Polygamy is coming - to Canada

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Life/Polygamy+coming/1433007/story.html

Looks like a historic legal battle is shaping up over polygamy, the outcome of which will surely be determined by the Supreme Court of Canada.

I understand why, for political reasons, the government feels compelled to fight polygamy tooth and nail, but I suspect the government will lose. The polygamists have what seems to be an unassailable constitutional position. If polygamy is an expression of their religion, and if the participants are all consenting adults, then I don't see how the state can say no.

Note the words "consenting" and "adults". No court would allow you to take a child bride, commit sexual assault or practise kidnapping simply because you say your religion allows you to do so. But a three-way marriage between consenting grown-ups? That's different. Sure, it strikes many people as a weird arrangement, but so did gay marriage -- which is now legal. Again, it's about consenting adults. A marriage between, say, a 20-year-old man and an 80-year-old woman would strike me as weirder and even more unappealing than a marriage involving one man and two wives, but that's not sufficient grounds to make such marriages illegal.

The government is going to argue that polygamous marriages violate Canadian values such as equality of the sexes. But go into some religious communities right here in Canada and you'll find traditional marriages (one man, one woman) that do not uphold what secularists would consider sexual equality.

I'm not championing polygamous marriages. I'm just saying that in a free society, especially a constitutional democracy, it's probably impossible to prohibit them.

-Leonard Stern

The Ed Board

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