This article investigates the often cited and dismissed, but rarely examined, relationship between legalizing same-sex marriage and polygamy. Employing a comparative historical analysis of U.S. and South African jurisprudence, ideology, and cultural politics, we examine efforts to expand, restrict, and regulate the gender and number of legally recognized conjugal bonds. South African family jurisprudence grants legal recognition to both same-sex marriage and polygyny, while the United States prohibits and resists both. However, social and material conditions make it easier to practice family diversity in the U.S. than in South Africa. Our analysis of the very different histories of polygamy and same-sex marriage in the two societies suggests the centrality of racial politics to marriage regimes, yielding paradoxical narratives about the implications of legal same-sex marriage for the future of polygamy and sexual democracy. If there is a slippery marital slope, we argue, it does not tilt in a singular or expected direction.
Stanley Kurtz , "Beyond Gay Marriage: The Road to Polyamory ," Weekly Standard8, no. 45 (August 4-11, 2003).
2.
Dahlia Lithwick , "Slippery Slop: The Maddening `Slippery Slope' Argument against Gay Marriage," Slate (May 19, 2004), http://www.slate.com/id/2100824/ (accessed December 4, 2008).
3.
James Dobson , "An Open Letter to South Africans on Same-sex Marriage," Christians for Truth (2005), http://www.cft.org.za/articles/dobson_gay_marriage_sa.htm (accessed December 4, 2008).
4.
See, e.g., William Bennett, "Bookworld: Live Discussion with William Bennett," Washington Post (June 9, 2006); Katherine Kersten, "Once Same-sex Marriage Is OK, Polygamy's Next," Star Tribune, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN (April 6, 2006); New York Times Editorial Staff, "Senator Santorum Sounds Off," New York Times (April 22, 2003); Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S.Ct. 2472 (Scalia, J. dissenting).
5.
Immediately after the California decision, for example, an article in the gay publication Washington Blade featured reassurances from numerous experts "that the California Supreme Court ruling has nothing to do with polygamy." Joey Diguglelmo, "Will Gay Marriage Lead to Legalized Polygamy? Legal Experts Respond to Arguments of Conservative Activists," Washington Blade (June 6, 2008).
6.
Andrew Sullivan, "Idiocy of the Week," Salon (April 22 2003), http://dir.salon.com/ story/opinion/sullivan/2003/04/22/santorum/index.html (accessed December 4, 2008).
7.
Joseph Bozzuti, "The Constitutionality of Polygamy Prohibitions after Lawrence v. Texas: Is Scalia a Punchline or a Prophet?" The Catholic Lawyer 43 (2004): 409-42; David L. Chambers, "Polygamy and Same-sex Marriage," Hofstra Law Review 26 (1997): 53-83; David D. Meyer, "Parenthood in a Time of Transition: Tensions Between Legal, Biological and Social Conceptions of Parenthood," American Journal of Comparative Law 54 (2006): 125; Maura L. Strassberg, "Distinctions of Form or Substance: Monogamy, Polygamy and Same-sex Marriage," North Carolina Law Review 75 (1997): 1501-1624; Eugene Volokh, "Same-sex Marriage and Slippery Slopes," Hofstra Law Review 34 (2006): 1-40.
8.
Fikele Vilakazi, "Lobbying for Same-sex Marriage: An Activist's Reflections," in Melanie Judge, Anthony Manion, and Shaun de Waal, eds., To Have and to Hold: The Making of Same-sex Marriage in South Africa (Johannesburg: Fanele, 2008), 87-96.
9.
Amy Agigian, Baby Steps: How Lesbian Alternative Insemination Is Changing the World (Boston, MA: Wesleyan University Press, 2004); Laura Benkov, Reinventing the Family: The Emerging Story of Lesbian and Gay Parents (New York: Random House, 1995); Nancy F. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972); Kath Weston, Families We Choose (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997[1991]).
10.
