Polygamy and Gay Marriage: A Reflection on “Non-Traditional” Marriage

by Konden Smith 

This past week, the Supreme Court has heard two historic cases concerning gay marriage, furthering the intensity of it as a national debate. Jeff Wilson has recently noted that it was in the American West that we see the “earliest religious recognitions of same-sex partnerships.” Interestingly, it was also in the West that we see the first significant argument against traditional marriage (that of “one man and one woman”) as the only viable alternative for American citizens. This fight came from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka. Mormons) as they pled for the country to tolerate their practice of plural marriage. Although the church today has taken a strong public stand against gay marriage, this early Mormon struggle for non-traditional marriage offers an important (if not ironic) contribution to the discussion.

Throughout the nineteenth century, prominent Americans looked to Mormonism and its open practice of non-traditional marriage as a national embarrassment and a direct threat to the integrity of the divinely established institution of the family, and as such, was a direct threat to the nation itself. “I must only beg,” spoke historian Philip Schaff to his German audience in 1854, “in the name of my adopted fatherland, that you will not judge America in any way by this irregular growth.” Just a few years later, American Colonel Patrick Connor argued for the “annihilation of this whole people [of Mormonism].” “If the present rebellion [Civil War] is a punishment for any national sin, I believe it is for permitting this unholy, blasphemous, and unnatural institution to exist almost in the heart of the nation[.]” 

Considered “unnatural,” polygamy was thought to encourage sexual promiscuity and cause birth deformities. The first legal test for Mormons came in the Supreme Court case Reynold’s vs. US (1878). In citing religious liberty, the Mormons claimed that the state had no right to criminalize non-traditional marriages. The Court explained however that the founding fathers “never intended” for religious freedom to hurt innocent women and children through unorthodox marriage, and as such, the government had the right “to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.” Establishing it to be the function of government to encourage “religion” and “morality,” the Court criminalized polygamy. Therefore, in order to protect the ideal family, the government ensured the breakup of non-traditional ones. 

At the height of anti-polygamy agitation, Mormon leaders wrote an official protest, complaining that the 1882 Edmunds law, which helped define marriage as between one man and one woman, as oppressive and severe. President Grover Cleveland, upon receiving a copy of this protest, remarked, “I wish you out there could be like the rest of us.” Mormon leaders publicly shot back: “We are inconsiderately asked to rend our family relations and throw away our ideas of human freedom, political equality and the rights of man, and ‘to become like them.’” They then challenged, “Be like them for what?” “It means that E pluribus unum is a fiction; it means that we tamper with and violate the grand palladium of human liberty, the Constitution of the United States and substitute expediency, anarchy, fanaticism, intolerance and religious bigotry for those glorious fundamental principles of liberty, equality, brotherhood, human freedom and the rights of man.” The Church was emphatic: “We cannot do it….We cannot and will not lay aside our fealty to the nation at the bidding of political demagogues, religious fanatics or intolerant despots.” 

As part of this protest in support of unorthodox marriage, Mormon leaders arranged for U.S. flags on government buildings throughout Salt Lake City to be hung at half mast on Independence Day. With widespread national outrage, the Mormon leaders defended the half mast: “A condition of affairs exists in this Territory which, when understood, every lover of human rights must condemn; and in behalf of ourselves, in behalf of our wives and children, in behalf of the Constitution of the United States, and in behalf of the principles of human rights and liberty in this land and throughout the world, we enter our solemn protest against such iniquitous acts as are being perpetrated here.” According to the Court, however, few crimes were “more pernicious to the best interests of society,” and to not punish them “would be to shock the moral judgment of the community.” The theme was established: marriage between “one man and one woman” was divinely ordained, and any unconventional form of marriage was an affront toward God and a threat against peace and social order. 

Mormon leaders rejected such campaigns as an attempt by the US government to enforce, from the “pulpit of our nation,” a particular sexual and theological “orthodoxy.” Men had the right of forming family bonds and worshiping God according to their conscience, “despite the Supreme Court decisions, despite the action of Congress, despite the expressions of pulpit and press.” This was more than a battle over religious liberty, but instead, “we are fighting the battles of religious liberty for the entire people; it might be said, for the entire world.” Mormons fought for the freedom to establish their own family bonds, however immoral others imagined it to be. Even after Mormons officially ended polygamy, efforts arose to constitutionally define marriage as between “one man and one woman.” Mormons charged that such efforts came from “sectarian ministers of the nation” and were “unjust and uncalled for.” 

