The Polygamy Law's Bountiful Interpretations

In which the law flips a coin over reality vs. theory and sides with reality.

Yesterday, Robert Bauman, the chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court, ruled that Canada's law against polygamy is a reasonable limit on the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom. The Toronto Star's editorial board sides with Bauman's "eminently sensible judgment" that polygamy has almost always led to abuse, indoctrination, alienation of young men, and more. The argument pursued by the defence – that the state has no place in the nation's bedrooms – is "a nice principle but one that leads to the multiple harms documented in Bountiful." Barring the existence of "a community somewhere in Canada in which men enjoy multiple wives and all are happy together – no abuse, no coercion, no mistreated children," there is no documented proof in North America of polygamy ever leading to anything other than the sociological disaster that is Bountiful, B.C. (In fact, compared to the polygamy practiced by renegade American Mormon leader Warren Jeffs, what goes on in Bountiful is downright wholesome.)

The National Post's Lorne Gunter offers a more nuanced response to Bauman's ruling, arguing that he has no problem with polygamy until there are kids involved. "On an intellectual level, polygamy amongst men and women who have reached the age of consent should be no one else’s business but the participants’," says Gunter. "But all of this is theoretical," continues Gunter. "The cold, hard fact is that in the real world, non-child-abusing polygamists are pretty much non-existent." Women in Bountiful are forced into marriages well before they're 18, and older males actively work to exclude younger men – rivals, if you will – from the community. The practice of polygamy – which expressly means multiple marriages and not civil unions or extra-marital relationships – is at the root of these ills, and as such, Gunter determines the very real harm that polygamy has caused children outweighs any libertarian meanderings on how adults conduct their marital affairs.

Kate Heartfield of the Ottawa Citizen wonders why we need a polygamy law at all, considering that there are enough other crimes documented in Bountiful for the Crown to sink its teeth into. "This is a question of criminal law, not social policy," says Heartfield. "Marriages don’t commit crimes; people do. It is the abuse itself, not the kind of relationship it happens in, that ought to be criminal." Given the loosening of the definition of what a "marriage" means – to wit, the rise of open relationships – in the future it's likely that some will pop up among people who aren't Mormon fanatics. "Criminalizing the community takes the emphasis off the moral responsibility of the abusers themselves (after all, they’re only creatures of a bad marital code) and patronizingly assumes that no adult woman should be able to choose, freely and competently, to enter into a plural marriage," Heartfield writes. Indeed, the RCMP's reluctance to go after Bountiful's leaders for their other, far more black-and-white crimes instead of polygamy is, in retrospect, an awfully puzzling decision.

Keeping the laws as they stand will no doubt lead to further constitutional challenges down the line involving more respectable sources than the inhabitants of Bountiful. But Bauman made it clear that these polygamy laws only pertain to the type of "conjugal unions" found among Mormon sects and some Muslim communities, and not "polyamourists" who haven't entered into multiple marriages but maintain multiple partners. Perhaps a judge will later decide that the Criminal Code unfairly punished less mainstream forms of relationships. (And it will be a judge – don't expect politicians to wade into this battle.) But until there is evidence supporting such a conclusion – not just hypotheticals and prognostication – keeping polygamy illegal ensures those inclined to take up the practice will find no safe haven in this country.