GayAmerican.org notes that Orrin Hatch, a Mormon and staunch supporter of the Gay Bashing Amendment, comes from a family of polygamists. Not surprising, as this was accepted practice among Mormons once up on a time, and to Mormons polygamy was part of their RELIGION.
The thing that I find strange is that Hatch and Mass. Governor Mitt Romney (who is also a Mormon), both, according to this article in the Salt Lake Tribune, think that it was just for the Supreme Court to intervene and uphold laws banning polygamy since the court felt that polygamy was in fact NOT an exercise in freedom of religion.
Now think about that. Orrin Hatch and Mitt Romney think it is okay for the Supreme Court to intervene and overrule how a religion defines marriage when a religion defines marriage as polygamy, but it's wrong for the Supreme Court to intervene and overrule how the religious right and other conservative religions define marriage when a religion defines marriage as solely a man and a woman.
So which one is it Orrin and Mitt - is it the role of the Supreme Court to decide what is and isn't marriage, even over the objections of any religion?
'I come from a culture where at one time polygamy was a religious belief and was practiced by a small percentage of people in my faith,' said Hatch, explaining that his great-grandfather Jeremiah had three wives and 30 children.
'Those were days when they lived this principle because they believed it to be a spiritual principle, they believed it was important to bring as many children into the world as they could, among other things.'
But Hatch said those beliefs were put aside when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1879 upheld a Utah Territorial Supreme Court verdict against polygamist George Reynolds, the personal secretary to LDS President Brigham Young. The nation's highest court ruled that polygamy was not an exercise of religious freedom and that government had legitimate authority to determine whether plural marriage or monogamy would be the law.
'When that came down, the Supreme Court case outlawing plural marriage, basically my faith did away with plural marriage, and I have to say no one would argue that it should ever come back,' Hatch said.
