LDS Church, US Government Swap Positions on Polygamy

Kody Brown and his four wives, Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn. Brown filed suit two years ago, claiming a violation of his family’s privacy rights.

Every other year when I was growing up, my family attend a reunion for all the descendants of all seven wives of one of my great-great-grandfathers. Born in Bavaria in 1825, John, who anglicized his name when he joined the Mormon church and moved to North America, died in Sonora, Mexico in 1899, having moved there so he could practice polygamy unmolested by the US government.  I always knew that polygamy was part of my legacy as a Latter-day Saint, even if I never knew exactly what to think of it.

Holly Welker writes about the United States District Court in Utah’s ruling that although the state has the right to deny people more than one valid marriage license at a time, Utah’s anti-cohabitation laws violate Kody Brown and his wives their First Amendment right to freedom of religion and elements of constitutional due process.