Underage teens flee polygamist Utah towns
 

Teens flee polygamist towns

The anticipated exodus of teenage girls from the strife-torn, polygamist communities of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah, began in earnest this weekend as about 10 fanned out to towns in southern Utah seeking protection, anti-polygamy activists said Sunday.

"We've got eight runners now, including two with children, and got a bunch more coming," said Flora Jessop of Phoenix, a former Colorado City resident who has been active in opposing multiple marriages since she escaped from the polygamist enclave as a teenager in the mid-1980s.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...adocity19.html

This is happening in America in 2004?

I just read that polygamists are planning to use the recent decision on gay marriages to legalize their polygamy, believing it's a violation of their rights as well

I don't think it would work. Gays are asking for equal treatment under an existing law - they want the right to have one husband or wife, just like a straight person. Asking for a new right or new law - the right to marry multiple people - is different than asking for equal treatment under an existing law.

Do most GFY Libertarians support polygamy or do they think the government should make it illegal?

If the federal government can step in and issue a national Spam law that superceeds all the various state laws, why can't they do the same and issue a law making it illegal for people to get married before they are 18?

How many people these days have successfull marriages who got married younger than that anyway?

Give them all the wives they want if the girls are down for that.... but let them graduate high school first.

I think it was Utah where a guy got busted getting underage girls pregnant... his penalty was that he had to pay child support. From memory it was 17% gross of his income per child, and there were five kids. That doesn't leave too much for himself to enjoy... :winkwink:

Then again, he got off being formally charged even though he had sex with several minors.

The US constitution, as it currently stands, specifically prohibits federal regulation of marriage. It specifically reserves the right to legislate matters involving interstate commerce, which has historically been interpreted to include telecommunications and internet issues. Most efforts at federally forbidding recognition of gay marriage center around modifying the constitution to move some marital legislative authority from state governments to the federal government.

But I thought conservatives believed in more state rights, not less?

:1orglaugh

Im poly, I would love to legalize polygamy.

However, in this type of situation, its more forced upon them, its not a choice that they make. Just as I dont support brainwashing children, religious or otherwise, I dont support this brainwashing that "their way is the right way."

Also, these extended families, since they only recognize one marriage, the other women are single mothers, most with welfare income. I think thats a gross injustice to those that truely need the help, rather than those that have kids just to get more money.