In looking at these early contests, there are many parallels between gay and plural marriage. For both, opposition comes largely from theological concerns rather than empirical evidence. For early Mormon leaders, at stake were not just their families, but principles of liberty to determine those relationships according to their own conscience and their own sense of divine morality. Importantly, it was not a national departure from “Christian marriage” that caused Mormon leaders to threaten God’s wrath on the nation, but rather the imposing of a majoritarian familial morality on the rest of the nation. 

Casual Friday

Call for applications for those of you research gender in the American West:

The Coalition for Western Women’s History announces the 15th Annual Irene Ledesma Prize, 2013 for Ph.D. graduate student research in western women’s history.

Deadline for submission: May 15, 2013.


The $1,000 prize supports travel to collections or other research expenses related to the histories of women and gender in the American West. Applicants must be enrolled in a Ph.D. program and be members of the Coalition of Western Women’s History (CWWH) at the time of application.  The prize honors the memory of Irene Ledesma, whose contributions to Chicana and working-class history were ended by her untimely death in 1997.

The CWWH will award the prize at the CWWH Breakfast during the 53rd Annual Western History Association conference at Tucson, Arizona,

October 9-12, 2013.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

 - How well the applicant stated her or his research question and the significance of the overall project.
- How well the applicant demonstrated her or his knowledge of the primary source materials related to the proposal.
- How well the applicant framed her or his project in terms of the broader theoretical and historiographic issues significant to the topic.
 - How well the proposal addressed issues of gender and/or women’s history in the U.S. West.
- How well the proposed budget dovetails with the applicant’s stated research agenda.


To apply, submit one copy of each of the following (as a PDF file) to committee chair Cynthia Prescott at <cynthia.culver@gmail.com>:

 - A CV
 - A brief description of the research project and an explanation of how the prize funds would support the research (not exceeding three pages, double spaced, addressing the criteria)
- A line-item budget
- A letter of support from the student's major advisor

Environmentalism, Sacred Native Land, and the Failure of the First Amendment

by Kenny Richards

American Indians have had serious trouble winning religious freedom cases in the high courts of this country.  Felix Cohen, a legal scholar who set much of the groundwork for practicing federal Indian law, once remarked that we should watch closely what happens in the federal courts when American Indians are involved, as these cases often act as canaries in the coal mine.  If what Cohen warns is true, then these canaries fell to the bottom of their cages a long time ago.  The persistent failure of the American government to protect the right to the free exercise of religion for American Indians suggests that this government is enforcing a particular and biased conception of religion.  In landmark cases such as Employment Division v. Smith, Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, and Navajo Nation v. United States Forest Service, the United States court system has repeatedly shown its aversion to protecting the religious rights of American Indians. 

          

In response to this pattern in high court decisions, different tribal entities have begun arguing for environmental conservation as a way to protect their sacred places from destructive forms of development.  Across the United States, various forms of destructive development, from open-pit mining to energy production are currently threatening the existence and perpetuity of many American Indian sacred places. The shift in legal argumentation from religious freedom into environmental arguments for the protection of American Indian sacred places offers an important opportunity for many to see how, exactly, the court’s interpretation of the First Amendment is failing to protect American Indian religious traditions.  