The California Supreme Court ruled on May 15, 2008, that same-sex couples have the right to marry under California law. California voters passed Proposition 8, barring recognition of same-sex marriages, on November 4, 2008. The constitutionality of that ballot measure is currently being appealed, and it remains unclear if marriages conducted prior to its passage will remain valid.
11.
The Heritage Foundation, "Marriage in the Fifty States," http://www.heritage.org/ Research/Family/Marriage50/ (accessed December 4, 2008); National Conference of State Legislatures, "Same Sex Marriages, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships" (2008), http://www.ncsl.org/programs/cyf/samesex.htm/ (accessed December 4, 2008).
12.
Associated Press, "Fate of Polygamy Sect Unclear as Leader Held," USA Today (August 29, 2006); Associated Press, "Tom Green To Be Paroled in August '07" (August 28, 2004); Ben Winslow, "Texas Attorney General Hints at Bigamy Prosecutions," Deseret News (April 17, 2008).
13.
Anthony Giddens , The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993).
14.
Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage (London: Penguin Books, 2005); Cott, Public Vows; Sarah Barringer, The Mormon Question//Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
15.
Gay W.Seidman, "Is South Africa Different? Sociological Comparisons and Theoretical Contributions from the Land of apartheid," Annual Review of Sociology25 (1999): 419-40.
16.
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, chap. 2, sec. 9(3).
17.
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, chap. 2, sec. 12(2)(a).
18.
Id.
19.
Brigitte Clark , "Families and Domestic Partnerships," South African Law Journal119 ( 2002): 634-49, note 48.
20.
South African Law Commission, White Paper for Social Welfare (1997), http://www.welfare.gov.za/Documents/1997/wp.htm (accessed December 4, 2008).
21.
Id., Glossary.
22.
Shireen Hassim , "Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements: Women and Welfare Provision in Postapartheid South Africa," Social Research72 (2005): 621-46.
23.
Edwin Cameron, "Sexual Orientation and the Constitution: A Test Case for Human Rights," South African Legal Journal 110 (1993): 450-72, also cited in National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v. Minister of Justice and Others, 1998 (12) BCLR 1517 (CC); 1999 (1) SA 6 (CC) ("Sodomy Case").
24.
Sodomy Case, para. 20-21.
25.
Id.
26.
Id.
27.
National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Others v. Minister of Home Affairs and Others, 2000 (2) SA 1 (CC), para 50.
28.
Id., para. 56.
29.
Peter v. the Minister of Law and Order, 1990 (4) SA 6 (E) at 9G, cited in the Sodomy Case, para 46.
30.
Pierre De Vos, "A Judicial Revolution? The Court-Led Achievement of Same-sex Marriage in South Africa," Utrecht Law Review 4, no. 2 (2008): 161-74.
31.
Sharon LaFraniere, "South African Parliament Approves Same-sex Marriage," New York Times (November 15, 2006).
32.
Minister of Home Affairs and Another v. Fourie and Another, 2004 (6) SA 121 (CC), note 80; David L. Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives: Marriage in Post apartheid South Africa," Daedalus 129, no. 4 (2000): 101-24; Amanda Gouws, "The Politics of State Structures Citizenship and the National Machinery for Women in South Africa," Feminist Africa 3 (2004): 1-15.
33.
Michael W. Yarbrough , "We Thee Wed: Marriage Law, Culture, and Subjectivity in Post-apartheid South Africa," Comparative Research Workshop, Yale University (2005).
34.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives"; Gouws, "The Politics of State Structures Citizenship."
35.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives," 113; Penelope E. Andrews, "`Big Love'? The Recognition of Customary Marriages in South Africa," Washington and Lee Law Review 64 (2007): 1483.
36.
Recognition of Customary Marriages Act (RCMA): sec. 6.
37.
