Polygamy battle picking the wrong fight

Polygamy battle picking the wrong fight: "This is a column from 24 Hours from a couple weeks ago on a pretty controversial issue. For me, the issue boils down to using the criminal law to go after relationship structures rather than go after the things that people are really concerned about: age of consent, education of children, safety of children.



There's a pretty ugly history of criminalizing certain types of religious practices and relationships, but not so in criminalizing behaviour that causes harm to others. Not sure if I've captured that idea in this column based on some of the vitriolic responses that came back, but I tried.



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Mention Canada’s polygamy law and most picture Winston Blackmore, the head of Canada’s largest polygamist group in Bountiful, B.C. Blackmore has at least 20 wives and more than 100 children. He has allegedly married nine girls who were under the age of 18 and expelled large numbers of his sons without support.



Bountiful represents pretty grim stuff for those of us who value women’s rights and children’s rights, and cringe at the idea of an old man marrying multiple girls who aren’t even old enough to sign legal contracts. Bountiful makes Canada’s criminal polygamy law seem to make a lot of sense.

Because of the long shadow of Blackmore, what the polygamy law tends not to call to mind are the two men and one woman living together off Commercial Drive in a long-term, polyamorous relationship, sharing expenses and child rearing duties. These people, like Blackmore, are criminals under Canadian law.



Somebody call 911.



On Monday, the hearings started at a Reference to the B.C. Supreme Court on whether or not Canada’s criminal law against polygamy is constitutional.



The reference is not about Bountiful, though Bountiful may be the cause. The reference is about whether or not you can be arrested and put in jail for living in a marriage-like relationship that involves three or more people. It’s about why you don’t even need to have, or intend to have, sex in your “polygamous” relationship to be a criminal, and why it’s criminal to perform a rite that “purports to sanction” such a relationship.



When people object to what they believe is taking place in Bountiful, most focus on issues like age of consent, education, and opportunity for children – not the moral idea that only two people can live in marriage-like relationships.



Sexual exploitation is illegal under Canada’s criminal code. Marrying girls as young as 16 is legal in B.C. with parental consent. Failing to educate children to provincial minimum standards is not legal in B.C. None of these laws is up for discussion at the reference, yet all of them address the concerns around Bountiful.



Investigate the underage claims, the consent allegations, the education allegations, the child protection claims, and lay criminal charges if warranted or remove children if absolutely necessary. Given the list of allegations around Bountiful, polygamy is at best a sideshow in that circus.



We don’t have to like Winston Blackmore to say the police shouldn’t be investigating intimate relationships between consenting adults. We don’t have to endorse Bountiful to believe enforcing a Victorian morality code through the threat of arrest and jail is wrong. Most importantly, we don’t need the criminal polygamy law to fix the problems alleged at Bountiful.

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