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WASHINGTON - Debate in the U.S. Senate began Monday over whether marriage is between a man and a woman, but it took an unexpected turn into the question of marriage between one man and many women: polygamy.

Republican supporters of a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage have previously used Utah's territorial fight against the U.S. government over polygamy as an example of legitimate federal intrusion into state marriage law. But Senate Democrats brought up plural marriage policy Monday as they argued that states already have adequate authority over marriage and that the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment is a needless intrusion on states' rights.

"The courts have long held no state can be forced to recognize a marriage that offends a deeply held public policy of that state," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "Polygamous marriages, for example, even if sanctioned by another state, have consistently been rejected."

Democrats sought to use this week's debate to demonstrate what they see as the GOP's obsession with a no-win constitutional amendment that has mixed public support while action on more pressing issues - such as appropriating federal funding for the new fiscal year - is further delayed.

Both sides acknowledge the measure does not have the 67 votes in the 100-member Senate to start the path toward state ratification. But the Republican leadership hopes the floor speeches leading to Wednesday's vote will highlight the party's differences on social issues with Democrats as the latter open their national convention in Boston later this month.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Feinstein's argument that states have all the power they need to reject gay nuptials "doesn't hold water." Because of a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for legalized gay marriages beginning last month, "every state in the union is going to be bound by those marriages," he said.

Hatch also took the unusual step of using the Senate floor to discuss the peculiar legacy of polygamy within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to which he and a majority of Utah residents belong.

"I come from a culture where at one time polygamy was a religious belief and was practiced by a small percentage of people in my faith," said Hatch, explaining that his great-grandfather Jeremiah had three wives and 30 children.

"Those were days when they lived this principle because they believed it to be a spiritual principle, they believed it was important to bring as many children into the world as they could, among other things."

But Hatch said those beliefs were put aside when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1879 upheld a Utah Territorial Supreme Court verdict against polygamist George Reynolds, the personal secretary to LDS President Brigham Young. The nation's highest court ruled that polygamy was not an exercise of religious freedom and that government had legitimate authority to determine whether plural marriage or monogamy would be the law.

"When that came down, the Supreme Court case outlawing plural marriage, basically my faith did away with plural marriage, and I have to say no one would argue that it should ever come back," Hatch said.

The LDS Church did not renounce polygamy until 1890, when the territory was striving to earn statehood and Mormon prophet Wilford Woodruff issued an official declaration suspending the practice because it was contrary to the laws of the land.

Hatch apparently raised the polygamy issue during the debate because of unsuccessful legal challenges to the Utah constitutional ban on polygamy. Hatch said he would never argue that polygamy "should come back, and I've been offended by some people indicating there might be some argument for it."

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also an active member of the LDS Church, raised polygamy in the gay marriage debate when he testified before Hatch's committee last month that plural marriage was as an example of when "the federal government correctly stepped in and said, 'That is not something the state should decide.'