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United States.: 93 [24] The Court said that while holding a religious belief was protected under the First Amendment right of freedom of religion, practicing a religious belief that broke the law was not. [25] Reynolds vs. United States was the Supreme Court's first case in which a party used the right of freedom of religion as a defense. The ...
The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed the decision on April 11, 2016 [62] On January 23, 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear arguments from the husband and four wives who star in the television show Sister Wives, letting stand a lower court ruling that kept polygamy a crime in Utah. [63]
United States: Polygamy is illegal in all 50 states, [100] De facto polygamy is illegal under federal law, the Edmunds Act. Utah, in February 2020, reduced polygamy to the status of a traffic ticket; [101] [102] nevertheless recognizing that polygamous unions are illegal under the Constitution of Utah. [103]
The Edmunds Act, also known as the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, [1] is a United States federal statute, signed into law on March 23, 1882 by President Chester A. Arthur, declaring polygamy a felony in federal territories, punishable by "a fine of not more than five hundred dollars and by imprisonment for a term of not more than five years". [2]
United States declared that polygamy was not protected by the Constitution, based on the longstanding legal principle that "laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices." [119]
Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1878), was a Supreme Court of the United States case which held that religious duty was not a defense to a criminal indictment. [1] Reynolds was the first Supreme Court opinion to address the First Amendment's protection of religious liberties, impartial juries and the Confrontation Clauses of the Sixth ...
Despite the law, many Latter-day Saints continued to practice polygamy, believing it was protected by the First Amendment. However, in 1879, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Morrill Act's constitutionality in Reynolds v. United States, [4] asserting that while laws could not interfere with religious belief, they could regulate religious ...
Many laws in the history of the United States have addressed marriage and the rights of married people. Common themes addressed by these laws include polygamy, interracial marriage, divorce, and same-sex marriage.