Ann Althouse, on her blog, brings up the case of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) vs. the state of Texas, which has been shaky of late because of repeated challenges by anxious parents trying to reclaim over 400 children from the state. The Third Court of Appeals declared that the children were kept in state custody improperly, and the case was immediately appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
The turbulent experience of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church or Mormons) vs. the United States was fought all the way to the Supreme Court, and not even an elaborate system of safeguards designed to prevent the abuses taking place in the FLDS Church, or wrapping themselves in the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion was enough to protect the LDS church from persecution culminating in the end of plural marriage. The tipping point was when the Supreme Court declared that having more than one wife was contrary to generally accepted social standards (a criterion that may not have as much force in our own time) combined with coercion (i.e., when the federal government threatened to confiscate all church assets).
Ann Althouse quotes the opinion in the 1878 Supreme Court case — Reynolds v. United States — that upheld the criminalization of polygamy:
"[T]he accused, proved that, at the time of his alleged second marriage, he was, and for many years before had been, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church, and a believer in its doctrines; that it was an accepted doctrine of that church "that it was the duty of male members of said church, circumstances permitting, to practise polygamy; . . . that this duty was enjoined by different books which the members of said church believed to be of divine origin, and, among others, the Holy Bible, and also that the members of the church believed that the practice of polygamy was directly enjoined upon the male members thereof by the Almighty God, in a revelation to Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of said church; that the failing or refusing to practise polygamy by such male members of said church, when circumstances would admit, would be punished, and that the penalty for such failure and refusal would be damnation in the life to come."
The turbulent experience of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church or Mormons) vs. the United States was fought all the way to the Supreme Court, and not even an elaborate system of safeguards designed to prevent the abuses taking place in the FLDS Church, or wrapping themselves in the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion was enough to protect the LDS church from persecution culminating in the end of plural marriage. The tipping point was when the Supreme Court declared that having more than one wife was contrary to generally accepted social standards (a criterion that may not have as much force in our own time) combined with coercion (i.e., when the federal government threatened to confiscate all church assets).
Ann Althouse quotes the opinion in the 1878 Supreme Court case — Reynolds v. United States — that upheld the criminalization of polygamy:
"[T]he accused, proved that, at the time of his alleged second marriage, he was, and for many years before had been, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church, and a believer in its doctrines; that it was an accepted doctrine of that church "that it was the duty of male members of said church, circumstances permitting, to practise polygamy; . . . that this duty was enjoined by different books which the members of said church believed to be of divine origin, and, among others, the Holy Bible, and also that the members of the church believed that the practice of polygamy was directly enjoined upon the male members thereof by the Almighty God, in a revelation to Joseph Smith, the founder and prophet of said church; that the failing or refusing to practise polygamy by such male members of said church, when circumstances would admit, would be punished, and that the penalty for such failure and refusal would be damnation in the life to come."
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