Polygamy the next step in redefining marriage
After years of inaction, the B.C. government has finally brought charges against two leaders in Bountiful accused of polygamy. The two men are leaders in a fundamentalist, breakaway sect of the Mormon Church. One is accused of having 22 wives.
I first heard of the polygamist community of Bountiful in 2000 when The Globe and Mail carried a full page story on the issue. It was right around the time of the challenges from gays and lesbians to the heterosexual definition of marriage.
In a stroke of supreme irony, the media never linked the two issues: same-sex marriage and polygamous marriage. And when Christians like me tried to point this out, we were quickly silenced. But it seems to make sense that if you change the definition of marriage to suit one interest group, you should be able to change it to suit another.
And that is at least part of the reason the B.C. government took so long to prosecute those in Bountiful that openly had several wives. Government lawyers told them that the law prohibiting polygamy would be struck down because it violates the religious freedom of this group of Mormons.
Wally Oppal, the attorney general in British Columbia, knows that the courts may rule that the prohibition on polygamy violates the Charter. But he has been clear that he is willing to bring the challenge. It is not at all clear how the courts will deal with this issue. The Supreme Court of Canada in the Same-sex Marriage Reference said that the definition of marriage does not have "natural limits" although it did state that there was common agreement that marriage should be between two persons.
The Mormon Church was founded in 1830 as The Church of Jesus Christ. It was founded by Joseph Smith, a self-proclaimed prophet. He developed the doctrine of polygamy for the church in 1843. Adherents to the Mormon Church were persecuted in the U.S. largely on the basis of their practice of polygamy.
The Canadian government passed a law in 1890 outlawing polygamy. It specifically mentioned Mormons and was an attempt to keep polygamous Mormons from immigrating to Canada. The law predates Canada's first Criminal Code.
A few years later the Mormon Church officially renounced polygamy. But some dissidents set up breakaway, fundamentalist sects. These were underground churches, as polygamy is illegal in both Canada and the U.S.
One of these sects established itself in Bountiful, B.C. in the 1940s, as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Bountiful is a small community nestled in the Creston Valley of British Columbia near the U.S. border. The community lived in relative obscurity until the 1990s when there were allegations of child abuse and smuggling women from the U.S.
A recent police raid on a similar community in Texas was made on the basis that a teenage girl had called the police claiming to have been married against her will.
Girls as young as 14 are married to much older men. There are also allegations that these are cults where people are prohibited from leaving.
Meanwhile, polygamy is being normalized through the TV series "Big Love." This show is a comedy about a man married to three women. The reality is not so funny. In Canada, magazine articles have featured women who have escaped from these cults. They were profoundly damaged by the experience.
It is reported that some Muslim groups support eliminating the ban on polygamy. Polygamy is legal in some Muslim countries. In fact, when Marion Boyd was holding hearings on the issue of Muslim arbitration boards in Ontario, she discovered that there are Muslims with polygamous marriages living in Canada.
This is a test not only of the definition of marriage and religious freedom, but of what limits will be put on tolerance in Canada. Can we as a society set standards that not everyone agrees with? Must we change every law to accommodate every wish and desire?
Several legal experts have written reports on this issue and argued that the courts will likely strike down the law. Given the courts' recent judgments on accommodating religious practices and the same-sex marriage cases, I agree that the courts are likely to side with the polygamists.
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