Interviews with Melanie Judge, Beth Goldblatt, Chief Kutama, Likhapha Mbatha, 2007; Andrews, "`Big Love'?"; Graeme Reid, "How to Be a `Real' Gay: Emerging Gay Spaces in Small-town South Africa," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Amsterdam (2007); Graeme Reid, "`This Thing' and `That Idea': Traditionalist Responses to Homosexuality and Same-sex Marriage," in Judge et al., To Have and To Hold (Johannesburg: Fanele, 2008), 73-86.
38.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives," 114.
39.
RCMA, sec. 7(vii)(a) and (b).
40.
Mabena v. Letsaolo, 1998 (2) SA 1068 T.
41.
Id.
42.
Bhe and Others v. The Magistrate, Khayelitsha and Others; Shibi v Sithole and Others; South African Human Rights Commission and Another v. President of the Republic of South Africa (2004) Case CCT 49-03.
43.
Interviews with Likhapha Mbatha, David Bilchitz, Beth Goldblatt, Pierre de Vos, 2007.
44.
Julia Sloth-Nielson and Belinda Von Heerden, "The Constitutional Family: Developments in South African Family Law Jurisprudence Under the 1996 Constitution," International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family17, no. 2 (2003): 121-46, 139.
45.
Ryland v. Edros, 1997(2) SA 690 (CC).
46.
See Arnold and Another v. Multilateral Motor Vehicle Accidents Fund, Supreme Court of Appeal, Case No. 444/98, September 29, 1999 (unreported).
47.
Volks NO v. Robinson, 2005 (5) BCLR 446 (CC); 2005 (SACLR LEXIS 3), 21/02.2005.
48.
Id.
49.
Marius Pieterse , "It's a `Black Thing': Upholding Culture and Customary Law in a Society Founded on Nonracialism," South African Journal of Human Rights17 ( 2001): 364-91, 372.
50.
Id., 375
51.
Catherine Albertyn, "Contesting Democracy, HIV/AIDS and the Achievement of Gender Equality in South Africa," Feminist Studies29 (2003): 595-615.
52.
Gay W. Seidman, "Gendered Citizenship: South Africa's Democratic Transition and the Construction of a Gendered State," Gender & Society13 (1999): 287-307.
53.
Hassim, "Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements"; Seidman, "Gendered Citizenship."
54.
Hassim, "Turning Gender Rights into Entitlements"; Seidman, "Gendered Citizenship"; Sloth-Nielson and Von Heerden, "The Constitutional Family." For example, only 21.4 percent of black women and 35 percent of black men were employed in 2001 compared with 52.8 percent of white women and 70.4 percent of white men. (RSA Primary Census Data, 2001, Table 2.29:52)
55.
Unaids, "2006 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic," Annex Country Profiles (2006), 455; Statistics South Africa, "Census 2001, Census in Brief" (2003), http://www.polity.org.za/pdf/Census2001_brief.pdf (accessed December 4, 2008).
56.
Anne Outwater , Naeema Abrahams, and Jacqelyn C. Campbell, "Women in South Africa Intentional Violence and HIV/AIDS," Journal of Black Studies35, no. 4 (2005): 135-54, 137.
57.
O. Shisana, T. Rehle, L.C. Simbayl, et al. South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence, Behavior and Communication Survey (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2005), 38.
58.
Unicef, " South Africa Statistics," http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/southafrica_statistics.html (accessed December 4, 2008).
59.
Jacklyn Cock , "Engendering Gay and Lesbian Rights: The Equality Clause in the South African Constitution" Women's Studies International Forum26 (2002): 35-45.
60.
RSA Primary Census Data, 2001.
61.
Michel Garenne et al., "Understanding Marital and Premarital Fertility in Rural South Africa," Journal of Southern African Studies27 (2001): 277-90, 279.
62.
For example, due to male desires for friction during heterosexual intercourse, some South African women apply drying agents to their vaginas, causing tears and bleeding that increase their risk of HIV (A. Baleta, "Concern Voiced over `Dry Sex' Practices in South Africa," Lancet 352 [1998]: 1292.) Patriarchal sexual coercion and multiple partners are widespread, and many women are too subordinate to challenge men's refusal to use condoms. (See Outwater et al., "Women in South Africa," note 107).
