The Little Man Who Isn’t There

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As I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there;
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish he’d go away. 

Mormons might find particular interest in the recent defeat by the California legislature of a bill that would have repealed all laws against sexual relationships by consenting adults. Only an impassioned stand by a coterie of legislators from that strong hold of rectitude commonly known as Rafferty Country prevented its passage, as members of this group with Bibles opened thundered denunciation of the abominations of Sodom and Gomorrah. Proponents of the defeated bill remained confident, however, of its eventual passage in future sessions, and predicted that similar legislation will within a few years prevail throughout most of the nation. 

There are several straws in the wind. More and more people are coming to believe that the primary function of police work is to maintain law and order, not enforce morality. Debate on the bill brought out the fact that in the city of Long Beach twenty-five percent of the police force was detailed to peekhole duty at public latrines, instead of out coping with crimes of violence. In the current onrush of permissive morality, guys and” dolls are emerging from the closet, not only frankly admitting to being gays and lesbians but banding together to fight for their rights. Throughout the nation re strictions against birth control information have been swept away. Who would have dreamed, ten years ago, that the impregnably entrenched opposition to abortion could ever crumble? 

“The times they are a-changing.” Do you remember, not too long ago, when a film called “The Moon is Blue” was denied the production code seal because its heroine uttered the awful line, “I am a virgin”? What shocking language! Today the explicit bedroom scene is virtually obligatory, and in pear-shaped tones the lovely young thing, dressed in absolutely nothing at all, utters language typical of an army barracks. Best selling authors are now writing sex books that formerly would have circulated under the counter. Instead of saying, “I love you,” the swain of today with a four-letter word invites his beloved to hop into bed. That, alas, is the new romance. The only unutterable words today are “good taste.” 

As we all know, the L.D.S. Church is most firmly opposed to the new permissiveness. In areas which it can control, such as productions on its stages and conduct at the B.Y.U. campus, it prohibits styles in hair and dress typical of those who espouse the breakdown of taboos. This is as it should be. Certainly morality is the prop er concern of a church, just as law and order is of the police. 

Yet among all the brouhaha I wonder if the Saints in general realize what the po tential repeal of sex laws might mean to them personally, and the predicament in which it might place the Church? Certainly members in good standing would be totally disinterested in the new freedom as it per tains to homosexuality, to group love in communes, to wife-swapping and promis cuous “swinging.” 

However, have you thought what it could mean when the new permissiveness repeals laws against plural marriage? 

Section 132 is still in our Doctrine and Covenants. Polygamy is still part of our doctrine. The practice was discontinued for one reason, and one reason only: it had been declared illegal. In issuing the Manifesto, President Wilford Woodruff said, 

Inasmuch as laws have been enacted in Congress forbidding plural marriages, which laws have been pronounced constitutional by the court of last resort, . . . I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land. 

We should remember that the Manifesto came only after the Church had fought with its every resource for a period of twenty eight years against federal legislation prohibiting polygamy. The church appeal to higher courts was based on the first amendment to the constitution, which forbade Congress to infringe upon religious freedom. Legally, plural marriage wasn’t a crime malum en se—bad of itself because of in jury to others, such as arson, murder, or robbery—but was malum prohibitium, a crime only because of law against it. Polygamy injured nobody; the Gentiles simply imposed their own moral code upon the Mormon marriage relationship. 

The Church capitulated after a heroic struggle. When the Supreme Court upheld anti-polygamy legislation in 1879, the Church chose to obey the law of God in defiance of the law of man for a period of eleven years, before issuing the Manifesto in 1890. Inasmuch as my grandfather, John Taylor, led this rebellion to the day of his death—he died on the underground with a price on his head, refusing to compromise—I feel close to the gallant stand against hope less odds. 

And I wonder what today’s Mormons would do if the repeal of sex laws swept away the only reason for not obeying Section 132? Would we, or would we not, embrace the awful responsibilities under taken by the pioneers? 

While my crystal ball license has expired, I suspect that regardless of Section 132 the Saints would put up a ferocious fight against legislation that would result in the right to practice polygamy. My guess is that if the repeal of sex laws should sweep the country, Utah and a few states of what H. L. Mencken called the Bible Belt would stand firm in clinging to stringent anti polygamy legislation. And that strange sound you would hear would be John Taylor and other pioneer prophets whirling in their graves.