There’s an interesting story unfolding, about which I’m of two minds. Should a judge who is legally married to only one woman, but “spiritually married” to two others, by whom he has sired many children, lose his job due to being a polygamist?
If you’d like more background from a balanced perspective, please visit the Utah Polygamy Chronology. In summary, the federal government and Utah wrangled for years over illegalizing polygamy in exchange for statehood. Eventually, the practice was repudiated, statehood granted, and the territorial government of Utah was transitioned from a theocracy to a secular democracy.
Heirarchical polygamy, however, continues among some 30,000 people in the western US to this day.
Fundamentalist — read: polygamist — Mormon groups have received a great deal of scrutiny in recent years due to widespread welfare manipulation, poor health care, child marriage, incest, and child abuse (see this article about the Kingston Clan’s holdings and foibles). Utah’s passage of Proposition 3, which defined marriage as a union between “one man and one woman”, was widely perceived as an “anti-gay marriage” amendment. However, it was also hailed by some anti-polygamy activists as another tool in the arsenal to fight polygamy.
The case of this judge seems, to me, to be a test case of Utah’s Prop 3 and anti-polygamy constitutional wording, and important in considering the future of polygamy in the United States.
George Q. Cannon’s 1879 statement upon the conviction of George Reynolds (the polygamist who’s case went to the Supreme Court) seems to summarize the defensive stance of the judge being tried:
Our crime has been [that] we married women instead of seducing them; we reared children instead of destroying them; we desired to exclude from the land prostitution, bastardy and infanticide … Let it be published to the four corners of the earth that in this land of liberty, the most blessed and glorious upon which the sun shines, the law is swiftly invoked to punish religion, but justice goes limping and blindfolded in pursuit of crime.
Do you think the judge should lose his job for being a practicing polygamist? Why or why not?
Will his argument be more credible in today’s environment of greater religious and sexual tolerance than it was a century and a half ago?
Of course, the really interesting story underneath the story is that the attorney general has declined to prosecute him…
The Man With Two Brains
The reason I say I’m of two minds on the issue?
I think people should be free to make relationship choices without government intervention. I think choosing a polygamous relationship is generally a boneheaded decision, but you can’t legislate stupidity out of existence. My concern isn’t at the level of the consenting adults engaging in polygamy. That’s their choice, even if I disagree with it.
It’s the children which are produced by that union. Do the young women really have a choice in their upbringing, when they are betrothed before puberty? Do the majority of young men have much choice but to end up on the street and in foster homes as the detritus of a system in which patriarchs marry most of the marriagable young women and banish them from the community because they are competition?
That’s the part that bugs me. But kids are abused and cast out in traditional marriages, too, so I don’t know that legislating the marriages will get you anywhere.
Tough questions, with no good answers, I suspect. But I’ll watch the case with interest.
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Matthew P. Barnson
You Didn’t Answer Your Question
Matt, you didn’t answer your question.
The question posed was: should this guy lose his job?
It’s my understanding that you lose your job for performance-related issues, and not because of activities or behaviors that occur outside the job.
Now, if the Ethics committee maintains that a judge’s personal habits reflect on-the-job performance…I guess that’s another issue. However, technically, unless I’m reading it wrong, the guy is only legally married to one woman.
Sam
Losing his job
I intentionally dodged it. I just don’t have a good answer. I find the social ills which accompany polygamy repugnant, yet unusual sexual mores do not invalidate someone from holding public office, or necessarily cause them to be less effective therein. Thomas Jefferson was a great statesman, and Sally Hemings, his slave, was his concubine (I state this as fact, yet, of course, some dispute it). Benjamin Franklin’s skirt-chasing was the stuff of legend. Bill Clinton’s questionable behavior in the Oval Office did not prevent him from being a popular and effective president.
I think the ethics committee’s reason for recommendation is because polygamy is illegal in Utah. He’s violating a law by cohabitating and calling his concubines “wives”. He is disputing the constitutionality of that law and the ethics committee’s ruling.
Prison isn’t in the cards for him, but if a judge is knowingly committing a felony while in office, it leaves me ambiguous as to whether he should be allowed to retain the public trust of his office. Polygamy/bigamy’s a third-degree felony in Utah, and a violation of the state’s constitution.
An interesting conflict of interest.
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Matthew P. Barnson
He’s a JUDGE
I would think that a judge would be willing to obey the laws of the land. Whether polygamy is right or wrong, it’s the law and in my mind there’s no doubt that him being a polygamist would affect his ruling on someone being prosecuted for being a polygamist. I certainly don’t want someone to go scotch free who is guilty of abuse or neglect just because the judge is also a polygamist.
I don’t know what his record is for convictions as a judge, but a couple years ago, we voted out a judge because we didn’t agree with his rulings. Hopefully the public in his area are watching him closely.–
Christy
–Your right this is a hard d
–Your right this is a hard decision. However a judge is supposed to be the one who above all other’s holds up the letter of the law. Even above the president because they are the ones who sit in judgement of other’s. I think that becomes a part of there job. So I feel that on this issue as long as he is breaking a current law in Utah he should lose his job. On the other hand though if he wants to step down from his role as judge and challange this law by all means more power to him. I may not agree with the entirity of the polygamist lifestyle it is not for me to decide another person’s religious beliefs, and I don’t believe that the goverment should either. Unless it creates mortal harm to another. A christian once pointed out to me that even in the bible God had written that a person of faith must not only follow God’s law but also the law of the land. Unfortunatly for certain faith’s this means that there are some things that they cannot continue to do for the betterment of the community at large. Native Americans can’t use Peyote in their vision quest, Santerian’s can’t use live sacrifice, and Morman groups can’t practice Polygamy. Teresa the Flautist and fire dancer
Should Polygamous Judge Lose His Job?
