Reply #52: The Rational Basis For Anti-Polygamy Laws

[struggle4progress]

History shows that polygamous marriage --at least as it has been practiced in the United States by multiple religious sects--raises a significant danger that underage girls will be married to much older men. In other words, it has fostered and condoned statutory rape. There is also disturbing evidence that underage girls are being trafficked across state and international lines for purposes of polygamy, a practice that violates the federal Mann Act. (Shamefully, however, the federal government has failed to enforce the Mann Act in this context. As with the thousands of clergy abuse victims, the federal government has ignored polygamy's victims, which leads one to wonder what a religious group would have to do to a child to prod the federal government into action.)

History shows that polygamy raises a danger of incest as well. Polygamous husbands have married their own daughters or nieces.

Moreover, these dangers are not confined to any one religious organization's practice of polygamy. In the illuminating new book, God's Brothel, author Andrea Moore-Emmett describes the fate of 18 women who escaped from polygamous marriages in 18 different sects. Each portrait painted shows that the costs of such marriages are severe.

Evidence like this more than provides the rational basis that is needed to rebuff a Free Exercise challenge to the anti-polygamy laws. Indeed, such laws pass strict scrutiny as well, because the interest in protecting children from statutory rape and underage marriage is of the highest order.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20040729.html