With the British Columbia (BC) decision to charge two men from Bountiful BC with polygamy under the Criminal code of Canada there has been an interesting batch of letters to the editor making the rounds. I will try and post some of the for and against here:
Polygamy case raises questions about society’s values
The Edmonton Journal
January 12, 2009Re: “B.C. breakaway sect leaders charged with polygamy; ousted bishop told Larry King he had ’several’ very young ‘wives,’ ” The Journal, Jan. 8.
We all have the right to marry either a man or a woman. If a person chooses to remain single — or perhaps not — he or she can have sex with as many partners as he or she wishes. The partners can be of whatever gender the individual prefers or it can be with multiple partners at the same time. It can even be with a large group of participants.
All of these activities, it seems, are within the laws of the land, provided no one is forced to participate and all are of legal age.
Further, we have the freedom to visit nude beaches and nudist camps — very acceptable these days, I understand.
Men can even buy sex at licensed massage parlours — businesses that are sanctioned by the city by way of expensive licensing fees.
But, according to the law, no one can have more than one wife.
If people enter these arrangements of polygamy by their own free will, why should the law — or you and I — be against it, when everything else is acceptable?
Ken Michetti, Edmonton
Is Polygamy Really the Issue?
The National Post
January 8, 2009Oh, come on, National Post; you know the marriage debate concerning polygamy is not about the act of rape. Really, heterosexual and homosexual people the world over have been successfully charged with that offence.
You may believe that this nation’s judges are intelligent enough to realize that the state has the right to insist on a definition of marriage, yet Canadian Supreme Court judges have never even managed to rule on same-sex marriage. So I’m very curious as to how our Supreme Court judges will tackle the polygamists’ claim.
Francien Verhoeven, Edmonton.
Polygamy case raises questions about society’s values
The Edmonton Journal
January 12, 2009Re: “At last, court date for polygamists,” Editorial, Jan. 9.
With same-sex marriages already having received the Supreme Court’s blessing, surely polygamy would add an even more exciting dimension to the old-fashioned concept of traditional marriage between one man and one woman.
The humdrum institution of traditional marriage could make way for the “bountiful” joys of a union between one man and several women, as well as serving the cause of women’s rights by widening the concept to one woman and several men. The prospect of multiple divorces and child-custody suits offers a much needed boost to lawyers.
E.W. Bopp, Tsawwassen, B.C.
January 12, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Funding indoctrination
The Province(Vancouver BC)
January 12, 2009
I will know our provincial government is truly concerned about the Bountiful commune when it stops shovelling money to its polygamist leaders to operate their private school. It is there that they teach young girls it is their duty to marry old men and have as many babies as possible rather than getting a proper education and selecting other goals in life.
While the government continues to fund schools that indoctrinate children to embrace such abuses of human rights, then I know charges against Bountiful leaders are not really serious.
Mavis Lowry,
Vancouver
January 12, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Blackmore’s a burden
The Province
January 9, 2009
It’s about time this arrogant self-styled bishop, Winston Blackmore, was charged.
He has been flouting the law for many years while his child-bride concubines have been collecting government baby bonuses in the thousands of dollars.
I just hope the justice system remains rock solid and throws the book at this guy. He’s a debt to our society.
Karen Burgess,
Langley
January 12, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Ban polygamy
The Province
January 11, 2009
I disagree completely with your editorial that basically said give the green light to polygamy and leave well enough alone.
You argue that traditional views on marriage have little relevance in our multicultural society, but multiculturalism has nothing to do with the repressive, profitless and backward existence these women are forced into.
From a very young age they have been brainwashed by their patriarchal masters into thinking and acting the way they are told to.
You also say criminalizing polygamy is somehow contrary to the concept of religious freedom and cite as an example that the Koran allows Muslims to have up to four wives.
But there are many beliefs and commandments in the Bible and the Koran that we, as a civilized secular society, view as barbaric and unlawful. We have used logic, common sense and compassion to eliminate the extremes of the Christian Bible and that should also be applied to all religions and religious beliefs.
We must give our lawmakers a chance to draft laws that will prohibit the practice of polygamy but will leave the core values of all religious beliefs intact.
Terry Schuss, Vancouver
January 12, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Another article about the subject.
Oppal’s tack on polygamy likely best course
January 12, 2009 at 10:51 pm
To me the big deal with the above article is this quote:
“[Attorney General] Oppal told me the case against the constitutionality of polygamy stands a much better chance if B.C. can prove the extramarital lifestyle sexually exploits and harms women and kids. But first they need evidence that it does exploit — thus, the police investigation and subsequent criminal prosecution of the self-appointed bishops.”
