Utah has decriminalized bigamy, which allows two people to marry while one or both of them is already married, to a crime carrying the same penalty as a traffic ticket.
Bigamy was once a third-degree felony carrying a prison term of up to five years and a fine up to $5,000.
Utah GOP Gov. Gary Herbert signed the bill into law in March and it has gone into effect today.
Republican state Sen. Deidre Henderson, who sponsored the bill, said Utah's previous law never kept people from maintaining polygamous relationships, it only pushed them into the shadows. That kept victims of sex abuse from reporting the crime to police.
"Vigorous enforcement of the law during the mid-20th century did not deter the practice of plural marriage," Henderson wrote in an email to CNN in February.
Polygamy – when committed in association with abuse, fraud, domestic violence, and human smuggling – is still a felony punishable by up to a 15-year prison sentence.
"Instead, these government actions drove polygamous families underground into a shadow society where the vulnerable make easy prey," Henderson wrote. "Branding all polygamists as felons has facilitated abuse, not eliminated polygamy.
"The history of raids and family separations, combined with the blanket ban on an entire lifestyle, leads to the fear that an investigation might break up an entire family, removing the children and incarcerating the parents," she concluded. "That's a high hurdle, and so abuse is kept quiet."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.