Rejection of polygamy case
 
Opinion
Provo Daily Herald
 
Anyone who was hoping to see anti-polygamy statutes overturned can thank Rodney Holm for derailing the argument. Holm is the former Hilldale policeman who challenged his bigamy conviction on the grounds that it violated his religious belief in polygamy. The U.S. Supreme Court announced this past week that it would not hear Holm's case, allowing his conviction to stand.

There is some merit to the religious liberty argument Holm raised, particularly where consenting adults are engaging in private behavior that doesn't seem to hurt anybody else.

But Holm's case wasn't the best for raising a challenge. Had he been one of the more traditional polygamists, marrying only consenting adults, he might have been a more sympathetic figure in the eyes of the court.

He was just the opposite -- a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, whose leader, Warren Jeffs, is currently in the Washington County Jail for allegedly ordering or encouraging underage girls to marry older men.

Nor did it help that Holm's bigamy charge stemmed from marrying his first wife's 16-year-old sister in 1998 when he was 32. He was charged with unlawful sex with a 16-year-old as a result of that one.

His employment as a police officer who had taken an oath to uphold the laws of Utah made him an even worse poster child for a religious liberty case. Instead, Holm fits the polygamist stereotype of an older man who preys on younger women. That's not the kind of conduct the Constitution is supposed to protect.

Of course, adultery and fornication are still alive and well in America. Nowadays a man can pile up an unlimited number of women and not risk going to jail. It's only when he chooses to claim them as wives through a religious ceremony and promises to support them and his children that he breaks the law.

It's an odd situation that yields differences of opinion. Among those on the record as saying that polygamy is protected by the Constitution is Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But she appears to be outvoted at this time.

The Supreme Court's decision not to hear Holm may encourage state prosecutors to go aggressively after more polygamists, but turning up the heat will not address many problems of domestic abuse and statutory rape. Rather, it tends to keep such problems hidden behind a veil of secrecy because victims fear jail.

So far, Attorney General Mark Shurtleff's office is taking the right approach. Utah's bigamy statutes are being used to go after the worst offenders -- those who prey on underage girls -- while ignoring the relationships involving consenting adults.

The abuse of women and children needs to be uncovered and prosecuted, but to do that the victims need to be willing to come forward. Utah needs to find new ways to encourage them to do so, not frighten them into continued silence.
 
heraldextra.com
Originally published Monday, March 5, 2007
 
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