Principle Voices

Statement Regarding HB 307 Child Bigamy Amendment February 20, 2003

We support the intent of this bill, however, we are concerned that it could bring about serious inequities in the law.

The child bigamy amendment creates a second degree felony enhancement where one of the parties involved in the “bigamous” relationship is a minor. This bill targets those polygamists who “marry” minors as plural wives, therefore, it would personally impact neither us nor most of the fundamentalists and polygamists we know.

However, we still feel the use of the bigamy statute in this bill is selective and unfair, and causes there to be an inequity in the law based solely upon whether a person believes he or she is married.

One of the problems with the current bigamy statute (and a child bigamy enhancement) is that while a polygamous man who “marries” a minor as a plural wife could be charged with bigamy or child bigamy (as well as unlawful sexual conduct), a non-polygamous married man who has sex with a minor could only be charged with unlawful sexual conduct. He would not be charged with bigamy because he does not consider himself “married”. Therefore, the same act performed by a polygamist (creating a family) carries a heavier penalty under the law than if performed by a non-polygamist (for non-religious reasons). He satisfies the standard of the crime only by virtue of what he says or believes.

The unlawful sexual conduct statute states that it is a third degree felony for any person to have sex with a minor, if that person is more than 10 years older than said minor. A person who violates this statute is subject to a penalty of zero to 5 years in prison. However, any person who has sex with a minor, who is less than 10 years older than him or her, is not committing “unlawful sexual conduct” but fornication. Fornication is a misdemeanor which is ignored and not prosecuted.

The current bigamy statute provides that any person, regardless of age, who cohabits with another person or purports to marry another person, while already legally married, commits bigamy, which is a third degree felony.

The proposed child bigamy amendment would provide for a potential penalty THREE TIMES greater than the penalty for unlawful sexual conduct, for no reason other than that the parties involved consider themselves “married” or believe in plural marriage.

A second degree felony carries a prison term of a 1 to 15 year sentence. Such a statute would encompass not just those individuals who are more than 10 years older than the said minors, but also those individuals who are close in age (who are not violating the unlawful sexual conduct statute, but who may be violating the current bigamy statute).

In other words, a 19-year-old could be punished three times more severely for marrying a 17-year-old as a plural wife than a 50-year-old man could be punished for having sex with a minor.

This is hardly fair or equitable. It seems to us that the state’s message (that underage marriages and sex with minors will not be tolerated) can still be conveyed without blending it with the bigamy statute - merely increase the penalty for unlawful sexual conduct so that it would apply to everyone equally, be they polygamous or not.

The state has good laws in place today. If it is our purpose to protect minors, we should strengthen and enforce the good laws already in place and not introduce a new statute with an obvious double-standard which targets a religious minority and ignores promiscuity.