63.
Marc Epprecht, Hungochani: The Story of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa (London: McGill-Queen's University Press , 2004).
64.
Connie M. Anderson , "The Persistence of Polygyny as an Adaptive Response to Poverty and Oppression in apartheid South Africa," Cross Cultural Research34, no. 2 (2000): 99-112.
65.
Gouws, "The Politics of State Structures Citizenship"; Likhapha Mbatha, "Reforming the Customary Law of Succession," South African Journal of Human Rights 18 (2002): 259-86; Pieterse, "It's a `Black Thing'"; Virginia Van der Vliet, "Traditional Husbands, Modern Wives? Constructing Marriages in a South African Township," in Andrew D. Speigel and Patrick A. McAllister, eds., Tradition and Transition in Southern Africa (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Press, 1991).
66.
S. Koyana, in Van der Vliet, "Traditional Husbands, Modern Wives?" 231.
67.
Mbatha, " Reforming the Customary Law of Succession"; Pieterse, "It's a `Black Thing.'"
68.
Epprecht, Hungochani.
69.
Van der Vliet, "Traditional Husbands, Modern Wives?"; Elsje Bonthuys, "The Civil Union Act: More of the Same," in Judge et al., To Have and To Hold (Johannesburg: Fanele, 2008), 171-81.
70.
Outwater et al., "Women in South Africa," 140; IRIN, "Murder of Young Lesbian Sparks Homophobia Concerns," Mail & Guardian (February 21, 2006).
71.
Outwater et al., "Women in South Africa," 140; IRIN, "Murder of Young Lesbian."
72.
Outwater et al., "Women in South Africa," 142.
73.
IRIN, "Murder of Young Lesbian." Zuma acknowledged both the unprotected sex and his knowledge that she was HIV positive but argued that she invited his advances and that he would have been culturally remiss to deny her sex.
74.
Interviews with Melanie Judge and Wendy Isaak, 2007.
75.
RSA Census 2001, Tables 6.2 and 6.4.
76.
Aurelia Dyanti , "Two Wives Better than One for Some South Africa Men" The Star (2003), http://www.polygamyinfo.com/intnalmedia%20plyg%20192star.htm (accessed December 4, 2008).
77.
A. Costa, quoted in Pieterse, "It's a `Black Thing,'" 364.
78.
Christina Landman, "Polygamy Beats Divorce, Afrikaner Academic Says," Victoria Times-Colonist (January 16, 1999), A8. Landman maintained that Afrikaans culture makes it difficult for women (all presumptively heterosexual) to function without a husband and that "there are just too few men in the world" available. She advises divorced white women to "select a married man and go and negotiate with his wife to become part of the family." Indeed, "timesharing awaits us, ladies," she advised, "and that at a time Viagra was sent for men."
79.
Robertson et al v. Minister of Home Affairs, 2007.
80.
Pieterse, "It's a `Black Thing.'"
81.
Cock, "Engendering Gay and Lesbian Rights," 40-41.
82.
IRIN, "Murder of Young Lesbian."
83.
IRIN, "Murder of Young Lesbian." Ironically, some scholars indicate that butch/ femme is a dominant practice among blacks and coloreds in South Africa; Cock, "Engendering Gay and Lesbian Rights," 43.
84.
Ibid.
85.
Human Rights Watch, "South Africa: Lesbians Targeted for Murder; A Climate of Violent Homophobia Mars South Africa's Celebration of Women's Day" (August 9, 2007), http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/08/08/safric16617.htm (accessed December 4, 2008); Interviews with David Bilchitz and Pierre de Vos.
86.
Cock, "Engendering Gay and Lesbian Rights," 39.
87.
