[.....Just how are they enforced? A guy is arrested for living with several women of whom he refers as his wives? I suspect the laws are enforced by not allowing someone to legally marry while married to someone else. That is it.....]
Not, that is not it. I have studied the issue over the past ten years. Are you aware that in Utah, they have a women's organization that is supported by the liberal National Organization for Women, that is working to have Utah's polygamists arrested and jailed?
http://www.polygamy.org/ One of the complaints of NOW and of the Utah-based anti-polygamy organization, Tapestry, is that the state of Utah is not enforcing laws preventing a man from living with several women. The fact is that, neither Utah nor the federal government, recognize those the polygamous unions blessed by fundamentalist Mormon sects. But that fact is not good enough for NOW, Tapestry, and their many liberal supporters. They will not be satisfied until all the fundamentalist Mormons living in polygamous unions are arrested and jailed, and that includes all adult men and women in consensual relationships.
Those liberal feminists are depriving members of fundamentalist Mormon sects of their right to privacy within their own homes. But the law is on the side of the feminist anti-polygamy activists.
That is exactly the same attitude that pro-family Americans such as Rick Santorum, are taking with regard to supporting the Texas sodomy laws against homosexual acts.
But, you see, the feminists at NOW, are opposed to enforcement of Texas anti-sodomy laws against gays, but they do not show similar sympathy for fundamentalist Mormon sects in Utah that practice polygamy.
And why are polygamists living openly in Colorado City, Utah, but not in other states of the union? Because anti-polygamy laws are strictly and rigorously enforced in all other 49 states, and it does not matter whether one attempts to legally register the marriages or not. Polygamous people in small sects of a few hundered people, with marriages that are only recognized among members of their sect, still face a very high risk of being arrested and jailed in all 49 states outside Utah.
One last point that I just noticed taking a look at Andrew Sullivan's website: the Texas law says that homosexuals can't do things that heterosexuals are allowed to do, i.e. anal sex. This is very very unconstitutional, no matter how you look at it. And this was Sully quoting Buckley from the National Review.
Luis Gonzales has been charged with 20 counts of child molestation, battery, rape, bigamy, stalking, and fraud. The above is an extract from your link on the Utah case. Sorry, but a man living and having sex with several woman is not a crime anywhere. If it is, I would be amazed, and that should be struck down as unconstitutional.