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Facebook Wedding Photos Result In Polygamy Arrest In Michigan

Posted by timothy on from the polygamy-is-fine-unless-you're-married dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Police in Michigan have arrested 34-year-old Richard Leon Barton Jr. on charges of polygamy, thanks to incriminating wedding photos on Facebook. The man unfriended his first wife on the social network before marrying his second wife, but unsurprisingly that wasn't enough."

8 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. I don't get it by Nialin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It makes no sense to me that something like polygamy is an arrestable offense. Aside from the mediocre tax breaks you get from marriage, what are the benefits that you can glean from multiple marriages that would cause it to be inherently illegal?

    1. Re:I don't get it by snowgirl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What I find even more interesting, is due to DOMA and the weird way we treat homosexual marriages in this country, it's possible that someone could marry a person of the same sex in Massachusetts, move to Texas, and marry a person of the opposite sex, and Texas could not technically charge the person with polygamy. But then, if the person ever went on vacation (or even just had a layover in a city in a state that recognized both marriages) then they could be arrested in that state for polygamy.

      Seriously, this is the whole reason why "full faith and credit" was supposed to be in the Constitution, to keep these sorts of weird ass "am I married in _THIS_ state though?" questions from coming up. Like, there are people in Texas who have been denied a divorce for a legal marriage performed elsewhere, because another state let them get married out of state, but won't allow an out of state divorce, so they have to get divorced in the state they live in, but since Texas doesn't recognize the marriage, it won't grant them a divorce... so they're stuck being married unless they move back to Massachusetts or whatever it was.

      Seriously, FULL FAITH AND CREDIT PEOPLE... it causes a lot fewer headaches...

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    2. Re:I don't get it by cpu6502 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Violating a contract is a CIVIL matter, not a criminal one.

      Banning polygamy (or same sex marriage) is yet another example, like outlawing smoking marijuana while at home, or blocking teens from drinking with parents' permission, where the State is acting like the Church to enforce their moral values, instead of allowing individuals the Liberty to "pursue happiness" in whatever manner they choose.

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  2. Why is that a crime? by grumbel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok, why exactly is that a crime in the first place? Has that something to do with tax evasion or whatever or is that just moral code enforced by law?

  3. Re:illegal why? by muuh-gnu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > In general, societies enforced monogamy because otherwise men would marry a whole bunch of women

    and leave back an army of unmarried angry young man. As to my knowledge the ban of polygamy was primarily to prevent a few wealthy old men marrying dozens of young women off the market and leaving hordes of young men without a way to reproduce, leading to explosive social unrest. The Bible had nothing to do with it, the Old Testament, on which the model of the Mormon practices and scriptures was based, was highly polygamous itself.

  4. Never tired of FB stories by UBfusion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Contrary to some comments here, I am all about learning new FB horror stories. These stories provide me useful real-life evidence that I use when advising my friends (and my students) why they shouldn't ever post things that might get used against them. Think 10 times before hitting 'submit'.

  5. Re:More? by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree with the GP and would have voted against the story had I seen it in the firehose. "Man arrested for bigamy after posting news of his second wedding in the dead tree newspaper classifieds".

    Informative? No more informative than "Britney Spears in rehab again". It doesn't affect me, nor should it you. Nothing to learn == !informative.

    Topical? How? Just another normtard doing something stupid.

    Technological? It's a damned web site! Sheesh! Now, "EMC anti-crhacking division crhacked" is informative, topical, and technological. This isn't.

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  6. Re:illegal why? by mwvdlee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And why is the state even involved in regulating marriage?

    Because marriage has legal status and benefits attached to it and stop people from abusing those benefits.
    The question is why marriage should have any legal status at all.

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