A Canadian man who admits to having multiple wives is suing the government of British Columbia for “unlawful” prosecution after it charged him with practicing polygamy.
The polygamy charge was thrown out last September after a judge ruled that the provincial attorney general had no jurisdiction to appoint a special prosecutor in the case.
In his statement of claim, filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court, Winston Blackmore said, “The (attorney general) acted in a manner that was high handed, arbitrary, reckless, abusive, improper and inconsistent with the honor of the Crown and the administration of justice.”
The defendant needs to call Bp. Ingham as a character witness. The genie is out of the bottle and you cannot call it back in and these polygamy laws have now become suspect.
Intercessor
From the article: “Two previous special prosecutors had advised against the polygamy charges because of concern that they would not survive a constitutional challenge.” Looks like the polygamy ball is now rolling, unless we go back to the traditional understanding of marriage.
Herein is the danger of legal precedent. Once you set something in motion like redefining what marriage, you set out from under the umbrella and you get soaked with whatever falls hits the way down. You can say you just wanted to allow the rain to fall, but hail and snow falls to.
Goodness, pardon my atrocious grammar. I clicked submit instead of preview.
Once same-sex marriage has been legitimized, one can advance no valid legal, moral or ethical basis for continuing to make polygamy illegal. All of the arguments against polygamy fail for the same reason that they have been deemed not a sufficient rational basis to prohibit same-sex marriage.
He’s got civil rights, even in Canada.
Who is society to judge or dictate who one can marry, or how many one can marry, or whether groups can marry each other or if you want to marry a close blood relative? Its none of your business!!!!!!!!!!
sigh…
I predicted this would happen, but am not pleased to be right. Dare I say it, but I see legalized pedophilia within a generation. After all, what is the state’s interest to interfere with any person’s sexual exploration, regardless of age.
Polygamy is the cover story of the latest National Geographic Magazine. Can Time and Newsweek be far behind? “Under the Banner of Heaven” is an interesting non fiction read from John Krakauer.
Any week now, Newsweek should come out with a cover article on “The Conservative Case for Polygamous Marriage: Why polygamous marriage is an American value.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/229957
I’m not surprised. Heterosexauls with the assistance of most all churches have been approving and blessing serial polygamy for years (divorce and remarriage).
Rev. Susan Russell,
Care to comment? I’d love to hear your take.
Come to think of it, I’d like to hear Bp. Bruno’s take on this, too.
as yet loyally opposed
I cannot of course speak for the Rev. Susan Russell, nor indeed any other reappraiser; but it may be relevant to link to this comment which came at the end of a fairly long comment thread.
Ross, you wrote: “a sexual relationship (which is one aspect of what marriage is, although of course far from the totality of it) requires free and informed consent by all partners,…” Of course this is simply your starting assumption. It is neither authoritative not required, but simply where you start because you start there.
And as Sarah pointed out in response:
[blockquote]I should point out that, just as it is possible to give informed consent through a living will regarding one’s wishes after death . . . so it is possible to give . . . er . . . informed consent through a living will regarding one’s wishes after death.
So the whole little argument about those who might be life-challenged not being able to “consent†is actually dull and void—dead in the water, so to speak. That one is really not arguable.
And of course . . . since we’re all about the “laws†and “changing the laws†if we are into “justice and inclusion†than the cruel and unjust age of consent laws for those who are age-challenged by dent of their tender years also can be changed. Since—as *many* fearless progressives believe, we are all interested in sex from a very very very early age [if never] than “consent†is a rather relative term there. Who are we to make the claim that age-challenged crumb crunchers can not issue “consent.†*Surely* we can all agree to just go ahead and lawfully lower the age of consent to a reasonable number like . . . puberty . . . which as we all know gets steadily younger and younger by the year.
And I believe that we are reliably and earnestly informed by certain minority sexual orientations that even if creatures may not speak, they can eagerly give their assent to loving relationships through other quite clear means which the sensitive human beings are able to certainly discern.
No—just as “marriage†may be deconstructed to include all stripes and minority sexual orientations as a matter of justice, so I think we can all recognize that “consent†is, shall we say, a rather flexible and easily deconstructed word as well.
“Consent†can be just as broad as we wish it to be. [/blockquote]
In fact the entire homosexual mantra of: a loving, consensual, committed etc relationship is simply a made up construct which has authority solely because of repetition.
I distinctly remember having multiple conversations about “slippery slopes” when we discussed the whole same-sex marriage thing, and I remember being told (usually nicely, sometimes not so nicely) what an idiot I was to think that way.
Well, what about that slippery slope now?
I remember the same arguments, #13, and I never did understand why slippery slopes became a synonym for being uniformed and simpleminded.
The slope disease is actually fairly simple: A concept becomes real only when it acquires and established boundary. When the boundary is eroded or removed, the name remains as a shadow of the concept, but the concept disappears. If the concept is vital, then ever greater and greater boundaries are proposed, in the hope that a “final” permanent boundary will be established. If the prevailing view is tha all boundaries are pernicious, then the word for the concept remains. still in use, as a name on a map which no longer exists. Accordingly, the slope is the expanding search for definition that must at last include everything, and so the word becomes meaningless. But the word remains, thesource of endless debate which can never have a resolution, e.g., marriage. For so manyh humans, the word is “The Real”and the place on the map fpr which it stands, irrelevant. Larry
Incidentally, see the New National Geographic. A long article on polygamous Mormons, and a sympathetic article it is. Read what the wives themselves say. Here it comes! After all, why not have 8 wives and 89 children? Isn’t variety the spice of life? Wny shouldn’t it be legal? It’s a civil right,isn’t it? Waiting for the Garbage Collector, in Maine
#16. Larry Morse,
1. I already noted the National Geographic Article in post #8.
2. What is “Waiting for the Garbage Collector, in Maine” supposed to mean?
Sorry. Didn’t notice #8.
We have collectively set out on the curbside the standards from which self discipline is generated, and we have placed the practices that have instilled such self-regulation in the dumpster. We have put them there because we have decided they are cultural detritus, litter, the waste products that surface when one cleans out an attic, a garage,a house, a refrigerator. Yet it is all still there, until the garbage man comes, and then it is gone, gone,gone forever, and forgotten soonest by those who most needed to keep it, recycle it, restore and refinish it. But one still has to pay the garbage man, and in the US, his price will be high. Larry