Must be the season for correcting myself (or being corrected), but I figured since it's that time of the year that I ought to do another searching and fearless moral inventory self pounding.

In an earlier post asking "what page am I on?" I parenthetically ridiculed the notion that there is such a thing as a "polygamy lobby" in the United States:

I've been looking for the polygamy lobby, and I can't find them. Hell, I've been unable to locate the incest lobby.

Google "polyamory."

My bad? I don't know. Because I read through the site carefully, and while they've been around for a while (copyright is 1998 - 2002), and have all the right phraseology ("empower Polyamorists at the polls".... "a comprehensive grassroots network for Polyamorist voter empowerment"... "foster understanding, knowledge and an alliance between the Polyamory Community and the general public about the Polyamory agenda, issues and concerns"), they don't seem to be taking their work very seriously, as right in the middle of the page it says this:

This project is currently inactive due to changing circumstances.

Might the new, supposedly draconian rules have scared them off? I don't see why. I mean, they're cracking down on gifts, dinners, and other tangible things, but there are still plenty of loopholes:

Lobbyists can't buy a meal unless it's part of a fundraiser, which means that the previous $40 steak can be legalized now by providing a $10,000 check to tenderize it. Lawmakers can't accept gifts to sporting events unless the lobbyists can make sure they get all sorts of attention from the crowd, preferably during election season. Lobbyists can't buy a round of golf for a Senator, but that changes if the round of golf comes at a charity function where lots of press usually attend.

OK, so maybe they can't give away free Viagra unless it's used in a "well attended event" but I see plenty of wiggle room potential right there.

So why has the Polyamory Lobby thrown in the towel? I want to be fair to my commenter, but I don't see much evidence of a real, genuine lobbying group, and the presence of a single web site announcing the inactivity of its own activities... well, that just doesn't cut it.

Still, I cannot announce that my "ridicule narrative" remains safely intact. Because while there might not be a true Polyamory lobby, the phrase I used in my post was "polygamy lobby." And if you Google that, there are 211 hits. Why my post is number one I do not know, and much as I find it hard to take the matter seriously with my own blog at the top of the polygamy heap, I did notice that according to TIME, in Pakistan, there does appear to be a very serious polygamy lobby:

The feminists found something to focus their anger on last April, when then Prime Minister Mohammed Ali* made his pretty young social secretary his second wife. In response to the outcry, the government assigned an advisory Commission on Marriage and Family Laws (four men and three women) to chart out the dangerous ground between the feminists and the powerful polygamy lobby--Moslem mullahs who seek a theocratic state, and would, according to their critics, confine Pakistan to a 9th-century Arab feudal pattern. (Emphasis added.)

The commission sent out thousands of questionnaires in Urdu, English and Bengali, last week reported six to one for reform. Henceforth, it recommended, Pakistani males should get permission for second marriages from special new courts of matrimony; they should prove themselves able to support two families; they should not marry again "merely ... to marry a prettier or younger woman." The commission added that child marriages and the sale of brides should be outlawed, and that women and men should have equal rights of divorce. As of now, Pakistanis can divorce their wives in Islamic fashion by saying "I divorce thee" three times in their presence.

Big Love has provoked a storm of protest in the US and, having relished two episodes, I find it hard to know how to explain this. Naturally, the religious Right is not best pleased about a show portraying fundamentalist Mormons with such intelligence and humour that there have been calls for the legalisation of polygamy in its wake.

Traditionalists see the HBO series as an outright attack on Reynolds v. United States, the 1878 Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of antipolygamy laws. The Mormon Church officially banned the practice in 1890, so it can't be best pleased either. But to say the series is controversial because it's about an all-American harem doesn't do justice to the multi-layered and many splendoured offence-making that is going on here.

Doesn't that sound like a lobbying conglomerate? You know, like "Big Oil?"

As if this wasn't bad enough, the Philadelphia Inquirer keeps running stories like this one about a local murder case with a very unsettling subtext. Polygamy:

...according to friends and family, Myra Morton, 47, was against her husband's decision to take a second wife after Myra Morton lost the ability to have children.

Islam allows men to marry as many as four women, provided they secure the approval of their other wives and can provide for them equally. Prosecutors have said they are not sure whether Pennsylvania's polygamy ban applies to a marriage in another country.

As things stand now, the second wife might inherit:

At least some of Jereleigh Morton's estate may go to Toural if Pennsylvania courts recognize her marriage in Morocco to him, said her lawyer Patrick Artur, reached by telephone in Philadelphia yesterday.

Montgomery County prosecutors charged Myra Morton with first-degree murder, third-degree murder and related counts. They suggested that jealousy and control of the Mortons' more than $6 million in assets were possible motives for the killing.

As to the money involved, it came from a medical malpractice settlement:

The Mortons adopted Islam more than 20 years ago. They lived in a North Philadelphia rowhouse until a medical-malpractice settlement over their teenage daughter's death brought them a reported $8 million in 2005.

They paid $1 million cash for a suburban home, and Jereleigh Morton retired from his job as a handyman to dabble in real estate. They lived in the home with their surviving daughter and her family.

Jereleigh Morton met Toural on the Internet in December, and Toural said she and Myra Morton had become instant friends when the Mortons first visited Morocco in February.

"Jereleigh said from the beginning that he wanted to have children, and Myra didn't have any problem with him taking a second wife," Toural said.

Toural acted as witness to Jereleigh and Myra Morton's official conversion to Islam before a Moroccan judge, a prerequisite for Jereleigh Morton to be able to marry Toural. Morton bought a large house for the three to use in Casablanca, Morocco's commercial capital.

However, Montgomery County authorities said in an affidavit that Myra Morton had complained to friends and family about Toural. Her mother-in-law, Delzora Morton, told detectives that she had advised Myra Morton to "walk away" from the marriage.

In April, Myra Morton sent a letter to immigration authorities that ended up at the State Department.

In it, she wrote that her husband was trying to bring Toural over on a tourist visa. She also urged the government to keep Toural out of the United States, going so far as to accuse the other woman of having connections to terrorists.

"How could she do that?" said Toural, her voice breaking. "I'm not a terrorist. I'm a good person. I took care of her."

Toural said she found it equally hard to accept that she was a widow: "I'm still in shock. I still ask myself if [Jereleigh] is really gone."

Islam allows men to take multiple wives, though the frequency of that practice varies.

"Plural marriage is a minority practice through the Muslim world," said Ibrahim Hooper, executive director of the Council on Islamic Relations in Washington. "Its acceptance and legal requirements vary from country to country."

However, I do think it's worth asking why the AP gets to refer to this man as a "slain bigamist" in headlines never appearing in the actual Inquirer.

I mean, really. Google the term "slain bigamist" and you'll see the AP story with that headline is picked up everywhere, and not just Fox News, but the Washington Post, the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, ABC News, etc.

What's up with that? I need to be more careful with local news, as I'm repeatedly seeing that even at the Inquirer's own web site, the local spin is often very different than the national spin.

Should I blame the local polygamy lobby?

UPDATE: Dr. Helen has a reminder about the case of a woman who shot her preacher husband to death while he was asleep, and is being released after serving only seven months.

Considering that Jereleigh Morton was also shot to death in his sleep, I guess what remains to be seen is whether wives who shoot bigamists in their sleep are held to a different standard than wives who shoot preachers in their sleep.