With the overturning of DOMA and the California referendum on marriage, the "progressive" forces are turning to other aspects of their agenda leaving their retinue in the courts, media and activist blogs to do the mopping up.
Once same sex marriage has been legalized across the country, as the leftist media advises is inevitable then, as has been well noted, all the arguments for same sex marriage will be applied to polygamy. Frankly it is hard for both the Gay groups and those who oppose their marriage agenda to bring any argument against polygamy.
There is absolutely nothing that applied to the same sex marriage arguments, which were considered valid, that do not, in every way, apply to polygamy. When confronted with this fact prior to the courts decisions, Gay groups dismissed them airily with 'they are not comparable" or "that's an extreme argument". The latter statement was of course exactly what was said against homosexual activities just a few years ago and look where we are now.
So presuming that at some point in the future, the near future in my opinion, the drums will start to beat for polygamy to be legalized, what would that mean for the political landscape? The answer may be surprising, especially for progressives.
There can be no doubt that the probable legislation giving eventual voting rights to the multi-millions of illegals will see a horde of newly enfranchised voters for the Democratic Party. So many that pundits have sounded the death knell for the GOP especially if Texas is swamped by new Dem voters.
At that point the GOP would have no chance of winning in the Electoral College for at least a few generations until there are enough upper middle class Hispanics to start the pendulum swinging again.
Unless a genuinely conservative team gets in in 2016, which may be a tall order given the likely candidacy of Hillary Clinton, the GOP looks doomed at the presidential level unless multi-millions of whites who didn't vote for either McCain or Romney turn out in 2016.
Is there any demographic change that can help overcome this? Over time there is, and in a classic case of unintended consequences the next "progressive" step, legalizing polygamy, could overcome the Dem's coming Hispanic advantage.
If polygamy is legalized, two groups would seem to be the most natural beneficiaries-Muslim Americans, whose faith allows for up to four wives but who don't appear to keen on the idea, and Mormons who in the early stages of the faith's growth allowed for a multiplicity of them. Brigham Young for example had numerous wives "marrying a total of 55 wives,"
It is in exactly the swing states, where both Mormons and Hispanics live in large or potentially large numbers, where the demographics would come into play. Hispanics moving into Colorado, growing in numbers in New Mexico, Nevada and Texas would be matched by Mormons with multiple wives as compared to Hispanics having one.
The ensuing Mormon birth rate would, given the voting rate turnout differences between the two groups, surely more than make up for the Hispanic increase in voters even though there may be considerably more Hispanics.
Thus over five presidential elections, which would be about the time frame for the Amnesty legislation to start having a measured effect in the Electoral College the Mormon birth rate could keep Texas red and move swing states into the GOP's columns.
Not only might the traditional Republican states in the "Mormon Corridor" e.g. Utah gain more Electoral College votes as their population increased dramatically, so to might the previously mentioned swing states gain substantial Electoral College votes though both the Hispanic and Mormon influx.
Before polygamy was outlawed the Mormon population had a dramatic increase with Young leading by example "By the time of his death, Young had 57 children by 16 of his wives; 46 of his children reached adulthood." Even with polygamy having been outlawed in the world-wide Mormon population has grown from an initial six members in 1830 to 14 million in 2012. "Mormonism will be America's first-or second-largest religion by 2106" advises a Mormon spokesman.
With that sort of fecundity from just one man, and modern medicine ensuring most children survive, the opportunity for a most unsuspected, but most certainly possible, Republican restoration could come from this unlikely quarter. The sight of progressives being hoisted on their own petard would be an added bonus.
No comments:
Post a Comment