Whew if I was the Blackmore defense attorney I would be all over this. How do you PROVE this to the point that it does not also lean against extramarital nonsense of affairs, prostitution, porn and swingers to name a few lovely sexual issues.
The reality is all of the above can be harmful lifestyles but all are “legal” within certain limits. If you look at it that way then polygamy is no different. If you set the parameters to “legal” limitations, no underage marriages under certain age ranges and gaps. Well then what?
The Supreme Court of Canada threw out our Abortion legislation in the 1980s and our child porn possession laws because they were flawed. On Same Sex Marriage they were asked their opinions and politely pointed out the political will of the government of the day was influencing their opinion.
Now the precedents of the past on other sexual practices, marriage rules, and old laws being junked as being flawed say that I cannot see a way out of this. This is Reynolds v US again but this time the Crown will have a heck of a time making it stick, and I think Oppals advisors knew this. He is a boob.
January 14, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Thanks for sharing these various letters/op-ed pieces, Jon. Pretty interesting stuff.
January 14, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Here is another editorial opinion this time from the Globe and Mail.
Polygamy is not freedom
January 14, 2009 at 12:00 AM EST
The protection of religious freedom in Canada’s Constitution does not and should not extend to polygamy. It is a non sequitur to suggest otherwise. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a statement of the country’s core values. Its purpose is not to demolish those values but to uphold them.
Human dignity is the most basic of the core values, as Supreme Court judges have said over and over again. That implies protection of the vulnerable and a commitment to equality. The constitutional question, in the polygamy prosecution of two men from Bountiful, B.C., who were charged last week, comes down to whether the government has reason to believe that polygamy is so harmful to the vulnerable and so unequal by its nature that it damages human dignity.
To some extent, the case turns on the evidence of harm to Bountiful’s women and children (including the so-called lost boys, who reportedly tend to lose out to older folks in the competition for the available females). It should be borne in mind, though, that the precedent goes well beyond Bountiful; one Muslim group, for instance, has said it would intervene at the Supreme Court, if the case reaches that stage, to argue that those Canadian Muslims who practise it should be charged. In any event, Winston Blackmore, one of the two men charged, is said by the author of a book on Bountiful to have approximately 26 wives and 115 children. It is difficult to see how the children of such a grouping can grow up with anything like free choice in matters of the heart, of a life partner, of sex. These are basic matters, and coercion or the denial of choice in them is an affront to human dignity.
Some commentators have said this case tests the limits of Canadian tolerance. That’s true, but it also tests the country’s resolve to protect the vulnerable. The Charter is not a document of absolutes; its very first section sets out that several other sections are subject to such limits as the government can show are justified in a free and democratic society. Mr. Blackmore apparently has a copy of the Charter on the wall of his office; but he’s wrong if he thinks the Charter means anything goes.
If it did, everything would be up for grabs – wife assault, genital mutilation, culturally specific practices of corporal punishment, Islamic courts. Canada’s Constitution does not allow for a misguided equality among any and all practices, no matter how harmful and abhorrent. The Constitution permits government to draw a line in the sand, and the government was right to draw one here.
February 16, 2009 at 7:51 am
A Saskatchewan judge issued the following statement in court where she found a married woman was also the simultaneous spouse of another man.
“The formation of a common-law relationship is not hindered by the existence of a subsisting marriage”.
Is there any doubt that this will be used by married persons and common law persons to have any number of spousal unions? Soon persons will also go to court and on the strength of the Saskatchewan case laws permitting plural spousal unions, the Canadian Polygamy law will have no choice but to be truck down, so that the law permitting multiple conjugal relationships is equal across Canada.
September 23, 2009 at 8:30 pm
[...] of this year I posted a few articles on the issue of the British Columbia government’s insistence to prosecute polygamists over the objections of their advisors. As I suspected the BC Supreme [...]
November 10, 2009 at 7:24 am
Saskatchewan, Rob Nicolson, BC, Ontario, ALberta…whatever.. Canadians allow polygamy in a legally recognized environment in Saskatchewan only. No other province allows Polygamy.
Saskatchewan judges have ruled multiple conjugal unions are totally legal, this ruling itself makes the Saskatchewan government guilty of Polygamy because they assist in creating polygamous unions (more than one spouse at a time)