Draper shared her story Monday with members of the Utah Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee, which voted unanimously to endorse a bill that would effectively decriminalize polygamy among consenting adults.
She testified alongside the bill’s sponsor, Spanish Fork Republican Sen. Deidre Henderson, who argued to her Senate colleagues that the state’s current law classifying polygamy as a felony is unenforceable absent other crimes.… If the SB102 becomes law, polygamy among consenting adults would be reduced to an infraction — a level below many traffic offenses. Infractions in Utah carry no jail time. Punishments can be fines of up to $750 and community service.
Benjamin Wood, “ Bill to decriminalize polygamy earns unanimous approval from Utah Senate committee,” The Salt Lake Tribune, February 11, 2020.
NOTE
Utah was admitted to the Union in 1896, after repudiating polygamy. The United States Supreme Court has held repeatedly, including a ruling as recently as 2017, after Obergefell v Hodges, that forbidding polygamy are constitutional but with Obergefell, the court introduced an untenable tension with those precedents.
Resources
- Justice Thomas: Obergefell v Hodges Threatens Religious Liberty
- Office Hours: After Obergefell (pt 1)
- Office Hours: After Obergefell (pt 2)
- Justice Thomas: “I Warned You”
- Audio: Bob Godfrey On How Christians Ought To Respond To Same-Sex Marriage
- Alito On The Consequences Of The New Orthodoxy
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
More by R. Scott Clark ›
I attempted to listen to Chris Gordon’s interview of Bob Godfrey “How Christians Ought Respond to Same-Sex marriage” but it’s not on AGR Radio.
Are you able to update the links for parts 1 & 2, please?
Hi Catherine,
Links updated.
Thank you.
These are very helpful resources, especially your discussion with David Van Drunen regarding the distinction between wisdom and foolishness. We are called to be wise and gentle as we assess how/if to engage people who do not know/believe they are sinners. Also appreciated the links to the SC decision and Justices Thomas’ and Alito’s warnings. I am looking forward to listening to Chris Gordon’s and Bob Godfrey’s discussion; I believe it will guide my response to ‘sinners’ who engage in same-sex ‘contracts’. Finally, I appreciate hearing a respectful and direct presentation of information that is difficult to navigate in an environment of cultural decay.
Hi Catherine,
They’re right here:
https://heidelblog.net/2015/07/audio-bob-godfrey-on-how-christians-ought-to-respond-to-same-sex-marriage/
It’s linked above.
We lived in a little desert town of Utah over 20 years ago. Polygamy was an open secret there. Local newspapers would often feature interviews with local public servants and notables. I remember one time a local sheriff and his two families were featured on the front page. He maintained two families in two separate houses in the same town. It was pretty, and wonderful, and oh so wholesome <<>> So now that we have taken off the shackles of God’s law, its not surprising that Utah would be the first mover on this. Imagine how are you going to deal with sex trafficking where there is a household of women held in psychological bondage by a Father-Husband claiming they are a polygamous “family”. “He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth,
and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man. Job 12:24-25”
I was able to listen to Part 2 of the interview on SoundCloud but Part 1 is not available.
The interview Part 2 is very helpful. How do access Part 1?
Thank you
Catherine,
Refresh your browser. I updated the links. You might have to clear your browser history.
https://agradio.org/resource/same-sex-marriage-interview-with-dr-w-robert-godfrey-part-1
https://agradio.org/resource/same-sex-marriage-interview-with-dr-w-robert-godfrey-part-2
Dr. Clark,
Thank you.
These discussions helped me.
Easy access to them also was beneficial. Can you link the ‘easy links’ in your resource article?
I need to understand: “I am a chosen sojourner’, in the true Church, needing more than ever to listen to and comprehend intelligent analyses of my identity and the cost of living it. I am a confessing Christian with access to Biblically sound, winsome wisdom, but live in a community ready to oppose civil discourse due to the protection of radical individualism. This raises the question: How then do I live?
These two interviews assessed the history of our current condition and suggested how to think and address the core issue – rugged individualism, ruling our culture through government decree, media, etc.
This raises more questions: Am I ready, able and willing to suffer in Christ’s obedience of faith for His Glory?
It has been almost five years since the SC ruling, and three years since restrictions of the 1st Amendment prevailed to protect Christian business owners.
Final question: What is my responsibility as a lay person in the ‘true Church’?
You’re witnessing the disintegration of the US. The Mormons weren’t driven from New York to the Great Salt Lake merely for polygamy – they were violent as well. There’s a YouTube Vice documentary on Mormons in Mexico that explains the darker side of their past.
Walt,
There is also a book written by a former Mormon, Kathleen Melanokos, “Mormon Counterfeiting,” a book fully and carefully documented, historically. Though a few high level Mormons have acknowledged the truth Kathleen reports, most ignore her research. The information remains inconsequential in the darkness of darknesses.