Action and Reaction

For John, BLUF:  Actions have consequences.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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I think the idea that a move can be made without it causing additional actions and reactions is fallacious.  Sometimes the reactions are a ways away from the original site of action.  This morning's International New York Times has an article on the rise of a xenophobic nationalistic party in Bulgaria, Atata, which is reacting to Syrian refugees coming into the country (6,500 this year).♠  These kinds of things lead to events that belie our humanity.

Closer to home, Law Professor Ann Althouse picks up on a ruling by the US District Court for the District of Utah.♥  The Althouse blog links to the Ruthann Robson post at Constitutional Law Prof Blog, which includes a link to the ruling in Brown v Buhman.  The post is named "Federal District Judge Finds Portions of Utah's Criminalization of Polygamy Unconstitutional".

Per Ms Robson,

The challengers to the statute, the Browns, are famous from the reality program Sister Wives and the accompanying book and are represented by Professor Jonathan Turley, who blogs about the case here.

From Professor Althouse's blog, the subject and lede is a quote from the 91 page ruling:

Adultery, including adulterous cohabitation, is not prosecuted.  Religious cohabitation, however is subject to prosecution at the limitless discretion of local and State prosecutors, despite a general policy not to prosecute religiously motivated polygamy.  The court finds no rational basis to distinguish between the two, not least with regard to the State interest in protecting the institution of marriage.

Back to Ms Robson, she includes this comment which refers to Columbia Professor Edward Said:

The judge's scholarly opinion includes a discussion of Edward Said's groundbreaking book Orientalism as a critique of the well-known passage in the United States Supreme Court’s 1879 decision in Reynolds v. United States upholding the criminalization of polygamy by reasoning, in part, that "Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people."

From Professor Turley's blog:

As I have previously written, plural families present the same privacy and due process concerns faced by gay and lesbian community over criminalization.

Those who promised us that change and evolution of marriage laws would stop with gay marriage, and ridiculed those of us who were skeptical, lacked access to the clue bag.♦

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Imagine the impact of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees on poor little Jordan.
♥  The next level is the Tenth Court of Appeals, out of Denver, Colorado, not the famous Ninth, out of San Francisco.
♦  Or didn't know there was one.