Posted on 03/23/2009 4:51:12 AM PDT by Colofornian
British Columbia has charged two fundamentalist Mormon men with violating the Criminal Code provision against polygamy. The defendants will argue "God made me do it," claiming their practice of polygamy is part of the religious freedom guaranteed by Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms...
...What the U.S. Supreme Court said in its 1878 Reynolds decision is still compelling: Religious freedom means the state cannot punish people for religious opinions, but it can certainly regulate secular institutions such as marriage. The justification for prohibiting polygamy is that it leads to treating women and children as chattels and undermines the legal equality required to make democracy functional.
Nonetheless, Canadian courts may strike down Section 293 of the Criminal Code over the alleged conflict with religious liberty. One might think it hardly matters. Fundamentalist Mormons, after all, have flagrantly flouted the law for 50 years, so a failure to convict will just affirm the status quo. But it is not that simple.
Decriminalizing polygamy will make it impossible to maintain immigration regulations designed to prevent polygamous men from bringing in more than one wife. Extra spouses sometimes get in by concealing their marital status or by virtue of extraordinary circumstances...rescinding that policy would make Canada the only country in the world to welcome polygamous immigrants - an immigration magnet for polygamists from Africa and the Middle East as well as fundamentalist Mormons escaping prosecution in the United States.
It is also predictable that newly arrived polygamists would join with those already in the country in litigation to advance the cause of polygamy.
SNIP
If plural marriage is decriminalized by court decision, polygamists will be in the same legal vacuum as gays were after legislative change in 1969...
(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
From the article:
As Queen's University law professor Nicholas Bala has pointed out, rescinding that policy would make Canada the only country in the world to welcome polygamous immigrants - an immigration magnet for polygamists from Africa and the Middle East as well as fundamentalist Mormons escaping prosecution in the United States. It is also predictable that newly arrived polygamists would join with those already in the country in litigation to advance the cause of polygamy...Will a polygamous man be able to include all his wives and their children as beneficiaries in his employment benefit plans?
Thank goodness someone gets it!
What relevance is polygamy, when most adults have had multiple sexual partners througout their lives?
Actually, all Muslims do is utter ‘Talaq’ three times, and the wives to whom the words have been uttered are automatically divorced, as per Islamic law.
They then get here, and remarry.
Most sexual partners has not led to children being brought into the relationship. As the article points out: The justification for prohibiting polygamy is that it leads to treating women and children as chattels and undermines the legal equality required to make democracy functional.
Unfortunately, it's govt. & judicial entities that tend to have clean up the messes of polygamy...welfare and welfare abuse...often, minors being hauled into the polygamy additional "wife" mess (statutory rape)...therefore government has a say in regulating marriage.
Then that's a loophole, right there.
When was adultery decriminalized?
Why not? If homosexuals can marry, why not open all the doors for every other type of dysfunctional group? Why discriminate against any other type of fetish? One isn't any weirder than the other. Bestiality may come next. Why not?
Plus, add group marriage to that list.
Well, those are excellent rhetorical questions. (But I assume you're not actually an advocate for these relationships being sanctioned by the state)
Remember, whatever the state sanctions is then covered by the classroom textbook and the advocates of the above in those campus situations.
And then the natural progression to decriminalizing Islamic practices such as temporary marriages and honor killings, because “God” made them do it.
There are already a dozen or so states (Washington, Alaska, and Florida among them) where bestiality is not expressly prohibited.
Bill Softens Bestiality Statute (The Bill Was Introduced By Massachusetts Democrats
MAN ON DOG? (Lawmakers move to lower penalty for bestiality … seriously)
Alaska and Florida consider bans on bestiality
I think the problem is that marriage is a hybrid secular and religious institution. It might be better if it was split up, with the government in charge of civil unions, with all the legal benefits marriage currently has, and marriage being a purely religious thing, decided church-by-church. If the government doesn’t recognize your union, you can still have the ceremony and symbolism and love and all if you find a church that’ll recognize it; if you don’t have any romantic interest in each other but you want the legal benefits, you can bypass the church and just get the government document; if you love each other but feel like the legal benefits sully the whole thing, you can choose to skip them if that feels more right, but still be married in the eyes of God and your family.
It would get the government out of churches, it would clear up the motivations of gay marriage supporters (are they trying to change laws or morals?), it would make it so that you don’t have to make a pledge to God and the government at the same time, and the government could legislate without telling churches what to do.
The problem is too many people see polygamy as a “victimless crime”. It is not. I have known several polygamists and ex-polygamists.
Women are chattel. Girls go uneducated (their only job is to get married and have children), and boys are often thrown away in their teens to prevent them from ‘stealing’ the women.
Polygamy for religious reasons is controlled by one person, marriage is rarely (if ever) for love. The men control everything.
I am not talking about just the groups, but “independent” polygamist families as well, it would be naive to think that “legalization” will put an end to the abuse. It will not, for women are second class citizens in all polygamous cultures.
Yet the sense of Genesis II 24 is singular, as were the happiest marriages in The Bible. Converesely, no polygamous marriage in Torah was ever a happy one.
A couple of lesbians sued a Catholic church in Canada for not allowing them to have their reception there. Once govt legalizes either same-sex marriage and/or civil unions, it won't matter that it's split up. If a church refuses either legal activity, it's at least at risk from being sued (even if the suing party doesn't win). Eventually, harassment cases like these won't just result in harassment, but would eventually be won by same-sex partners. So, no. Your conclusion is false -- it won't get the government out of churches...
Exactly. The whole point of the totalitarian left is to persecute those who disagree with their agenda.
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