Is this legal? Can you legally be married to one person and obtain a license to wed another?

Question

John McCain obtained his marriage license while still legally married to Carol. Is this bigamy or an intent to commit an illegal act?

It shows that he is A-moral.

Answer 1

I don't know the laws where he lived at that time...but it is currently illegal and, clearly, immoral.

Answer 2

No, it is Bigamy to marry another.  Unless he lies on his application for a marriage license I doubt if any clerk in any county would give him a marriage license when he is currently married.  Technically I believe most states require a divorce decree be entered for 30 days to be final.

Answer 3

Yes it is legal in Arizona at least. To obtain a license from the state, you do not have to verify that you are then single. The law against bigamy also only applies to actually getting married, which doesn't happen until the ceremony, which took place after the divorce was final.

To clarify the timeline, he got the license in March, which is valid for a year, the divorce was finalized in April, and they married in May.

Answer 4

Anyone can "obtain"  a marriage license.  You can probably go online and print one out, or go to the courthouse and pick it up.  Until it's actually filled out and signed, it's just a piece of paper.

Answer 5

He may have gotten the paper work, but if he and his current wife didn't get it signed then the license was still a piece of paper.  They would not have been married until they got it signed by the minister and witnesses.

Now if he got married while he was still married, then yes.  The law was broken.

But I doubt this would have happened because the state would have had records of his first marriage.  Divorce papers have to be filed to dissolve the marriage

This really doesn't show he is A-moral.  

Answer 6

Cite your sources.  This may have been BS brought up by the Democrats.

He may have obtained one, still been legally married, but then gotten divorced and legally married the second wife.  The marriage license isn't valid until all parties involved sign it and it's been sent off to the state for the register of deeds to sign.

Edit:"In April 1979,[53] McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, whose father had founded a large beer distributorship.[57] They began dating, and he urged his wife Carol to grant him a divorce, which she did in February 1980, with the uncontested divorce taking effect in April 1980.[18][53] "

That was taken from wikipedia.org

Sounds like Carol started the divorce proceedings in April of '79, and he got married a year later, in April '80.  

In most states you have a certain number of days to get married before that license is null and void.  He probably got it a week or so before his marriage to Cindy.