Or, like, if you weren't legally married (because it was a poly situation) then you have no legal recourse when you get "divorced" -- the money you sank into helping pay the mortgage was just "rent", the furniture you bought was just a "gift", you can't get anything back
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And even if they can't prove you've actually been having sex with your "roommate", if a married couple has a roommate who's been giving them almost 100% of their paycheck the whole time they've been living there that is sufficient evidence to get arrested by the FBI for bigamy
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wait even disregarding everything else, why is it a *federal* crime
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Polygamy is a federal crime (as well as being a state crime in all 50 states + DC) Under the Edmunds Act of 1882, which explicitly states that it covers "unlawful cohabitation" (what in the old days we'd call "common-law marriage") as well as an actual marriage license
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Random832 and
This was, of course, obviously and explicitly an instrument of persecution against the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints at the time Which is why Mormons still hate this law (even the mainstream ones who don't practice polygamy), along with hardcore civil libertarians
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Random832 and
But the Supreme Court has upheld it as not violating the First Amendment because plural marriage is a bridge too far for what the SCOTUS will accept as covered by the umbrella of "religious freedom", so that's the status quo
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Random832 and
It doesn't just make it illegal, it actually set up a federal commission in the Utah Territory to proactively get into people's business and make sure they weren't hiding extra wives in their houses A task the modern FBI still sees as in their purview
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ok but is the federal jurisdiction actually lawful now that Utah is a state? And, there aren't any "territories" in the sense as Utah was anymore, has it ever been clearly defined what if anything counts as "other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction"?
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Federal law supersedes state law when they conflict, this is the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution (Article VI Clause 2)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @Random832 and
You *could* try to argue what libertarians generally argue about most federal laws, that the Constitution didn't give Congress the authority to make this law in the first place (the 10th Amendment), but it's probably a weak case
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It's honestly a much stronger case if you tie the 1st Amendment into it ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting free exercise thereof"), which outright says something Congress can't do in black and white But that failed
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