Supreme Court racialized Mormons by associating polygamy with Asian and African peoples

Evidence

The US Supreme Court agreed in 1878: “Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people.” Although the Mormon Church instructed its followers to abandon polygamy in 1890, Mormons’ racialization as barbarian, savage, and uncivilized persisted until American national identity expanded to be Judeo-Christian in the mid-twentieth century. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 328

Categorization

• XREF: Reynolds v. United States (1878) racialized polygamy — connects to the reader’s line of case law (Washington v. Davis, Title VII) deciding how religious/racial categories are adjudicated. — connects to: Polygamy jurisprudence racialized Islam by treating the practice as foreign and treasonable; The Supreme Court framed monogamy as the racial foundation of democratic society; Court condemnation of polygamy treated Christianity and whiteness as joint markers of civilization. — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 147 (+3 more)