Big Love Government

If I know anything about women, which I don't, it's that it's better to have them in your bed pissing out then outside your bed pissing in. That's why men should try extra hard to make sure that their wives don't find out that they're married to other women. Because if they find out, they will try to throw their husbands in jail. And then they will join the growing movement to create a national "Do Not Marry" list.

One prominent advocate for the recordkeeping effort is 50-year-old Sandra Phipps of Alexandria, Va., who married Defense Department civilian employee Charles “Ed” Hicks three years ago — and then discovered, just last year, that Hicks already was married to someone else.

Phipps has launched a “Fighting Bigamy” blog to bring other victims together. She’s helped to gather 135 signatures of other victims and supporters on a petition she plans to deliver to Congress as part of the lobbying effort.

[snip]

“A person is at their word when they sign a marriage license application that they are single or divorced,” Roberts wrote in a letter to Congress advocating for the database. “ If a citizen tries to learn if someone is married, the search is similar to looking for a needle in a haystack.”

A national database would allow for easier and more reliable searching because it would be connected to a Social Security number, she explains. But there’s the rub: Congress has repeatedly rejected efforts to create national databases or ID cards on privacy grounds.

So Phipps and [other angry women] are busy marshaling testimonials from other bigamy victims: They hope that their stories will convince Congress to see the issue in a new light.

First, I think it's clear that Sandra Phipps is a royal bitch, which might explain why her husband spent so much time with another woman. Second, I fail to see why I should have to pay (both in taxes and in loss of civil liberties) for her bad choice in men. Finally, I do think marrying a 2nd (or third) person without fully informing all those involved is fraud, and people who commit it should be punished. Of course, a good case can be made that having two wives is punishment enough.

Via Congressional Quarterly (Sorry, subscription required).