Judge Walter Steed is the JP of Hildale Utah. His underage son without a drivers license was involved in a hit and run, where a 15 year old girl from Centennial Park Arizona had to be life flighted to Salt Lake City from her concusion. Do we want a judge that allows his son to drive without a license, hit a pedestrian, then covers up the crime? hmmmm… No, I think not!
With Walter it doesn’t end there. When his daughter Lucille was underage or 16, he arranged for her to become the 2nd wife of Colorado City Police Officer Jonathon Roundy, after a month of ? She fled the arranged mariage to move in with a SLC cousin. Do we think that as a judge, Walter would enforce child protection laws? No, I think not!
Peace Officers and those in the courts are required to give an oath to their job, that they will enforce the law under the constitution. When Walter gave his “Oath of Office” he lied and told P.O.S.T. he would lie again. Is this the standards we wish to accept for soneone that expects the truth in their court room? Why should we be required to tell the truth, if the judge has a lesser standard for himself?
The truth is the judge and police take their orders from the FLDS prophet in Warren Jeffs, who has since fled the law in Utah, to build a city in rural Texas near El Dorado. In January 2004 when this prophet ousted 21 men, Mayor Dan Barlow one of those 21 men, resigned as Mayor the following day. The voting public did not recall the mayor or offer a vote of no confidence, but rather resigned because a religious leader told him he was out! The Judge, Mayor and Police force do what they are told by the prophet, its not simply about a judge being impartial, but one that can not deny his leader, his loyalty is not unto the law or constitution, but rather to a man who thinks he is god on earth.
Since not everyone in Steed’s jurisdiction is a polygamist, would he likely be a fair judge to those not of his faith? If you were driving down the state highway that passes through Hildale, would you as a gentile want to appear before judge Steed? Or since they teach Blacks are subhuman, what if you were of color and violated some traffic law in this jurisdiction, would you feel as safe knowing the judge believes you are inferior to him?
Then there are the child brides, a girl age 9 married at the same time as her mother. Beth and Colleen married at ages 10 & 11. An unnamed girl in Jon Krakauers book “Under The Banner of Heaven” married to her biological father at age 12. Afew at 13, alot at 14 & 15 and did this judge turn a blind eye to these? How about Elizabeth Smart, not enough young brides to go around, so you just kidnap one!
Then there was the patriarch Uncle Fred, 16 or so wives and 100 children, but he had the mumps as a child! This is a place where wives and children get reassigned, when the husbands fall out of favor with the leaders. No legal divorce, but like the Judge, when the leader tells you to do something, you don’t question his authority. Hows that for religious “Family Values”?
Would you really want to get stopped and arrested in a place that makes up many of its own laws and then, how would you feel going before a judge in such a place? http://www.childbrides.org Beswick
Two Attorney Generals Met on 3-3-05 To Discuss Polygamy& The Law
Polygamist Kills Wife/A Long Beach California Story http://www.presstelegram.com/Stories/0,1413,204~21474~2730965,00.html _________________________________________________________________ Utah Polygamy & Conference March 3rd 2005 New Utah Story http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=3001102 http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2587352 The Spectrum Story http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2589620 http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=153317 http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0303polygamy-abuse-ON.html http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3069543 Arizona Republic Story http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2005/03/04/news/nation/nation%201.txt http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=3029368 http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0304polygamy04.html http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2595703 harktheherald story http://radio.ksl.com/index.php?sid=154153&nid=19 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600116309,00.html newutah article http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0305Polygamy-ON.html http://www.counterpunch.org/mazur03022005.html http://www.nylawyer.com/news/05/03/030705l.html Weekly Standard Story http://www.nylawyer.com/news/05/03/030705l.html http://www.counterpunch.com/mazur03082005.html Chicago Trib Story http://radio.ksl.com/index.php?sid=155328&nid=19 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0503/S00088.htm EDIT by matthew: Longer links changed to links instead of text; layout was too wide. Must figure out a fix for that. Lacked time to properly link remaining links.
hmmm
Somebody’s passionate about this issue.
Back to the point though. If a judge has been conviceted of a felony, then no, he should not serve. If there is evidence enough to prosecute, then he should be prosecuted. If not, then he has as much right to his job as any one else.
That said, no, I don’t want to ever be in Colorado City anytime I don’t need to be, let alone appear in court there. ——– Visit my blog, eh! The Murphy Maphia
Did you know that the 3
Did you know that the 3 wives are biological sisters and that he has 32 children?! The State Supreme Court Hearing is today.
Equal Prinicples of Judgement
Tell me how you would react to a female judge who admits to having two husbands. That should be an equal measure of how a male judge is treated. It isn’t practicing polygamy that is the primary factor here, it has to do with the higher moral standards that are expected of a judge. Now, please answer my question.
The same…
I would react exactly the same. I would be outraged that the laws regarding bigamy (meaning both polygamy and polyandary) are weakly enforced, especially in a community wrought with problems because of it’s practice. I would come down on the side that an admitted felon should be prosecuted, removed from the bench and disbarred.
I think gender is a non-issue here. As is religion.
In fact, I happen to support the idea that polygamy (with adults, full-disclosure, and the like) is a Constitutionally protected right of religious practice, reprehensible as its practice and history is.
I think your question is way off the point. In fact, you come off a bit paranoid and pushy.
——– *This signature is an experiment in Google Bombing mot propre