National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed by Elizabeth Ranz for UCSD, on May 28, 2009, Part 1, for an essay she was writing, "Polygamy in Contradistinction to Gay Marriage." The student writer from University of California San Diego was seeking to learn how and why polygamy was not having the same level of political popularity as same sex marriage. In this Part 1 segment of the positive, educational interview, in order to build a foundation for his set of comprehensive answers to that main question, Mark Henkel opened by detailing the US Supreme Court's decision of Reynolds V. United States in 1878. He established four background points under which he would make his arguments. Anti-polygamy laws are unconstitutional in the States under the Tenth Amendment. The Reynolds case was only affirming an 1862 law where the federal government is only allowed authority under the "jurisdictional management" clause for non-State territories (Article 4, Section, 3, Paragraph 2). Would-be conservatives fall into hypocrisy to rely on that case under which "those 1878 liberal activist judges" concocted a nationwide precedent using a law that was limited only to non-State territories. For this Part 1 segment, Mark Henkel concluded his opening foundation, "The Reynolds case can not survive under a State's challenge to it. If a State was to allow polygamy, the federal anti-polygamy case of Reynolds would absolutely crumble in a heartbeat." The remaining parts of this interview will be aired in the next coming episodes of this podcast.
