03.24.06
USA Polygamy rights activists featured in Newsweek
Good public relations for the US Polygamy rights activists. Newsweek has large circulation. People will notice. Good they used polygamous women in the feature article. Due to US feminist culture, women have a bigger voice than men.
(photo credit Newseek magazine)
My tip for the next photo-op of women polygamists. Dress smartly, currently, fashionably like young urban professional women. You know how feminist culture looks down upon housewives.
The original Newsweek link is here.
The same article is archived in Truthbearer.org
These are mostly Christian conservatives who have deeply religious views on family, non-contraceptive sexuality, marriage and having lots of children.
Quick Clarification and Final Comment as found in Truthbearer.org
While Elise Soukup’s article included some very good points, it also included a small handful of issues that require corrective clarification.
The article mistakenly declared, “Polygamy rights, not surprisingly, get little support beyond those who are actually polygamists.” However, in the interview, Mark Henkel had made it clear that the modern battle for polygamy rights is not limited to only “practicing polygamists.” The fact is, the Christian Polygamy movement also includes even more multitudes of individuals and pastors (in their individual evangelical Christian churches) who individually recognize its obvious Scripturality and Christ-like basis for calling men to grow up to care about women - but they might not yet be “practicing polygamists” themselves (yet or ever). Obviously, it does not require anyone to be a “practicing polygamist” in order to have the Constitution- and freedom-loving willingness to support polygamy rights and ending the obvious tyranny of anti-polygamy laws. So, the statement was simply in error. Moreover, the mentioned May 2005 Gallup poll was about a sample of views pertaining to questions of morality. It was not about a poll about whether people believed or supported polygamy rights.
In the very final comment, the article declared, “Polygamists are finally speaking up—but will anyone listen?” The irony of that statement is that the established National Polygamy Advocate, Mark Henkel, has loudly been “speaking up” for the last many, many years. Indeed, his frequently-published soundbite (”Polygamy Rights is the next civil rights battle”) has long been repeated in media reports about Henkel’s activism in kick-starting the modern polygamy rights movement on a national level. That quote from him is not a brand new soundbite, after all.
Another statement attributed to Mark Henkel was not quite accurate either. The article stated, “His argument: if Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to have two mommies and a daddy.” Technically, the statement is a reductionary extrapolation from multiple arguments that Henkel offered in the interview. That is, when speaking to liberals who accept the legalizing idea of two female homosexuals being parents, since liberals find that acceptable, Mr. Henkel would say that their liberal paradigm should also allow for that child to have a father too. (As an extremely pro-family supporter, Mr. Henkel has long believed that it is the best situation, when possible, for children to have a supportive and nurturing parent of each gender - again, if possible, and under the premise that the parents are psychologically mature themselves, of course.) But, as Mr. Henkel does not support (and as the article rightly noted) the actual big government legalization of what he has also long called “the biological impossibility of same sex marriage,” he would certainly not use that specific book title about “two homosexual mothers” to “make his argument” with his fellow conservatives. So, in the end, the reported statement in Ms. Soukup’s article is simply the result of an editing reduction to a lowest common denominator, with the consequence being the absence of the larger contextual points that would have otherwise consumed more ink in the article.
Notwithstanding these necessary clarifications above, the article also made some truly excellent points too.
Elise Soukup’s article rightly quoted Mark Henkel’s well-reported trademark soundbite that, quote, “Polygamy rights is the next civil rights battle.”
She also correctly noted that Mr. Henkel - because he is the established National Polygamy Advocate - is obviously, quote, “at the forefront of the movement” of polygamy rights. Even though the article focused on a very local and specific Arizona community of Mormon polygamists, the article did correctly separate - albeit only subtly - the matter out that not all polygamy is Mormon Polygamy.
Indeed, Ms. Soukup’s article accurately noted that TruthBearer.org is, quote, a “Christian evangelical polygamy organization.” Insodoing, she rightly informed Newsweek’s readers that the polygamy rights movement is far more expansive than the limited geography of Utah/Arizona and the mere religion of Mormonism.
And thereby, Ms. Soukup also woke the nation up from its sleep in stereotype. Namely, there’s a new voice in the national marketplace. It’s not “pro-homosexual.” It’s not Mormon. It’s “ultra family.” And it is a growing movement of evangelical Christians. Rather than coming from the Left, this new battle comes from the Right. Truly, as Mark Henkel has long been saying, “Polygamy Rights IS the next civil rights battle.”
To her great credit, therefore, Elise Soukup’s article in Newsweek made that point quite clear.
