Counting on polygamy
Will redefining marriage open the door to polygamy? Ask the Canadians planning to fight for their rights to take several wives
Terry O'Neill - March 14, 2005
Polygamy advocates--be they Mormon or Muslim--may also turn to assertions of privacy rights in defending their practice, says Brian Barnard, a Salt Lake City civil rights lawyer, who is trying to overturn Utah's polygamy ban on behalf of two fundamentalist Mormon women and a Mormon man. In the U.S., a Supreme Court decision two years ago overturned laws prohibiting homosexual acts in Texas because, the court ruled, the ban unlawfully invaded a citizen's right to privacy. Barnard says the anti-polygamy laws are "punishing as criminal an intimate sexual relationship." In other words--to paraphrase Pierre Trudeau--the ban provides the state a place in the bedrooms of the nation. Adds Barnard: "I think, maybe the time is ripe for an objective look at the practice, in a rational way."
But William Black, a professor in the faculty of law at the University of B.C. specializing in human rights, argues that the charter can just as easily work against any would-be polygamists. Section 1, he says, actually allows the state to override certain rights with "reasonable limits, demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." He's certain, he says, "one of the factors that would be sure to be considered by the court would be whether polygamy violates the equality rights of women."
How the court will weigh the competing rights of polygamists to privacy and religion with those of women--not to mention the matter of decriminalizing an illegal practice--won't be known until some province ends up laying charges against polygamists or, more likely, until advocates for the practice start a campaign for polygamy rights. Either way, it's bound to prove an interesting battle. Perhaps the only thing more interesting will be watching to see whether those politicians backing same-sex marriage are still as keen on protecting minority rights when polygamists finally get their own day in court.
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