Santorum displayed his usual level of bigotry with his comments yesterday:
"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family. And that’s sort of where we are in today’s world, unfortunately. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn’t exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution."
Not only was it bigoted, but as Sullivan points out:
It’s about whether conservatism is about freedom from government or subjugation to it.
So Santorum thinks sex lives should be regulated? No surprise. The question is what does one of his colleagues think:
"I’m not here to justify polygamy," he said. "All I can say is, I know people in Hildale who are polygamists who are very fine people. You come and show me evidence of children being abused there and I’ll get involved. Bring the evidence to me."
Hatch said he could not take unsubstantiated claims and enforce law, and he would not "sit here and judge anybody just because they live differently than me. There will be laws on the books, but these are very complicated issues," Hatch said.
Who is closer to right? Hatch. Polygamy is a difficult subject. Most often in practic polygamy involves exploitation of women. Young women–especially minors who have no business being married off and it essentially is a form of child abuse in such cases.
In theory, the government shouldn’t be regulating how a religion decides to practice and having multiple spouses is not necessarily exploitive and as such the state should stay the hell out of it. Steve Chapman has made this point previously:
. The argument for allowing polygamy has much in common with the argument for letting gays enter into matrimony. If consenting adults who prefer polygamy can do everything else a husband and wife can do?have sex, live together, buy property, and bring up children jointly?why should they be prohibited from legally committing themselves to the solemn duties that attach to marriage? How is society worse off if these informal relationships are formalized and pushed toward permanence?
And about the abuses:
ritics have a ready answer: because polygamy, as currently (and surreptitiously) practiced in Utah and neighboring states has been rife with abuses?including forced marriages, sexual exploitation of minors, and welfare dependency. Green is a prime example: He married one of his wives when she was 13, and he was convicted not only of bigamy but of criminal nonsupport for failing to repay the state more than $50,000 in welfare benefits for his children. Other male polygamists have been convicted of child abuse and incest. A Salt Lake Tribune investigation found that a polygamous community on the Utah-Arizona border has one of the highest rates of welfare participation in the West.
But such unsavory conduct stems partly from the fact that when polygamy is illegal, the only people likely to practice it are nut cases and people with a deep-seated contempt for authority. Plural marriage, in this group, may be just one of many expressions of aggressive noncomformity. If the practice were legally permitted, on the other hand, it would be more likely to attract people with a strong law-abiding disposition. The need to stay under the radar of law enforcement agencies also breeds abuse by discouraging its victims from going to the authorities. Legalizing the practice would bring polygamists out from underground, making it easier to combat the real evils found in some plural marriages. Those who persist in such abuses can be prosecuted along with all the other pedophiles and welfare frauds?the vast majority of whom, it will surprise you to learn, are non-polygamous.
Strangely enough, Orrin Hatch has figured out a reasonable civil liberties position–if only he would extend it to gays and lesbians as well.