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Title: Polygamist who appeared on Sister Wives applies for a license to marry his second wife in wake of Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage
Source:
Daily Mail UK
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... o-applies-wedding-license.html
Published: Jul 6, 2015
Author: AP and Daily Mail reporters
Post Date: 2015-07-06 15:48:02 by redleghunter
Keywords: None
Views: 4305
Comments: 59
A Montana man said Wednesday that he was inspired by last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to apply for a marriage license so that he can legally wed his second wife. Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria and Christine applied at the Yellowstone County Courthouse in Billings on Tuesday in an attempt to legitimize their polygamous marriage. Montana, like all 50 states, outlaws bigamy - holding multiple marriage licenses - but Collier said he plans to sue if the application is denied. 'It's about marriage equality,' Collier said Wednesday. 'You can't have this without polygamy.' Collier and his second wife were met with confusion when they went to the Yellowstone County court house on Tuesday to fill out the application. 'So, are you legally married, you didn't get divorced?' one clerk asked, when he saw that Collier marked 'not applicable' on a question asking the dissolution date of his previous marriage. Collier responded that he was indeed still married and trying to marry for a second time. 'We'll have to deny that, let me go grab the other supervisor real quick so I can get confirmation but as far as I'm aware you can't be married to two people at the same time,' another clerk said. County clerk officials initially denied Collier's application, then said they would consult with the county attorney's office before giving him a final answer, Collier said. Yellowstone County chief civil litigator Kevin Gillen said he is reviewing Montana's bigamy laws and expected to send a formal response to Collier by next week. 'I think he deserves an answer,' Gillen said, but added his review is finding that 'the law simply doesn't provide for that yet.' 'All we want is legal legitimacy. We aren't asking anybody for anything else. We just want to give our marriage and our family the legitimacy that it deserves,' Nathan Collier said. In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Nathan Collier said he had yet to hear an answer from the county attorney on their decision to grant or deny the marriage license. However, he says that he has told through 'other sources' that the attorney general's office is considering charging him for bigamy. 'I knew the risks I faced when I asked the State to grant legal legitimacy to my family, and I accepted those risks. 'I only ask that if their intent is to lock me in a cage (and we wonder why they keep asking for more money to expand the jails?!?!?) over my family dynamic, contact me privately and I will walk in your front door. 'I have no reason to run or hide. Please, don't kick my door in and shoot my dogs,' Collier wrote. Collier goes on to say that he is 'saddened' that his family faces such challenges in the 'land of the free'. 'You can believe that the entire nation is and will be watching your choices and actions. There is no honor in destroying functional families,' Collier added. The Supreme Court's ruling on Friday made gay marriages legal nationwide. Chief Justice John Roberts said in his dissent that people in polygamous relationships could make the same legal argument that not having the opportunity to marry disrespects and subordinates them. Poster Comment: Seems to look like a "happy, loving, healthy" family...I mean who are we to judge if they all really love each other....The wise Latina wants to know...
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 13.
#3. To: redleghunter, Nolu Chan (#0)
(Edited)
The supreme court case centered around equal treatment under the law. The logic is that since a hetero couple can get married a homo couple should also because they are denied rights a married hetero couple would get. This does not apply to polygamists because that is not allowed for anyone. Whoever brings up this polygamy should now be legal argument just shows they are ignorant over the judicial arguments involved. I don't agree with gay marriage at all as a Christian but the arguments for it are based on the equal protection clause. If I am wrong, I will let our resident lawyer tell us otherwise.
Well Roberts and Scalia brought up this issue. I'm sure Chan has the summary quotes handy.
I first mentioned it before I had read the dissents, but Roberts really makes the case for it. Roberts dissent at 20-21: It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage. If “[t]here is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices,” ante, at 13, why would there be any less dignity in the bond between three people who, in exercising their autonomy, seek to make the profound choice to marry? If a same-sex couple has the constitutional right to marry because their children would otherwise “suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser,” ante, at 15, why wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to a family of three or more persons raising children? 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,” ante, at 22, serve to disrespect and subordinate people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships? See Bennett, Polyamory: The Next Sexual Revolution? Newsweek, July 28, 2009 (estimating 500,000 polyamorous families in the United States); Li, Married Lesbian “Throuple” Expecting First Child, N. Y. Post, Apr. 23, 2014; Otter, Three May Not Be a Crowd: The Case for a Constitutional Right to Plural Marriage, 64 Emory L. J.1977 (2015). I do not mean to equate marriage between same-sex couples with plural marriages in all respects. There may well be relevant differences that compel different legal analysis. But if there are, petitioners have not pointed to any. When asked about a plural marital union at oral argument, petitioners asserted that a State “doesn’t have such an institution.” Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 2, p. 6. But that is exactly the point: the States at issue here do not have an institution of same-sex marriage, either.