Afrol News, "South Africans Disapprove of Homosexuals, Abortion" (October 21, 2004) http://www.afrol.com/articles/14605 (accessed December 4, 2008).
88.
Winnie Mandela justified kidnapping four youths in Soweto in 1988 (one of whom was murdered) because of the alleged homosexuality of the priest with whom they were staying. Paul Trewhela, "Mbeki and AIDS in Africa: A Comment" New York Review of Books 47, no. 16 (2000); see also Rachel Holmes, "`White Rapists Made Coloureds (and Homosexuals)': The Winnie Mandela Trial and the Politics of Race and Sexuality," in Mark Gevisser and Edwin Cameron, eds., Defiant Desires: Gay and Lesbian Lives in South Africa (New York: Routledge, 1995), 284-94.
89.
Wynbdham Hartley, "MP's Dig in Their Heels against Same-sex Unions," Johannesburg Business Day (September 14, 2006); Reid, "How to Be a `Real' Gay"; Reid, "`This Thing' and `That Idea.'"
90.
Trewhela (2000) claims that Mbeki "endorses an Africanist myth of a pure and primal Africa contaminated by a sinful West." Scholars debate the role of homosexuality and homophobia in African cultures and whether the West imposed either. (See e.g., Yarbrough, "We Thee Wed"; Neville Hoad, "Tradition, Modernity and Human Rights: An Interrogation of Contemporary Gay and Lesbian Rights Claims in Southern African Nationalist Discourses," Development Update Quarterly Journal of the South African National NGO Coalition and INTERFUND 2, no. 32 (1998); Epprecht, Hungochani.)
91.
Goodridge v. Department of Health, 798 N.E.2d. 941 (Mass., 2003).
92.
Evelyn Nieves, "S.D. Abortion Bill Takes Aim at Roe," Washington Post (February 23, 2006), A01.
93.
Michael G. Myers, "Polygamist Eye for the Monogamist Guy: Homosexual Sodomy . . . Gay Marriage . . . Is Polygamy Next?" Houston Law Review (2006): 1451-86.
94.
Id.
95.
Shiela B. Kamerman and Alfred J. Kahn, Privatization and the Welfare State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989); Christopher Pierson and Francis G. Castles, The Welfare State Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000).
96.
Jana Singer , "The Privatization of Family Law," Wisconsin Law Review (1992): 1443-1567.
97.
Id.
98.
Katherine E. Hull, "The Cultural Power of Law and the Cultural Enactment of Legality: The Case of Same-sex Marriage," Law & Social Inquiry28 (2003): 629-57.
99.
Robert Pear and David D. Kirkpatrick, "Bush Plans $1.5 Billion Drive for Promotion of Marriage," New York Times (January 14, 2004), A1; see also http://www.healthymarriageinfo.org/ .
100.
See e.g. Utah Child Welfare Law § 78-30-9(3)(a).
101.
Susan F. Appleton, "Presuming Women: Resisting the Assumption of Legitimacy in the Same-sex Couples Era," Boston University Law Review86 (2006): 227-97.
102.
Lawrence v. Texas, 2490.
103.
In re Marriage Cases, 43 Cal.4th 757, 76 Cal.Rptr.3d 683, 183 P.3d 384 (2008). Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1937).
104.
For exceptions, see Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives" and Katherine Franke, "Becoming a Citizen: Reconstruction Era Regulation of African American Marriages," Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 11 (1999): 251-309.
105.
Cott, Public Vows.
106.
Myers, "Polygamist Eye for the Monogamist Guy"; see also Martha M. Ertman, "The Story of Reynolds v. United States: Federal `Hell Hounds' Punishing Mormon Treason," in Carol Sanger, ed., Family Law Stories 51 (Eagan, MN: Thomson Reuters/ West, 2007).
107.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives," 68.
108.
Carol Weisbrod and Pamela Sheingorn, "Reynolds v. United States: Nineteenth Century Forms of Marriage and the Status of Women," Connecticut Law Review10 (1978): 828, note 6.
