 Cast of Three's Company, a 20th century sitcom.
With just a bit of humor, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that [t]hree Utahns who want to live together legally as husband and wife and wife filed suit Monday against Salt Lake County clerks for refusing to issue a marriage license . . . . The Deseret News article on the same story notes that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sanctioned polygamist marriages until 1890, when it abandoned the practice, and has since excommunicated church members who take plural wives. There is no official tally, but some experts say as many as 100,000 people from a variety of religious backgrounds practice polygamy, primarily in the West.
The suit, filed in US District Court, predictably raises a Free Exercise claim and criticizes the 19th century case Reynolds v. United States, but also attempts to argue that Lawrence v. Texas, the recent US Supreme Court case striking down a Texas law criminalizing homosexual relations, supports their challenge. In Lawrence, the Court held that the conduct in question, in the context of the home, was a liberty interest protected under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Courts must now determine whether polygamy now falls under the expanded definition of liberty outlined in Lawrence.
More broadly, the nature of marriage in the 21st century is undergoing reexamination all across the country in recent years: Hawaii, California, Vermont, Massachussetts, even Canada has started to experiment with liberalized marriage laws. It's a popular blog topic, too. From the little corner of the blogosphere I follow, I know of Nate's Covenant and Contract, my Gay Marriage: Contract versus Status, and Tim's Marriage as Contract in the last two months. Change is in the air, but don't expect polygamy anytime soon.
8:45:50 PM 
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