The Brown's attorney Jonathan Turley, who is also a law professor at George Washington University, filed a lawsuit in Salt Lake City's US District Court on Wednesday. The complaint, which challenges Utah's anti-bigamy law, questions the rights of the state in prosecuting people for their personal relationships. The suit further asks for uniform treatment for all citizens who wish to live according to their individual beliefs.
The Brown's complaint leans heavily on the 2003 ruling in
Lawrence v. Texas, in which the Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting sexual relations between two consenting same-sex adults. The individuals involved in
Lawrence v. Texas did not seek the legal recognition of their relationship. Similarly, Brown is not asking for the recognition of polygamous marriages but does ask the federal courts to prevent states from criminalizing polygamy in cases when no other laws are being broken.
Turley points out that the Brown family, which is composed of five parents and 16 children, successfully operates as a functional unit. He goes on to note that the family has not been involved in any crime and should therefore, not be looked upon as criminals. Kody Brown is within the law in that he is only legally married to one of his wives, making the other three ''sister wives.'' Unlike some other cases of polygamy, there is no evidence of child abuse, incest, or spousal domination within the Brown family.
As members of the Apostolic United Brethren Church, the Brown family asserts that they are only living in accordance with their beliefs but according to an 1879 US Supreme Court ruling, polygamy is not a protected religious freedom. Turley insists that the 1879 ruling is outdated and needs to be revisited. He further notes viewing the Brown's private behavior as criminal, is an ''obvious contradiction'' when others can freely have multiple partners and multiple children by those partners without any legal repercussions.
However, according to Utah law, the Browns are not merely law-abiding citizens who seek to privately live by their faith. The state law declares that ''a person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.'' In Utah, bigamy is a third-degree felony that can bring with it up to 15-years in prison. The establishment of the law dates back to the 1890s, when Utah first became a state. According to Paul Murphy, the spokesman for the Utah Attorney General's office, this is not the first time the state has been called to defend its bigamy law. In the past, the Utah Supreme Court has sided with the state and upheld the state's authority in the prohibition of bigamy.