109.
Bruce Burgett, "On the Mormon Question: Race, Sex and Polygamy in the 1850s and the 1990s," American Quarterly 57 (2005): 75-102; Joan S. Iversen, The Antipolygamy Controversy in U.S. Women's Movements, 1880-1925: A Debate on the American Home (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997).
110.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives," 66.
111.
Iversen, The Antipolygamy Controversy.
112.
Bigamy is a misdemeanor in thirteen states. For examples of felon statutes, see the bigamy statutes of: Massachusetts, M.G.L. c272 §15, "Polygamy"; New York, N.Y.G.L §255.10 "unlawfully purporting a marriage" (a misdemeanor) and N.Y.G.L. §255.15 "Bigamy" (a felony); Utah, UT.G.L. §76-7-101 "Bigamy" (a third-degree felony).
113.
Strassberg, "Distinctions of Form or Substance."
114.
The 2001 Tom Green case sparked national interest. Green, a self-proclaimed Mormon polygamist, was the only individual prosecuted for bigamy by Utah between 1953 and 2003. (State v. Green, 99 P.3 820 [Utah 2004]). Green was released from prison in August 2007 after serving six years of his five year-to-life sentence. CNN, "Utah Polygamist Released on Parole after Serving Six Years" (2007), http://www.cnn. com/2007/US/08/07/polygamist.ap/index.html (accessed December 4, 2008).
115.
Alexandria Sage, "Utah Polygamy Ban Challenged," CBS News (January 27, 2004), http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/27/national/main596268.shtml (retrieved December 4, 2008).
116.
State v. Holm, 2006 UT 31.
117.
Id., 184.
118.
See Judith Stacey, Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late-Twentieth-Century America (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Judith Stacey, In the Name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in a Postmodern Age (New York: Beacon Press, 1996); Weston, Families We Choose.
119.
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997[1963]).
120.
Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," Signs: A Journal of Culture and Society5 (1983): 631-60.
121.
Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967).
122.
In 2001, 41.9 percent of black women and 43 percent of black men over the age of fifteen had never married, compared with 20.7 percent of white nonhispanic women and 27.4 percent of white non-Hispanic men; the comparable rates for Asians and Hispanics were 33.4 percent Asian men, 40 percent Hispanic men, 25.3 percent Asian women, 29.7 percent Hispanic women. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Marital History for People 15 Years and Over, by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 2001" (February 1, 2005), http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/marital-hist/p70-97/tab01-hispanic. xls (accessed December 4, 2008).
123.
A 2006 survey reported 21 percent of lesbians and 5 percent of gay men currently have a child living at home; two-thirds of lesbians said they plan to have a child in the next three years! One-third of male couples plan to raise kids. Beth Shapiro, "Gay Families Growing," 365Gay.com (April 25, 2006), http://365.vom/Newscon06/04/ 042506family.htm (accessed December 4, 2008).
124.
Weston, Families We Choose.
125.
See e.g. Agigian, Baby Steps; Marie Mohler and Lacy Frazer, A Donor Insemination Guide: Written by and for Lesbian Women (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002); Judith Stacey, "Gay Parenthood and the Decline of Paternity as We Knew It," Sexualities 9 (2006): 27-55; Maureen Sullivan, The Family of Woman: Lesbian Mothers, Their Children, and the Undoing of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).
126.
Kenyon Farrow, "Is Gay Marriage Anti-black?" Chickenbones: A Literary Journal (2004) , http://www.nathanielturner.com/isgaymarriageantiblack.htm (accessed December 4, 2008).
127.
Kevin Boykin, One More River to Cross: Black and Gay in America (New York: Anchor Books, 1996); Matthew Mosk, "Gay Unions Fracture MD.'s Black Caucus; Civil Rights Pull as Strong as Church's," Washington Post (January 28, 2006), A01.
128.
