'SISTER WIVES' HUSBAND TO CHALLENGE Utah's POLYGAMY LAW !!!!
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 10:19 am
By John Stevens
12th July 2011
The polygamous family who star in the reality TV show 'Sister Wives' are set to challenge Utah's bigamy law.
Kody Brown and his four wives will tomorrow file a lawsuit contesting the law, which makes their lifestyle illegal.
The 42-year-old, his wives and their sixteen children and step-children moved to Nevada in January after police launched a bigamy investigation.
Mr Brown is only legally married to his first wife Meri, but in Utah a person can be found guilty of bigamy through cohabitation, no just legal marriage contracts.
Bigamy is a third-degree felony in the state.
The Browns will challenge the Utah's right to prosecute people for their private relationships.
Mr Brown said: 'We only wish to live our private lives according to our beliefs.'
The family are members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, a fundamentalist sect that broke away from the Mormon Church when it gave up polygamy in the 1890s.
They plan to argue that a ban on polygamous marriage violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, as well as the free exercise, establishment, free speech and freedom of association clauses of the First Amendment.
Mr Brown and his wives have been under investigation since they became the focus of a reality TV show screened on TLC.
Soon after the show was first broadcast in 2010, officials announced they were investigating the family for violating the state law prohibiting polygamy.
There are estimated to be 35,000 people living in polygamous relationships in the U.S., despite it being illegal.
The Browns said that they agreed to be filmed for the reality series to show people how polygamous families work.
'The [polygamist] society tends to be fairly closed,' Mr Brown said.
'We figured that just by being an example of that, by showing our lives, we'd actually help the society be more transparent, have other people in the lifestyle feel safer about being transparent.'
Mr Brown spends each night with a different wife who each have a separate section of a large house
But the wives explained that when they marry into a polygamous family, they're not just marrying the husband - they're marrying the whole family.
'It's definitely a bonding experience', Meri said. 'We're sisters in that sense, and we're very close.
Janelle added: 'If we raise productive, contributing members of society who are moral and ethical, that's our final goal, whatever their path is,' says the mother of six of Kody's 16 children.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1Ru8QAcIO
12th July 2011
The polygamous family who star in the reality TV show 'Sister Wives' are set to challenge Utah's bigamy law.
Kody Brown and his four wives will tomorrow file a lawsuit contesting the law, which makes their lifestyle illegal.
The 42-year-old, his wives and their sixteen children and step-children moved to Nevada in January after police launched a bigamy investigation.
Mr Brown is only legally married to his first wife Meri, but in Utah a person can be found guilty of bigamy through cohabitation, no just legal marriage contracts.
Bigamy is a third-degree felony in the state.
The Browns will challenge the Utah's right to prosecute people for their private relationships.
Mr Brown said: 'We only wish to live our private lives according to our beliefs.'
The family are members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, a fundamentalist sect that broke away from the Mormon Church when it gave up polygamy in the 1890s.
They plan to argue that a ban on polygamous marriage violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment, as well as the free exercise, establishment, free speech and freedom of association clauses of the First Amendment.
Mr Brown and his wives have been under investigation since they became the focus of a reality TV show screened on TLC.
Soon after the show was first broadcast in 2010, officials announced they were investigating the family for violating the state law prohibiting polygamy.
There are estimated to be 35,000 people living in polygamous relationships in the U.S., despite it being illegal.
The Browns said that they agreed to be filmed for the reality series to show people how polygamous families work.
'The [polygamist] society tends to be fairly closed,' Mr Brown said.
'We figured that just by being an example of that, by showing our lives, we'd actually help the society be more transparent, have other people in the lifestyle feel safer about being transparent.'
Mr Brown spends each night with a different wife who each have a separate section of a large house
But the wives explained that when they marry into a polygamous family, they're not just marrying the husband - they're marrying the whole family.
'It's definitely a bonding experience', Meri said. 'We're sisters in that sense, and we're very close.
Janelle added: 'If we raise productive, contributing members of society who are moral and ethical, that's our final goal, whatever their path is,' says the mother of six of Kody's 16 children.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1Ru8QAcIO
Do you know how many guys are waiting to live life freely after that? 