Conservative writer David Marcus penned an attack on gays, liberals and libertarians in The Federalist, a slimy conservative, website. His rant is entitled “Gay Marriage Was Always Leading to Polygramy.”

His entire proof is a move by the Utah state senate to decriminalize polygamy. Along the way Marcus conveniently leaves out significant facts as he rants on about how liberals, libertarians and gays lied. He practically weeps telling his rabid readers:

The only real option for social conservatives now is to put forth a positive case for their ideas. If we believe a porn-saturated world in which gender is meaningless and God is dead is not in the best interest of the country, then we must make a convincing case. But we must also be wary of the blessings of liberty, careful as we tug on threads of the social fabric. The tapestry is fragile, and once it unravels, it is likely gone forever.

Marcus indulges the typical “The End is Coming” hysteria the Right loves so much—a hysteria entirely reliant on ignoring facts and taking the hysteria on faith. In their souls every conservative is a habitual pearl-clutcher.

What Marcus leaves out is the sponsor is a social conservative, and the Utah Senate is overwhelmingly Republican — 23–6. Every one of these socially conservative, Republicans voted for the legislation. He never mentions Deidre Henderson the sponsor’s—that would undermine his deceitful column—and he never mentions the legislature is almost entirely made up of God’s Own Party.

He foams at the mouth about God but doesn’t mention Utah is one of the most religious states and their legislature reflects that conservative, religious demographic. This was a move by religionists not by secular liberals.

Utah is controlled by a religious sect founded by polygamists and one that, if you check into it, still demands “spiritual polygamy” to get into the celestial kingdom. As the Salt Lake Tribune reported:

…Plural marriage remains very much a part of Mormon doctrine, enshrined in scripture, and practiced, at least through so-called sealings, in its temples. Many members believe polygamy will be reinstituted in the afterlife and even the late Latter-day Saint apostle Bruce R. McConkie wrote that the “holy practice” would resume after Jesus Christ’s Second Coming.

Nor does Marcus admit the Utah legislature was anti-gay marriage. In fact, it’s more than a history, it’s a litany of repeated moves against same-sex marriage. In 1977 they explicitly banned same-sex marriage. In 1995 both the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to ban recognition of any same-sex marriages from outside the state. Only one Senator opposed the move. In 2004 the Utah Senate voted for an amendment to the state constitution making it illegal to give same-sex couples any rights of marriage or allowing them to marry. In 2015 the Utah Senate voted 25–3 to make it legal for government employees to discriminate against gay couples and refuse them service if it violates their so-called religious beliefs.

The Utah Senate has an anti-gay history and a rabidly right-wing one. But when these right wing, theocratic conservative Republicans, who don’t like marriage equality, vote to decriminalize polygamy the Federalist blames it on the gays and “liberals. No one said The Federalist was honest.

Another clearly dishonest claim by Marcus is gay marriage is leading to polygamy in Utah. Marcus whines, “This proves yet again that any time a progressive utters the phrase, ‘That will never happen,’ you should sprint to your bookie and put down a good chunk of change that it will.” But polygamy was there before gay marriage. The state was largely founded by a polygamous cult and the practitioners of polygamy, for the most part, remain members of that cult or sects that broke off from it. Gay marriage today isn’t the reason sects in Utah instituted polygamous practices two centuries ago!

I know drooling conservatives such as Marcus endow THE GAYS with all sorts of mystical powers—almost god-like in nature—but I sincerely doubt today’s gays could cause things to happen in the 1800s even if they tried.

Nor does the Utah bill make polygamy legal, it remains a crime but one that is a minor infraction. It stops arresting these religious conservatives but it doesn’t hand out marriage licenses. The evolution of marriage law does not easily handle polygamy. While gay couples could be slated in with no changes necessary, polygamy would be a huge change requiring thousands of laws to be rewritten. It would be a mess and take decades to figure out. Whether there is the feared slippery slope or not, this is not something the law can simply slide into.

Not making martyrs for their fanciful god and his bogus prophet will do much to end the social cohesion in these cults. The persecution complex helps hold them together. But the cults themselves are inherently unstable and thus require authoritarian leadership. They are constantly splintering and their practices of having sex with underage “sister wives” remains a crime putting even self-labeled prophets in prison. This move will do more to undermine polygamous cults than sustain them.

The social cohesion of persecution would vanish—at least in one significant way—which undermines the sect. The best way to put an end to this is to support women and men trying to escape these cults.

In regards to Mr. Marcus, all I can say is it’s shamefully dishonest for him to blames gays for the actions of anti-bigot bigots, to blames progressives and libertarians for the actions of conservatives, and to blame secularism for the antics of the religious. His rant is one of the most dishonest I’ve read this century.