 13 year old to marry. What they don't permit is a 13 year old to marry a man with a wife already but they permit the big man on campus to sow his wild oats with as many gullible children as he can find, and the law won't do anything about it unless it is not "consensual." Consent is almost always a given if she says yes to someone roughly her own age.

"I don't think you're saying it's Biblically allowed to have sex with pre-pubescent children. However, your reference to paedophilia being simply a secular legal concept so openly stated, I would like you to clarify.

At what is the earliest age/developmental maturity you believe a person should either be able to marry and/or engage in sex?"

Passing puberty, based on the verse in Corinthians about being past the flower of her age.

"My personal preference would be a statutory number as the age of consent, set by society as debated in its legislature(s), and then, if anything, an exemption allowing sex between people younger than this age who are legally married and have also reached the age of puberty."

The reason paedophilia comes up in association with polygyny is not that polygynists are paedophiles, it is because the state has forbidden marriage to more than one partner at a time and created an age of consent. In Texas you can get married off the books MONOGAMOUSLY to a 13 year old with parental permission. You just can't have another bride. I don't see how this helps. Much better that we just say that polygyny is legal then these people cannot be arrested for anything other than "forcing" a girl to accept marriage or doing so without consent. It doesn't seem to be harming the FLDS for instance in comparison to society at large where divorce rates are much higher, bones are broken more often, and so on More →

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It's as Old as Catholicism. Older than that really.

No one ever discovers a truth of scripture for the first time. Someone else already had. My definition of a "Cult" would involve some new revelation, as I am what is known as a Cessationist. I'll discuss that further at some other time, if someone wants me to. For now, unless someone in the first 100 years of the church saw it, I don't buy it.

So Scott's article over at "Grits for Breakfast" is especially interesting. I had never known this was the Catholic Position, but it is. Anyway Scott's point is rhetorical. Why haven't we moved on the Catholic Church in the same way in view of what they teach. With a Hat Tip to Grits, I'll move on to make my points, since Scott has covered the first one.

"Let's consider what would happen if Casey's notion were applied more widely to religious groups when abuse arises among their leadership. In all seriousness, why wouldn't the same logic suggest seizing the assets of the Catholic Church? According to them, 'The marriageable age is fourteen full years in males and twelve full years in females, under penalty of nullity (unless natural puberty supplies the want of years).' That's far younger than any marriage alleged to have occurred among residents of the YFZ Ranch." (Bold portion from the Catholic Encyclopedia).

Doh! I'm really late to the table on this one, aren't I? Interpretation? Before all this age of consent nonsense, the Catholic Church actually made a SENSIBLE declaration with exceptions regarding marriage. Guys 14, Girls 12. This corresponds roughly to the age of sexual maturity or at least functionality. There were EXCEPTIONS just as there are in our age of consent laws for circumstance, that's what "Natural Puberty Supplies the Want of Years" means. If you bud early, you can marry early.

Now, a view into the way the writers of that doctrine viewed marriage. It was as a contract between parents. If history of the less ancient is insight into history of the ancient, it would seem that marriage customs have changed little (putting aside the forbidding of Polygyny) since ancient times.

"Betrothals [sponsalia] require seven full years in the contracting parties."

Kids don't fall in love and marry at 7, they are contracted for marriage by their parents, and the RCC did not allow it's members to contract for marriage until a child was 7. That is sensible also, since in times of old you probably didn't have an idea of who was going to "make it" in life (that would be SURVIVE) until a child reached about that age. You could probably introduce the two kids and see if they were going to be roughly compatible for one another as well.

All of this I have said before and been labeled a paedophile for my trouble and I hadn't even read the Catholic position. I had merely read the Bible and gleaned those rough patterns of behavior and principle and law from those readings. If you want some fun reading my time in hell for those statements, go here.

So where does this leave "Fundamentalist Christians?" Catholics can in their church, change doctrine. We can't. Reformed Persons rely on scripture alone as a source of all doctrine. We rely on history to clue us in on what is heresy since there is no new revelation, there can be no newly discovered doctrine.

So if you are a fundamentalist Bible Banging, "God's way or the Highway" Christian. Stop. Read that Bible. You'll find that the Catholic position, while sensible, is essentially "progressive" because the BIBLE, that big black thing you SAY you believe, doesn't even set THOSE limits. Paedophilia in fact is simply a secular legal concept and even THAT concept, despite what you may believe, does not forbid 54 on 13 year old sex. It just restricts it to the confines of marriage.

Polygynists and their apologists by the way, have always been around. You need only read Augustine to know that.

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