DOMA marks the first time that the federal government has ever attempted to legislatively mandate a uniform federal definition of marriage – or any other core concept of domestic relations, for that matter.

Charles Lane, over at the Post Partisan blog of the Washington Post, responds by saying, in effect, “Uh, no.”

During the 1856 presidential campaign, the Republican Party platform had accused the Democrats of countenancing “those twin relics of barbarism–polygamy and slavery” and declared it the “duty of Congress to prohibit” both evils in the territories. Buchanan’s expedition was intended to prove the Republicans wrong. It succeeded only in provoking a few inconsequential clashes between armed Mormons and U.S. soldiers.

Congress subsequently adopted three increasingly harsh criminal bans on bigamy and polygamy in the territories: in 1862, 1882 and 1887. The Supreme Court upheld these laws repeatedly against Mormon challenges alleging, among other things, that they violated religious liberty. The 1887 law, the Edmunds-Tucker Act, abrogated the Mormon Church’s corporate charter and confiscated its property, on the grounds that its leaders encouraged polygamy.

The Supreme Court said that was okay, too. Echoing the majority opinion of the day, the court recoiled in frank horror at a practice the Mormons believed was ordained by God — but which the justices considered a “crime against the laws and abhorrent to the sentiments and feelings of the civilized world.” They compared it to human sacrifice. . . .

So it is a bit misleading to say, as Tauro does, “every [historical] effort to establish a national definition of marriage met failure.” Washington’s triumph over Mormon polygamy, made permanent in a national statute, would seem to qualify as a federal definition of marriage, at least in the sense of what marriage is not.

To be sure, Tauro emphasizes that the states have always had exclusive authority over marriage. Utah was a territory at the time of Washington’s effort to stamp out polygamy, and the constitution gave the federal government paramount authority over territories, including their domestic legislation. (That is why, technically, the anti-polygamy laws aimed at Utah also applied to Arizona, Oklahoma, Alaska and the District of Columbia.) Congress functioned, in effect, as the super-legislature for each territory.

Yet what is noteworthy about the Utah case is that Congress leveraged its power over Utah the territory into power over Utah the state. As a condition of admission to the Union, Utah’s people gave Congress a permanent veto over their marriage laws – a veto that remains on the books to this day. The fact that today’s Mormons are proponents of heterosexual monogamy and opponents of same-sex monogamy, is deeply ironic, but legally irrelevant.

What’s more, Utah is not the only state in which this situation obtains. The language of the Utah Enabling Act was repeated, word-for-word, in the laws that admitted New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma as states in the early 20th Century. In short, the federal government has shared authority over the marriage laws of four U.S. states.

Now, I have long been amused by those who state that efforts to allow gay marriage would have no impact on efforts to allow plural marriage. It has always struck me that any successful legal argument allowing gay marriage would have to, of necessity, allow plural marriage — I have yet to see a convincing argument to the contrary, particularly since plural marriage has a much deeper and broader history worldwide (including current active practice, particularly in Islamic and African cultures) than gay marriage does.

If Judge Tauro’s ruling is upheld, it would be interesting to see whether legal challenges to the Federally-mandated Arizona laws might arise from one of the polygamous religious groups therein (Arizona being, in my opinion, the most likely candidate for such an effort). Since Judge Tauro’s ruling does indicate that states can define marriage on their own, such an effort could be quickly ended by a de novo state law banning plural marriage (and for all I know, such a law already exists). But we continue to live in interesting times.  ..bruce..

Mormons are moving from the periphery of modern American life to the very centre. From Romney’s failed tilt at the presidency to the tales of everyday polygamous families in HBO’s popular drama Big Love, Mormonism has become increasingly visible over the last generation. Where its most famous acolytes were once the Osmonds, leading lights now include politicians such as US Senate majority leader Harry Reid (a Democrat) and Romney (a Republican); Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight  vampire saga; Glenn Beck, the popular conservative talk-show host; and self-help guru Stephen R. Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Those are the household names. As important are the Mormons who play central roles at the companies and institutions that make America tick: Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University (one of the biggest in the US); David Neeleman, founder of JetBlue Airlines; J.W. (“Bill”) Marriott, head of Marriott International; and Jon Huntsman Jr, ambassador to China – to name a few. And while firm data are hard to come by, off-the-record interviews conducted for this article suggest that a generation of Mormons in their thirties and forties is accelerating the trend. For every Hill Cumorah Pageant – an annual set of performances starting this weekend in which a cast of 650 enact scenes from the Bible and Book of Mormon before massive audiences near Joseph Smith’s birthplace – there are much more mundane scenes being played out across the US: an investment banker in New York said, “I was at my final day of interviews at JPMorgan during my senior year in college. They took students from Princeton, Yale, Harvard, U-Penn and Brigham Young University [a Mormon university in Utah]. I was like, ‘what the hell? BYU?’ Then I slowly realised how many Mormons there are on Wall Street.”