This past winter, the Snowbowl Ski Resort in Arizona began making snow from recycled human wastewater to spray on their ski runs in the San Francisco Peaks.  This forested and ecologically rich mountain range is a sacred place for many of the Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest.  Klee Benally is a member of the Navajo Nation and an Indigenous and environmental rights activist.  Benally has been working for the protection of the San Francisco Peaks for many years now. As reported by media outlets such as Indian Country Today and The Navajo-Hopi Observer, this past December, Benally participated in a public protest in Flagstaff Arizona where, with a group of other Indian peoples, he argued that snow production violated their human rights, namely their right to the freedom of religion. Benally told Indian Country Today, “what needs to happen is the government needs to afford the same rights to Native Americans that everybody else in this country enjoys.” Not long afterwards, Benally marched with more than a dozen people down to the local U.S. Forest Service headquarters in Cococino National Forest and hand delivered letters of protest addressing the recent promise by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help protect American sacred places.  With the flair of an activist, Benally poured a 5-gallon bucket of treated sewage effluent, the same water to be used on the mountain for snow-production, in the center of the main entrance to the park headquarters.  The Forest Service promptly called in a Hazardous Materials Response Team, or “HAZMAT” to clean and neutralize this hazardous spill.  Benally was then arrested and now faces a maximum possible sentence of $20,000 in fines and 2 years imprisonment.  In a written statement responding to his arrest, as published in the Navajo-Hopi Observer, Benally wrote, “The irony is that the USFS has authorized to spill more than 1.5 million gallons of treated sewage effluent per day onto a rare and pristine alpine habitat, yet they feel it’s appropriate to call hazmat when a pail of this same wastewater is allegedly poured onto their polished tile floors?  I hold the USFS liable for the environmental poisoning that is set to occur on the peaks right now.”

Step back four years: in 2008, after years of litigation, appeals, district, and federal court decisions the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the production of artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks did not violate the right to the free exercise of religion for several thousand Indian people. The Indian plaintiffs in this argued that the use of treated sewage effluent for snow production at a skiing resort on Mt. Humphrey’s would desecrate one of their sacred mountains, thus destroying their ability to practice their traditional religions. 

After the 9^th Circuit decided the case, Indian peoples continued to protest snow production, alleging human rights infringements in terms of both Indigenous rights and U.S. constitutional rights.  All the while, the Snowbowl Ski Resort continued to put pipes in the ground and make preparations for snow production from recycled sewage effluent.  Since their First Amendment case failed, several groups, including the Hopi Tribe and the Save the Peaks Coalition (an environmentally focused group), have brought lawsuits arguing that the production of snow from treated wastewater will violate certain environmental laws. 

This turn to environmental law for the protection of American Indian sacred places in Arizona is not a singular phenomenon.  Disputes over uranium mining on Mount Taylor in New Mexico, Copper mining from the Pebble Mine in Alaska, and the proper management of the Ka’u Forest Reserve in Hawai’i are all examples of sacred places that are being fought over in environmental terms. Tisa Wenger, a historian of American religions, argues that many American Indians adopted the Euro-American concept of religion as a means of responding to and resisting colonial force.  Not surprisingly, in light of the almost complete failure of American Indian religious freedom cases brought before the U.S. government there is emerging a new adaptation as a way to protect Indigenous ways of life and landscapes. 

Congress and the judiciary must come to terms with their own coercive history and to the limited and unjust definitions of religion that they enforce. The American Indian turn to environmental law in religious freedom cases speaks loudly to the failure of the U.S. government and the First Amendment as protectors of equal rights.   It is high time for the courts, and perhaps Congress, to reassess their definition of religion to include the Indigenous peoples who have not historically fallen under the protection of the First Amendment. 

    

Casual Friday

In connection to Tuesday's post, this news article (not exactly news now, since it is nearly three years old) may be of interest.

From the Vernal Express (11/9/10):

Members of the Northern Ute Indian Tribe plan to petition President Barack Obama for the return of the Uncompahgre Reservation.

The Utes are asking to recover some 2 million acres of land near Vernal, the majority of which is public domain in Duchesne, Grand and Uintah counties. Much of the land borders Colorado on the east, Grand County on the south, the Uintah and Ouray Reservation on the west...

