Stateline Kavan Peterson interviewed Mark Henkel - Sep 2003

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed for Stateline by Kavan Peterson on September 23, 2003.  Stateline.org is a states policy focused reporting organization, founded by The Pew Charitable Group, that "uses evidence-based, nonpartisan analysis to solve today's challenges."  Conducted three months after the US Supreme Court decided the Lawrence v. Texas case. this comprehensive 53-minute interview is both historically significant and outright prescient.  To wit, Mark Henkel predicted that same sex marriage would indeed become legalized precisely BECAUSE of the arguments then being made by conservatives.  Using the commonplace rhetoric of limited government conservatism (in seeking to persuade copnservatives), and thereby referring to specifically-conservative Christian Polygamists as the "Older Brothers," Mark Henkel provided the following quote. "We're really not after legalization. We're after de-criminalization. We believe that when you go down the legalization path, you have to start defining forms of marriage. And once you start doing that, that's when you open up the door for DISCRIMINATION and all that. That's where I would say that our "Little Brothers" - many of the conservatives -  are making the mistake.  By arguing that government has authority, and in all their hysteria that government "should" be defining it ('We must have one man one woman definition!' and all that), by doing that, and THEN BY NOT SUCCEEDING, they will have GIVEN the argument to force homosexual marriage... They will have lost BECAUSE they gave that argument by saying government has the authority to define marriage in the first place."  Over the next 12 years after that quote was given in this interview, that is is exactly what happened as same sex marrriage eventually became nationally legalized via Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015. http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com