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Federal judge refuses to overturn Utah polygamy ban

U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart granted a summary judgment last week in the case of Bronson v. Swensen ruling that the Utah Constitution and Utah statutes outlawing polygamy are constitutional. The case caught the eye of Texans only after Warren Jeffs, the leader of nation’s largest polygamous Mormon sect, began moving a large part of his followers to Schleicher County. Jeffs and his Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is in the process of building a new community four miles outside of Eldorado.

The case involved a Utah man and two women who sued the Salt Lake County Clerk for refusing to grant a license for the man to marry the second of the women. (He was already married to the first.) The Clerk had denied the marriage license on the basis that polygamy is illegal under the Utah Constitution and Utah statutes.

Brian Barnard, a Salt Lake City civil rights attorney, filed a lawsuit arguing that Utah’s anti-polygamy laws are unconstitutional and that polygamy is protected under the U.S. Constitution as freedom of religion, right of association and right to privacy, as well as other provisions.

Both the plaintiffs and defendant both filed motions for summary judgment.

Judge Stewart held in his ten-page ruling that Utah’s anti-polygamy laws are constitutional and that the State of Utah has a compelling state interest in banning plural marriage. He noted that Reynolds v. United States, an 1878 case in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the polygamy conviction of Brigham Young’s secretary, is still the “law of the land,” and that more recent cases including the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the so-called “Texas sodomy case,” Lawrence v. Texas, do not change the law of Reynolds.

Many have speculated that Lawrence V. Texas ruling contributed to Warren Jeffs decision to move from the Utah/Arizona border communities of Colorado City/Hildale to Schleicher County Texas.

Judge Stewart specifically distinguished the Lawrence case, quoting its majority opinion as saying that the sodomy case “does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused....”

Judge Stewart’s ruling was hailed by anti-polygamy activists who maintain that polygamy, often involving young girls coerced into unwanted marriages, is different from private sexual behavior involving consenting adults.

Here in Schleicher County work continues unabated at the YFZ Ranch. Despite the impact it might have on their lives, it is unlikely that many YFZ residents, who are prohibited from reading newspapers or watching television, are even aware of Judge Stewart’s ruling.

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The Eldorado Success invites Warren Jeffs and/or other leaders of the FLDS church to comment on this or any other story surrounding the FLDS and the YFZ Ranch.