2 ms·
Ok, so suppose that you live in a state like Washington that: 1) Has extraordinarily strong freedom of religion protections (a city may not enact a blanket ba
by einhverfr 14y ago
Ok, so suppose that you live in a state like Washington that:
1) Has extraordinarily strong freedom of religion protections (a city may not enact a blanket ban on churches hosting tent cities for example, according to our state supreme court) and
2) Very narrow anti-bigamy laws (IANAL, but I think the best reading of the statute is that it bans intentionally legally marrying more than one person at a time, or telling the other individual that you are going to be legally married when you are not. It could be read to ban purely religious marriages, but given #1 above, I don't think so. Note a few years ago a bigamy case was dismissed by the state Supreme Court because the jury had not been instructed that they had to find specific intent, and that the individual marrying someone else while his divorce was pending and the process was being drawn out might not have met that standard.)
Now suppose you are in a polygamous household which avoids the very narrow bigamy laws and suppose your religion endorses polygamy (it doesn't really matter whether this is polygyny, polyandry, or some combination).
Would you argue that there is an equal protection violation by only allowing one spouse of each partner access to these rights?