Seizing the moment in court
 
Deseret Morning News editorial
 
The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning a Texas sodomy law has a number of opportunists knocking on courthouse doors, seeing how far they can get. In Utah, the latest attempt comes from attorneys for Rodney Holm, a peace officer in southern Utah who is an admitted polygamist.

According to news reports, they are prepared to argue that charges against Holm should be dismissed because Utah's laws against polygamy and bigamy violate the right to freely exercise religion and seek to regulate the private conduct of individuals.

Nice try.

Lofty legal principles aside, the Holm case is a simple one involving allegations of unlawful sex with a minor. Holm is charged with two counts involving a 16- year-old girl. He was 32 at the time he allegedly entered a so-called "spiritual union" with the girl (at a time he already was legally married with someone else). The Constitution allows for the free exercise of religion. It does not, however, allow an older man to take advantage of a child in the name of religion.

Communities have traditionally enacted laws to protect minors from consenting to such things, reasoning, correctly, that minors are not sufficiently mature to make such decisions.

This is the Achilles' heel of many in the polygamy movement in Utah. Some of the men who practice plural marriage have a propensity for hooking up with girls who have barely cleared puberty. That tends to make the legal issues fairly clear.

And yet, the nation seems to be in the grips of moral soul-searching. The opportunity seems rife for exploitation.

When the high court issued its sodomy decision in June, Justice Antonin Scalia foresaw this. In a scathing dissent, he accused the court of weighing in on the culture war and decreed "the end of all morals legislation." The next logical step, he said, would be to legalize gay marriage.

Many on the left ridiculed him for that. Some others, however, began quietly laying the groundwork for even the next logical step after gay marriage — the legalization of polygamy. If gender doesn't matter in marriage, they argue, why should number?

Like him or not, it's impossible to ignore Scalia's perceptive instincts. The court may not be considering gay marriage at the moment, but the cultural discussion rages in full force on the airwaves and on the street, set in motion by the court's ruling.

And now, the polygamy argument has found its way into a Utah courtroom.

But amid all the commotion, it pays to stay attentive. Unlawful sexual conduct with a minor is a crime. That's the relevant issue here.
 
deseretnews.com
Originally published Monday, August 4, 2003
 
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