Remember the Mormons: thinking about the nature of Marriage.

Few activists on either side of the gay-marriage debate have paid much attention to the nineteenth-century campaign to suppress Mormon polygamy. Why? In my view, that campaign--our first great battle over the nature of marriage--is full of uncomfortable ironies for both sides.

As Richard Van Wagoner describes in his fascinating book, Mormon Polygamy (Signature Books), Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of Mormonism, appears to have practiced polygamy from the early 1830s, although he did not announce his "Revelation on Celestial Marriage" until 1843. According to Mormon theology, polygamy was no mere alternative lifestyle choice; it was an essential aspect of the divine plan, to be set aside by the faithful at their eternal peril. To say that the world did not applaud Smith's theological revelation would be an understatement. The 1856 Republican Party platform denounced slavery and polygamy as "the twin relics of barbarism."

In 1862, Congress passed the Morrill Act, which made bigamy a criminal offense. Subsequent legislation not only attempted to stamp out polygamy, but also tried to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "Unlawful cohabitation," easier to prove than polygamy, was made a crime. "Cohab hunts" were conducted on a regular basis, forcing polygamous men to abandon their wives and children to go underground. Polygamists were excluded from juries, deprived of the right to vote, and denied any "place of public trust, honor, or emolument." Wives were forced to testify against their husbands in polygamy trials. Children of plural marriages were disinherited. The Mormon Church itself was stripped of its status as a law-abiding corporation and treated almost as a criminal conspiracy. According to Van Wagoner, the church finally capitulated to the government's unrelenting pressure in 1890, when its leader announced that he "had sought the will of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit had revealed that it was necessary for the church to relinquish the practice of that principle for which the brethren had been willing to lay down their lives."

How might we compare the protagonists in the current debate about marriage with those in the earlier one? The natural move would be to put the proponents of gay marriage in the shoes of the proponents of polygamy. But many secular (and religious) supporters of gay marriage would oppose polygamy, because it is not consistent with women's equality. Equality-minded proponents of gay marriage could not support the federal government's role in the polygamy controversy either. Many Mormon women supported polygamy, and as a consequence Congress abolished women's suffrage in the Utah territory. And the Supreme Court warmly endorsed the traditional view of marriage held by all "civilized and Christian countries."

Choosing a side in the past debate isn't any easier for contemporary opponents of gay marriage. It would be hard for those opposed to gay marriage to find either religious or secular grounds to support polygamy. They also wouldn't be comfortable backing the government. That would put them in the shoes of ruthless oppressors of religious believers sincerely committed to doing God's will--not a comfortable stance for Christians who oppose gay marriage precisely because of their own commitment to doing God's will. Moreover, in upholding the constitutionality of the Morrill Act, the Supreme Court proclaimed that the First Amendment protects only freedom of religious belief, not freedom of religiously motivated actions. That narrow view of religious freedom would have allowed prohibitionists to outlaw all alcoholic beverages without making an exception for Communion wine as the Volstead Act did.

Some themes of the gay-marriage debate echo themes in the debate over polygamy. Now, opponents of gay marriage portray the homosexual lifestyle as promiscuous, while its proponents point to the ordinary domesticity of many gay couples. Then, opponents of plural marriage portrayed the polygamous lifestyle as lascivious, while its proponents pointed to the ordinary domesticity of many polygamous unions. Now, opponents of gay marriage argue that such unions are psychologically detrimental to any children raised within them; then, opponents of polygamy argued that the detriment to children was physical.

Yet there is at least one stark difference. The polygamy debate centered on the practice of polygamy, not its status before the civil law. Mormons were not seeking federal recognition of polygamous marriages, they simply wanted to enter them without federal obstruction. But the federal government wanted to put an end to polygamous cohabitation. In contrast, the gay-marriage debate centers on the legal recognition of homosexual unions. No one is seriously arguing that homosexual cohabitation should be stopped; indeed, the Supreme Court recently struck down antisodomy laws as unconstitutional. Our debate is not mainly about the coercive function of the law; it is about its pedagogical function. What should the law teach about the moral status of homosexual unions?

If there is someday a third great national debate on marriage, will anyone wholeheartedly support either side of our current debate? I can't do so even now, for the same reasons I can't wholeheartedly support either side of the polygamy controversy. The proponents of both polygamy and gay marriage seem too rash about radically altering a fundamental societal institution responsible for socializing the next generation. At the same time, their opponents seem too callous about the well-being of the people actually involved in polygamous or gay relationships. Maybe we need to spend more time talking about civil unions. This option, of course, has been flatly rejected by both sides of the gay-marriage debate. Casting one eye back on the battle over polygamy, I'm not sure that should count against it.