Judge RE Polygamy: "The Time Has Come"

Many Washingtonians remember Referendum 74, the effort to protect marriage in Washington State.

Having done all we could do to stand for marriage, we lost the election on November 6, 2012.

So-called "same-sex marriage" would become legal per the vote of the people.

Many of us felt that in time the same arguments used to persuade the voters to redefine marriage would be used to legalize polygamy and other perverted relationships.

A judge is now saying---ten years later--- "The time has come" to legalize polygamy.

Be informed, not misled.

Ten years later.

This isn't about me, but I remember as though it were yesterday, the interview I was having with Dave Ross on KIRO Radio. Ross was a strong advocate for "same-sex marriage." I had been asked to be the spokesman for the group of pastors, Christian leaders, and citizens who opposed it.

He had me on his program several times as an example of the Christians who were trying to deny the right to marry the one they love regardless of gender.

He asked, in a pejorative way, "Gary, how will 'same-sex marriage' affect your marriage'?"

I said, "It won't." And paused. 

After a rant about inclusivity and fairness and bigotry, he asked, "Then why are you guys doing this? Why are you denying gays the right to marry?"

I explained that marriage is an institution created by God Himself and the Bible tells us to "honor" marriage because traditional marriage---between a man and a woman-- is the cornerstone of human society and the family. And because redefining marriage to include same-sex couples is a slippery slope. His laughter could be heard outside the studio---and all across Puget Sound.

Now ten years later, those concerns of many of us are becoming a reality.

Incrementalism and the slippery slope.

Ten years ago the Seattle Times applauded then State Senator Ed Murray for his artful incrementalism over time, along with several other homosexual activists in the state legislature, passing several bills that built the basis for ultimately redefining marriage in the state of Washington.

Other states followed a similar path.

Now U.S. senators are working on a bill to codify same-sex marriages in federal law and specifically they are trying---they say---to include an amendment to clarify a ban on polygamous marriages between more than two people because the current bill does not do so.

Tony Perkins, head of The Family Research Center, noted yesterday: "A funny thing happened to the Democrats’ same-sex marriage bill on its trip from the House to the Senate: people actually started reading the legislation. When they did, an uncomfortable reality set in — nothing in the text explicitly outlawed polygamy. It was just a 'drafting error,' the more liberal senators claimed. But it wasn’t a 'drafting error' when a New York judge recognized polyamory late last month. How much longer until the party who wants 'love' to be the legal basis for every relationship follows suit?"

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who isn't, says, "We are listening carefully to the concerns that have been raised by some of our colleagues."

Perkins said this:

The decision by trial court judge Karen May Bacdayan should have been front-page news. After all, she essentially gave New York’s blessing to polyamorous unions in her September decision, declaring that “… the problem with [previous same-sex marriage rulings] is that they recognize only two-person relationships.” 

At the heart of the case was an apartment dispute, triggered when a tenant, who had a gay spouse living elsewhere, died. The landlords argued that the man he did live with didn’t have a right to renew the lease because the two weren’t married. When the roommate objected, arguing that he was a “non-traditional family member,” the judge decided to hold a hearing on whether all three were romantically involved.

Bacdayan pointed to two same-sex union cases, New York’s Braschi v. Stahl and SCOTUS’s Obergefell v. Hodges, explaining that both major rulings “limit their holdings to two-person relationships.” Those decisions, she agrees, were “revolutionary,” but they “still adhered to the majoritarian, societal view that only two people can have a family-like relationship.” In other words, “only people who are ‘committed’ in a way defined by certain traditional factors qualify for protection …” As far as she’s concerned, Braschi and Obergefell “open[ed] the door for consideration of other relational constructs — and perhaps,” the judge insisted, “the time has arrived.”

The Supreme Court predicted this day would come, Bacdayan pointed out, referring people to Chief Justice John Roberts’s 2015 dissent. “Although the majority randomly inserts the adjective ‘two’ in various places,” Roberts wrote, “it offers no reason at all why the two-person element of the core definition of marriage may be preserved while the man-woman element may not. … If not having the opportunity to marry serves to disrespect and subordinate gay and lesbian couples, why wouldn’t the same imposition of this disability… serve to disrespect and subordinate people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships?”

Perkins, himself a retired Marine now pastor, also said this: "The media laughed off the conservative movement’s concerns about the slippery slope when Democrats pushed to sexualize the military 20 years ago. Now, almost two decades later, with American parents in the fight of their lives over transgenderism and judges paving the way for “plural marriage,” it, unfortunately, proves we were right. The LGBT’s fight was never about marriage — it was about every social norm."

The late US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defined what we should expect at the end of the slippery slope.

Back in 2003, the late Justice Antonin Scalia warned of a day when state laws “based on moral choices” against “bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution … adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity” would all fall. At the time, people thought he was being dramatic. Exaggerating, even. But they don’t think so anymore. An astonishing 23% of the American public thinks polygamy is “morally acceptable” in 2022, Gallup shows — more than triple what it was (7%) when Scalia sounded the alarm.

Takeaway.

Perkins concludes with this:

The Left has been quick to say that polygamy isn’t the next gay marriage. But who could possibly take them seriously? First, they promised they just wanted to “live and let live.” Then they said they only wanted legal benefits — not marriage. When Democrats got marriage through the courts, they vowed not to force it on the states. After they forced it on the states, they said it wouldn’t lead to religious persecution. Now, you can’t open a newspaper without seeing a lawsuit involving Christian business owners, Christian teachers, Christian schools, and Christian adoption agencies, all fighting for their lives in this brave new world of “tolerance.”

The reality is, once a nation rejects God’s design, basic biology, and thousands of years of human history, there are no boundaries. We are a country building its policies on society’s shifting sands, and if we aren’t careful, the end result will be an America we will not — and cannot — recognize. 

Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Engaged. Be Bold. Be Prayerful.