Stacey M. Brumbaugh, Laura A. Sanchez, Steven L. Nock, and James D. Wright, "Attitudes toward Gay Marriage in States Undergoing Marriage Law Transformation," Journal of Marriage and Family70 ( 2008): 345-59.
129.
"Beyond Same-sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families and Relationships" (2006), http://www.beyondmarriage.org/ (accessed December 4, 2008); Farrow, "Is Gay Marriage Anti-black?"
130.
Cited in Eugene Volkh, "Changing Attitudes about Homosexuality" (2005), http://www.volokh.com/posts/1124468214.shtml (retrieved December 4, 2008).
131.
Religioustolerance.org; "Single U.S. Public Opinion Polls: Same-Sex Marriages and Civil Unions," (2006), http://www.volokh.com/posts/1124468214.shtml (retrieved December 4, 2008).
132.
A 2004 CBS/NYT poll found that 56 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds supported gay marriage vs. 25 percent of 45- to 64-year-olds (Michaele M. Melendez, "Young Americans More Likely to Support Gay Marriage, Polls Suggest," Newhouse News Service [March 11, 2004]: 1); a 2006 California poll found 54 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 support gay marriage vs. 29 percent of respondents age 65+ (Field Poll, 2006); an August 3, 2006, Pew report found 73 percent of respondents aged 65 and older opposed gay marriage, but 53 percent of adults under 30 support it. Paul Taylor, "Wedge Issues on the Ballot: Can State Initiatives on Gay Marriage, Minimum Wage Affect Candidate Races?" Pew Research Center (July 26, 2006); Jeni Loftus, "America's Liberalization in Attitudes toward Homosexuality, 1973 to 1998," American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 762-82.
133.
Jonathan Turley, "Polygamy Laws Expose Our Hypocrisy," USA Today (October 4, 2004).
134.
Joseph Carroll , "Society's Moral Boundaries Expand Somewhat This Year," Gallop Poll (May 16, 2005), http://www.gallup.com (accessed December 4, 2008).
135.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives"; Wade Goodwyn, Howard Berkes, and Amy Walters, "Warren Jeffs and the FLDS," NPR (May 3, 2005 ), http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4629320 (accessed December 4, 2008).
136.
Liberated Christians, "Multiple Intimate Relationships: A Summary of Liberated Christians' Views" (1999), http://www.libchrist.com/bible/polygamy.html (accessed December 4, 2008).
137.
Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness, "Mission" (July 11, 2008) http://www.uupa.org/index#mission (accessed December 4, 2008).
138.
Id.
139.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives," 70-71.
140.
e.g. Kurtz, "Beyond Gay Marriage"; and Stanley Kurtz, "Big Love from the Set," National Review Online (2006), http://www.nationalreview.com/kurtz/ kurtz200603130805 .asp (accessed December 4, 2008).
141.
Chambers, "Civilizing the Natives," 69; Iversen, The Antipolygamy Controversy.
142.
"Beyond Same-sex Marriage"; Lisa Duggan, "Holy Matrimony," The Nation (March 15, 2004); Michael Warner, The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life (New York: Free Press, 1999).
143.
Kurtz, "Beyond Gay Marriage ."
144.
Kersten, "Once Same-sex Marriage Is OK, Polygamy's Next."
145.
Kurtz, "Big Love from the Set."
146.
Tapestry Against Polygamy, "By 3rd Anniversary of `Lawrence'-Polygamy Rights Accelerating" (June 26, 2006), http://www.pro-polygamy.com/articles. php?news=0044 (accessed December 4, 2008).
147.
Big Love instantly inspired an iconic New Yorker magazine cover (June 19, 2006) featuring an upbeat "just-married" groom and his three beaming brides waving from their honeymoon, get-away convertible sedan. On the HBO website for the program (http://www.hbo.com/biglove/), Big Love actors offer thoughtful reflections on polygyny's trade-offs between autonomy and collectivity, jealousy, and support. See Principle Voices, "FAQs about Mormon Polygamy," http://principlevoices.org/faq (visited March 12, 2009).
