Don't mind my little harem.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20031202-114522-8005r.htm

Odds that they rule in his favor : Not so good.

Actually he has a colorable argument in the polygamy issue. I think youre going to be hearing a lot more about this as we advance towards gay marriage (I've also been predicting it for five years or more so, maybe I'm overly ambitious).

Maybe the state will leigitmate those unions someday, which I'm sure will be great comfort to him on visiting day, cause he ain't going nowhere on the welfare fraud and child rape charges for a loooong time.

Well, I'm not sure if they have a point or what - but Polygamy or not - how the hell did they get such short sentences when they were also convicted of sex with a minor?

He hasn't been sentenced on that yet. The child rape charges came out of the welfare fraud and bigamy charges. He was fighting them and they were investigating and someone somewhere along the line did the math.

I always have a hard time reading articles that quote Santorum.

Dan Savage fan, eh spacemen? I'm right there with you.

Moral issues aside, would legalized polygamy throw a spanner into the works when it came to the legal benefits conferred by marriage? I'm no lawyer, but the thought of a divorce that involved seven people just makes me cringe. As if the legal system isn't complicated enough.

Presumably it would have to be handled something like the dissolution of a business partnership.

I was just thinking along those lines. Something like this can turn a simple bloodbath divorce into planet shaking pandemonium. Although it would make a man who has been taken to the cleaners by his wife feel a whole lot better about the ordeal.

Hey, if the other wives don't complain who cares how many people he marries. Sex with a 13 year old--he deserves to NEVER get out of jail!

I agree, but the route to the Mormons getting it goes through stuff more appealing to judicial activists; gay marriage, then two gay men and a transexual woman or similar triumvirate, then a few more convoluted situations, then good ol' fashioned harem-style polygamy.

You read it here first.

Not too long ago 13 years old was marrying age...

Well, there are 30 of them!!!! Probably can't support that many with your average Utah job!

Exactly, I knew someone would agree with me.

If by not too long ago, you mean right now. You can still be married at 13 with either parental or court consent, especially if you're pregnant in close to a dozen states.

Well, I meant that it was a normal and accepted marrying age.

Then he shouldn't be having that many. Traditional forms of polygamy always required that the husband be able to support all his wives and children. Al's right -- the man is a prick.

It never was in Western cultures. As per usual Snopes is on the case

And as usual, Snopes oversimplifies in matters more subtle that Nigerian scams and heartbraking epigrams. No support is adduced, merely a bald categorical statment. Its true that royal marriages were allegiances, but so, frankly, were common marriages. Only peasants had any real freedom in that arena and lots of them didn't get "married" as such at all. Thirteen is a bit on the young side, since many if not most girls in pre industrial cultures arent actually fertile that young, but its hardly unheard of, nor clearly was it unacceptable.

I wasn't talking about 500 years ago as "not that long ago", I was speaking of the last couple of hundred years, and specifically in the US, where it was not uncommon for an adult male to marry a teenage girl.
Also, I wasn't talking about 11 or 12, but more 14 and 15, with 13 being just on the edge.

A couple hundred years ago,chances are, you'd be dead by 30 or 40 if you were a peasant.I imagine there was a real stong push to pump out children ASAP in order to keep the community going.Having that child inside a marriage was a much bigger deal than it is today,not sure the reasoning.
I personally am not interested in polygamy,I've got a hard enough time keeping one girlfriend happy let alone several wives,but if it turns your crank then so be it.
Just make sure you can support them all.I seem to recall reading in the Koran the section about having multiple spouses and it admonishing a man to ensure that he can financially and emotionally support all of his wives before he marries them.

Well, as far back as 1820 the estimated life expectancy in the US was around 40. So it wasn't quite as bleak as all that, especially since that number was influenced heavily (I believe) by the high rate of death in children (though since I don't know exactly how they determine the life expectancy figures, I could be wrong about that).