The CIA has its eye out for Mormons, who, people say jokingly, ace the mandatory drugs and lie-detector tests. Blue-chip corporations are recruiting, too. And at Harvard Business School, female students note ruefully that attractive male classmates are invariably associated with one of the “three Ms”: the military, the management consultancy McKinsey or Mormonism.

In that complaint lies the conundrum: much of the US still sees Mormons as weirdly strait-laced at best, cultish at worst. Yet elite institutions are embracing them. What does that fact say about the world’s youngest major religion – and about success in modern America?

Much of this is not new — Stephen Covey has been writing for decades, and the CIA was recruiting at BYU when I was an undergrad in the 70s — but I do agree with the articles main points: Mormons and the LDS Church as visible as never before, and — as noted — “elite institutions are embracing them.” Some of their observations and answers are quite interesting.

Must drive the anti-LDS crowd nuts. Read the whole thing.  ..bruce..

Heh.  ..bruce..

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

The Onion strikes again. ..bruce..

What I first ran across this headline (and associated article), I was wondering what the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers were doing running an ad, especially in Ireland. As it turns out, “DUP” stands for Democrat Unionist Party, one of the larger political parties in Ireland. Here’s the article lead:

The two attractive young models used on controversial DUP election posters are American Mormons living in New York, it has been revealed.

Fortunately for the scandal-hit DUP they are clean-living conservatives but they’ve never even been to Northern Ireland let alone registered to vote on May 6.

The Sunday Life yesterday revealed the pair are Kristin Mackenzie and Dan Whitmore who had never even heard of the DUP until last week when they were splashed across election posters proclaiming they were going to vote for the party.

As usual, Gerard Van der Leun at American Digest not only comes up with ‘net gold, but gives wonderful commentary on it as well.

This video is for me more haunting than any of the post-apocalyptic films Hollywood has pushed out. The video itself, a homemade production, was shot back in 1977. There’s a good chance that at least one of the people in the video is dead by now; it will likely only be a few more decades until they all are, along with me — I’m roughly the same age as the players in this film. I’m not bothered by my own mortality, but this video makes me reflect upon that of my entire generation.

And a good Monday morning to you, too. ..bruce w..

Some 39 years ago, as a group of (mostly) freshmen at BYU, a bunch of us on the same dorm floor (3rd floor, T Hall, Deseret Towers) had a discussion going in the commons room about majors. Finally, one of us — I’m pretty sure it was Greg Zippi — said, “Yeah, what we’re all really wondering is: what should you major in so that you end up as a General Authority?”

Well, that question has now been answered, at least for our group. Gerrit Gong — one of our 3rd floor gang — was just called to the 1st Quorum of the Seventy (assuming I heard things correctly; I’m listening to General Conference over the internet from my hotel room in Richmond, VA). Way to go, Gerrit! ..bruce..

P.S. Uh, as I sit here, I’m not sure what Gerrit’s undergraduate major was, though I suspect it was International Studies.

OK, I have to believe that the folks who did this spoof very much modeled it after the LDS Church’s ads for the Bible and the Book of Mormon — not only because of the background music and the way the whole conversation goes, but also because of the font and layout for the distributing organization at the end of the ad. As an H. P. Lovecraft fan, I find this ad particularly amusing. ..bruce..

Sandra and I are throwing one of our periodic very-large-scale BBQs this Saturday, January 30th, 2 to 7 pm. If you’re in Colorado (or can get here) and you’d like to come, drop me a line. If you’re wondering what these BBQs are like (and what’s on the menu), here’s a blog post from a few years ago chronicling one. Should be fun.  ..bruce..

Hat tip to Jerry Pournelle. ..bruce w..