For the entire article, click here.
See also this blurb at Indian Country Today Media Network.

troubling wests, troubling landscapes

by stan thayne

I am often curious about what leads people to their topics of study. Often I don’t think we know just what it is that pushes us to the topics we choose to study. It seems that for many of us who end up studying the American West as an academic field, the impulse do so has something to do with having left, often quite literally, the West we grew up in. Such reflection often involves looking back, often with a westering gaze, and with new eyes. Laurie Maffly-Kipp made this recognition in the opening lines to her book Religion and Society in Frontier California: “Like many westerners, I became interested in the history of my native region only after leaving it.” That recognition could apply to many who look back on homelands with a new perspective. Jared Farmer, for example, whom I referred to in my previous post on haunting, wrote about a mountain and a lake that frame the landscape he grew up in. William Cronon began his book Nature’s Metropolis with a memory of family vacations from Wisconsin to Chicago—a city he came to see as an integral connecting point of “the Great West.”

For some the decision to write about the West may come with moments of disconnect between a new, historicized West and the West they grew up with. Brandi Denison, my co-conspirator here at the RAW blog, begins her dissertation on Ute land religion with a recognition that, for twentieth-century Utes who traveled to Meeker, Colorado—from whence their ancestors had been removed and relocated to the Uintah-Ouray Reservation in Utah—the site has quite a different meaning than it does for many local Euroamerican kids who grew up watching the annual fourth of July “Meeker Massacre Pageant,” which, as she explains, “diminished the specifics of Ute removal in order to emphasize the horror of the Meeker Massacre and the ultimate success of civilization” (12).

I imagine all of us have those moments, when suddenly something we grew up with, or within, suddenly appears in a new light; at times tainted, or haunted, or simply made more real by the sudden presence of a disquietung past. And speaking of the Uintah-Ouray Reservation, I had this realization not long ago when—I don’t remember the source—I came to the realization that the reservation at one time encompassed a good deal of what is now the High Uinta Wilderness Area, which was one of my favorite playgrounds as a kid growing up in Utah. That realization made rather concrete for me just what William Cronon meant—or, if it isn’t what he meant, it’s what it suddenly meant to me—when he titled his essay “The Trouble with Wilderness.” Our romanticization of wilderness as the pristine, untouched, uninhabited, virgin forest (and recreation area)—nature—overlooks the fact of human habitation and land use that European eyes have not always been trained to see (or respect)—or which they chose to ignore.[1] Of course, the Uinta Basin was not the exclusive site of Ute residence and land use prior to European settlement. In the 1860s the federal government, with the cooperation of Brigham Young, removed a group of Ute people from Sanpete and Utah valleys in central Utah and relocated them to the Uinta Basin. Later Ute people from Colorado were removed there as well. In the wake of the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, a lot of that land was opened to non-Ute settlement, mining, or was taken into public domain as national forest land. In 1984, twenty years after the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, a large chunk of the land was designated as the High Uintas Wilderness Area—the same land that one hundred years before a settler had described as “one vast ‘contiguity of waste,’ and measurably valueless, excepting for nomadic purposes, hunting grounds for Indians and to hold the world together.”[2] A far different estimation from that of Americans viewing the basin through lenses that shaped the alpine romanticism that informed the Wilderness Act of 1964.

And it is here that I come to an ambivalence that often characterizes such haunting. I have very fond memories of the times I spent in the Uintas Wilderness; I feel a sense of attachment to that land, to that landscape. And, as a product of the same impulses that created the Wilderness Act of 1964, I don’t think that setting aside wilderness, to protect from privatization and commercial development, is a bad idea. And yet, there still remains “the trouble with wilderness,” the problem of the multiple removals that have taken place, the whittling down of homelands and sovereignties through acts of force and broken treaties that remain, if not always visible, somehow there, in the landscapes, those intimate creations of human action and the land itself that is somehow an accumulation—a palmipsest, as I called it earlier—of all who have dwelt there or moved across, and of those who remain or return. Which brings me to, if not a conclusion, an observation: If the realization that, as Jared Farmer put it, there is “no such thing as an innocent landscape”[3] does not suggest an immediate solution to the problem with wilderness—or agricultural land, or mines, or national parks, or private property—such troubling of the landscape does provide a greater context and a more complicated picture. It is a place to begin.

---

[1] On this point also see Richard White, “Indian Land Use and Environmental Change,” Arizona and the West 17.4 (Winter 1975): 327.

[2] Qtd. in Jared Farmer, On Zion’s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 101.

[3] Interview at Religion Dispatches, April 22, 2010.