#19. To: nolu chan, redleghunter, Pericles (#13)
Ouch, that's going leave a mark on Pericles. Perhaps he can ice it down.
He forgot to mention humans and their pets.
There isn't. All of Israel, the "Chosen People" of Scripture, are descended from three plural marriages. Lamech took two wives, and Naamah was the daughter of one of those wives. She was the wife of Noah, and grandmother of all of mankind. Abraham had two wives early: Hagar (an Egyptian slave) and Sarai. His second child, through Sarah, was Isaac, who was the father of Jacob (who is also called "Israel"). Ishmael was his eldest son, through Hagar, and he became the father of the Arab nations. Jacob, "Israel", had two wives: Leah and Rachel, and all of the tribes of Israel are descended from the offspring of that polygamous union. Polygamy is still practiced by Yemenite Jews, and is nowhere forbidden by the Torah or the rest of the Old Testament. Nor is it actually prohibited by the New Testament either. Jesus forbade DIVORCE, he never mentioned plural marriage. (By Jesus' time, Israel had been under Greek or Roman rule for 350 years, and the Western pagan cultural norm was monogamy. Monogamy does not come into our cultura from Judaeo-Christianity but rather, precedes it. Greek, Roman and Germanic pagans were monogamous.} Polygamy is a cultural feature of "peoples of the river plains" (Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, Chinese Rivers, Indian rivers). Monogamy is a feature of the "peoples of the forest" (Western Europeans and North American Indians). This is why the Mormon innovation of plural marriage was so disturbing: the Scripture actually supports the Mormon position, but Western culture, all the way back to pre-Christian pagan times, really abhors polygamy. Monogamy is a feature of Western paganism that precedes Christianity, and the monogamous norm was established in the Mediterranean by pagan Greek and Roman conquest, not by either Chriatianity, Judaism OR Islam. Monogamy entered into Christianity not through the Jews or by anything Jesus or Paul or Peter or any of the Apostles said, but through the fact that most Christians were Greco Roman pagan converts, and the revulsion of "Eastern" polygamy among the Greco-Roman pagans was profound. Greeks and Romans and Germanics had one wife. They raped slaves and screwed prostitutes also, but they didn't marry them. So, should US Constitutional law enforce the norms of Greco-Roman paganism over the norms of Abraham, Isaac and Moses, or over the norms of Mohammed, or over the norms of Confucius or the East? Why? On what principled basis? "We don't like it?" Well, that seems to be the basis of all of our laws, in truth. What 5 Supremes likes is what the Constitution says. There is, however, no PRINCIPLED argument against polygamy in America, at least for those for whom polygamy is a religious norm. Note that Jewish Christians could lawfully practice polygamy under Scripture. Our monogamy laws come from Jupiter Capitolinus and the jealously of his wife Juno, not from Jesus Christ. Really.
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#5. To: Pericles, nolu chan (#3)
Whoever brings up this polygamy should now be legal argument just shows they are ignorant over the judicial arguments involved. I don't agree with gay marriage at all as a Christian but the arguments for it are based on the equal protection clause. If I am wrong, I will let our resident lawyer tell us otherwise.
#13. To: redleghunter, Pericles (#5)
Well Roberts and Scalia brought up this issue. I'm sure Chan has the summary quotes handy.
One immediate question invited by the majority’s position is whether States may retain the definition of marriage as a union of two people. Cf. Brown v. Buhman, 947 F. Supp. 2d 1170 (Utah 2013), appeal pending, No. 144117 (CA10). Although the majority randomly inserts the adjective “two” in various places, 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. Indeed, from the standpoint of history and tradition, a leap from opposite-sex marriage to same-sex marriage is much greater than one from a two-person union to plural unions, which have deep roots in some cultures around the world. If the majority is willing to take the big leap, it is hard to see how it can say no to the shorter one.
Replies to Comment # 13. do not mean to equate marriage between same-sex couples with plural marriages in all respects. There may well be relevant differences that compel different legal analysis. But if there are, petitioners have not pointed to any. When asked about a plural marital union at oral argument, petitioners asserted that a State “doesn’t have such an institution.” Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 2, p. 6. But that is exactly the point: the States at issue here do not have an institution of same-sex marriage, either.
#30. To: nolu chan, redleghunter, Liberator (#13)
If “[t]here is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices,”
#41. To: nolu chan (#13)
(Edited)
If “[t]here is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices,” ante, at 13, why would there be any less dignity in the bond between three people who, in exercising their autonomy, seek to make the profound choice to marry?
End Trace Mode for Comment # 13.
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