148.
John Tierney , "Who's Afraid of Polygamy?" New York Times (March 11, 2006).
149.
See http://www.pro-polygamy.com; quotes a sound-bite from Mark Henkel of TruthBearer.org and proposes "the solution to end the so-called `same sex marriage' debate once and for all: true limited government by getting government out of defining and `abominating' marriage altogether."
150.
Jennifer Dobner, "Teens Defend Polygamy at Salt Lake Rally," ABC News (August 19, 2006), http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2333693 (accessed December 4, 2008).
151.
Religioustolerance.org, "The LDS Restorationist Movement, Including the Mormon Churches", http://www.religioustolerance.org/lds_poly2.htm (accessed December 4, 2008).
152.
Elizabeth Neff and Pamela Manson, "Court Rejects Polygamy Defense," Salt Lake Tribune (May 17, 2006).
153.
Jacob Sullum , "Attacking Pluralism, reasononline, May 29, 2001 www.reason .com/news/show/35731.html; see also Turley, "Polygamy Laws Expose Our Hypocrisy."
154.
http://www.polygamyinfo.com.
155.
Tapestry Against Polygamy, "Tapestry Against Polygamy Calls Elder Russell M. Nelson `Serial Polygamist,' Denounces Hypocrisy," (June 7, 2006), http://www.affirmation .org/news/2006_76.shtml (accessed December 4, 2008).
156.
Pamela Manson , "FLDS Added to List of Hate Groups," Salt Lake Tribune (April 21, 2005).
157.
Farrow, "Is Gay Marriage Anti-black?"
158.
Well-known gay writer Andrew Sullivan garnered much criticism by gay rights activists for a blog post in which he decreed, "no ethnic community as homophobic in America as African-Americans." Andrew Sullivan, "Young Evangelicals and Gay Couples," The Daily Dish (September 30, 2008), http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/ the_daily_dish/2008/09/young-evangelic.html (accessed December 4, 2008). This statement prompted a host of responses, like this one: Ta-Nihisi Coates, "Andrew on Black Homophobia," The Atlantic (October 1, 2008), http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/ archives/2008/10/andrew_on_black_homophobia.php (accessed December 4, 2008).
159.
Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy.
160.
Burgett, "On the Mormon Question," 77.
161.
See http://www.pro-polygamy.com.
162.
Andrew J. Cherlin, "The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage," Journal of Marriage and the Family 66 (2004): 848-61; Coontz, Marriage, a History; Cott, Public Vows.
163.
Giddens, The Transformation of Intimacy.
164.
Cameron, "Sexual Orientation and the Constitution"; Cock, "Engendering Gay and Lesbian Rights."
165.
"Beyond Same-sex Marriage"; Burgett, "On the Mormon Question," 95-98; Farrow, "Is Gay Marriage Anti-black?"
166.
Recently, however, a few African-American women have suggested the appeal of polygyny to African-American women who face a glaring shortage of marriageable men. See Barbara Bradley Hagerty, "Philly's Black Muslims Increasingly Turn to Polygamy," NPR (June 2, 2008), (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story. php?storyId=90886407&sc=emaf (accessed December 4, 2008).
167.
Yarbrough, "We Thee Wed," 4.
168.
Id., 7.
169.
One legal scholar, Elizabeth Emens, makes precisely this argument. Elizabeth Emens, "Monogamy's Law: Compulsory Monogamy and Polyamorous Existence," NYU Review of Law and Social Change 29 (2004).
170.
Tierney, "Who's Afraid of Polygamy?"
171.
Knute Berger , "Racing Down the Slippery Slope," Seattle Weekly (June 23, 2004).
172.
Van der Vliet , "Traditional Husbands, Modern Wives?"
173.
For further discussion of these arguments, see Duggan, "Holy Matrimony"; Strassberg, "Distinctions of Form or Substance."
