This topic will challenge your understanding and hopefully begin to hone your responses towards this subject. There will be long audio sections for the serious student of defending traditional marriage. This is a topic that is intimately connected with the same-sex marriage discussion. You will hear Michael Medved make an argument that seems to at the least place polygamy in a category that is more sustainable [in argument form] than homosexual marriage — i.e., it produces children where same-sex unions cannot. His take on it will be heard in a bit, firstly however, lets open this topic up with our neighbor to the north — Canada. This comes from Religion News Blog, and I note this case because when the arguments FOR polygamy come out they will be identical (I am guessing) to the arguments made by same-sex marriage supporters.
B.C. Supreme Court opens debate on polygamy
If Chief Justice Robert Bauman agrees with the legalizers, Canada would be the first country in the developed world to lift the prohibition on multiple marriage and it would be swimming against a tide of criminalization in developing countries in Africa and Asia.
And it’s fair to say that it would likely be interpreted as Canada throwing down the welcome mat to fundamentalist Mormons, who have been largely rooted out of Utah and Arizona and are under attack in Texas, as well as to Muslims, Wiccans and to secular polyamorists.
Of course, Bauman’s decision is unlikely to be the last word. Regardless of what he decides, his ruling will likely go to the B.C. Court of Appeal en route to the Supreme Court of Canada. And even if Canada’s highest court strikes down Section 293 of the Criminal Code, Parliament would still have an opportunity to remedy that, if it wished.
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Because it’s unique, the rules are being made up as the case unfolds. But one thing it will have is witnesses testifying to their experiences within polygamous communities, some of whom will testify anonymously or behind screens so that they aren’t subject to future prosecution based on their testimony.
There will be academics testifying to their research on polygamous communities both here and around the world. And there will legal experts parsing Section 293 as well as Sections 1, 2, 7 and 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Even if the polygamy section limits any of those freedoms, Bauman may decide that the breach of those rights is justifiable if the practice is harmful. Or as the B.C. attorney-general’s lawyer describes it, “The main task facing this court will be assessing and weighing evidence respecting harm: the harm of polygamy versus the harm of prohibition.”….
(Utah Next?) Here is a portion of an interview that exemplifies some of the emotional arguments FOR polygamy. How do you respond to it? There is some hint as to why near the end… the struggle between the wives:
Michael Medved comes at this topic with the most challenging thoughts on the subject. While his main point is that we as a society should approach same-sex marriage and polygamy the same — e.g., we shouldn’t endorse these practices as a society by legalizing them like with marriage. Neither should we break down peoples doors just the same. That being said, from studying these two issues personally they seem to have legal issues that follow them that should be discouraged by society. With homosexuality for instance, there seems to be a yearning after underage relationships with the same sex that is higher in its sway over the homosexual man than in the general population (I deal somewhat with that in these posts [as well as the health aspects of it] here, here, here, here, and here). Likewise, there seems to be a sway over the polygamous man wanting young girls than that of the general population (seen in these video documentaries here, here, and here).
This is where the law should be extra vigilant, which means adoption may not be the best choice. In both cases keep in mind that while the possibility for the breaking of the law is higher, it is not always the rule… there are people in both lifestyles that set standards that you or I would consider high and acceptable. And we would want them to influence their fellow practitioners with this high-standard for the betterment of society as a whole — all the while being “accepting” but not affirming (this is hard to do). But for the lawful man or woman in either scenario, even though we shouldn’t reward standardizing their choices with that of the lawful heterosexual marriage model, we should as a society reward the people striving to truly keep these relationships legal and above the board.
A story from September shows some of the arguments that will be used against legalizing polygamy. Dr. Joseph Henrich lays out just a few of the reasons he has compiled in his burgeoning studies on the topic that gives us an answer to the question, what then are some of the arguments on can make against this lifestyle?
Polygamy is harmful to society, scholar finds
Increased crime, prostitution and anti-social behaviour. Greater inequality between men and women. Less parental investment in children. And, a general driving down of the age of marriage for all women.
These are some of the harms of polygamy (or more correctly, polygyny, since it is almost always men marrying more than once) that are outlined in a 45-page research paper by noted Canadian scholar Joseph Henrich, filed Friday in B.C. Supreme Court.
Henrich is uniquely qualified to look at polygamy’s harm. He’s a member of the departments of economics, psychology and anthropology at the University of British Columbia and holds the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition and Coevolution.
But he’d never really thought about it until this year when Craig Jones approached him. Jones is the lead lawyer in the B.C. government’s constitutional reference case, which will be heard in November by B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman.
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Another social harm that Henrich says is consistent regardless of whether researchers use data from 19th-century Mormon communities or contemporary African societies is that children from polygynous families have considerably lower survival rates. It seems polygynous men, rather than investing in their offspring, use their money to add wives.
“Monogamy seems to direct male motivations in ways that create lower crime rates, greater wealth (GDP) per capita and better outcomes for children,” Henrich concludes.
But what’s more surprising than his conclusions is his speculation that monogamy is at the root of democracy and equality.
He argues that as the idea of monogamy spread through Europe during the 15th century, king and peasant alike had the same rules and the idea of equality gained a foothold — at least among men.
With reduced competition for women, men began loosening their tight control over wives and daughters.
And with fewer unmarried men, the pool of soldiers that had previously been harnessed by warring rulers was reduced.
Even though this compelling argument goes far beyond the scope of the trial, it may make it even harder for polygamy’s advocates to convince the judge that its practice is benign.
Francis Beckwith weighs in on this topic with some reference to what our Founders did in these situations:
Are There Limits to Religious Free Exercise?
….The Founders, Free Exercise, and Its Limits. America’s founders were wise enough to understand that religious freedom could not be limitless. They also understood that this precious liberty should not be restricted unless the state could provide good reasons why these restrictions are justified. This is why the wording of free exercise provisions in state constitutions at the time of the founding of America typically allowed for the limitation of religious liberty if the prohibited actions would interfere with some aspect of the community’s good. New York State’s Constitution (1777) is typical in this regard: “The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed, with this State, to all mankind: Provided, That the liberty of conscience, hereby granted, shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness, or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of this State.
The reasoning is similar to what the Supreme Court employed in 1878 when it rejected the argument of Mormons that the free exercise clause protected their religious practice of plural marriage. In 1862, the U.S. Congress had passed the first of several antipolygamy statutes for the purpose of stopping the growing population of practicing Mormon polygamists in Utah. Because Utah was a U.S. territory at the time, the federal government had jurisdiction over Utah, and thus the First Amendment of the federal constitution could be applied to the anti-polygamy statutes. (Today, because of incorporation, it would not matter whether it was a state or federal statute.)
In Reynolds v. United States (1878) the Court rejected the Mormons’ free exercise argument on the grounds that even though “Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion,… [it] was left free to reach actions [such as polygamy] which were in violation of social duties or subversive to the public good.” What the Court meant by this is that certain institutions and ways of life, such as marriage and the family, are essential to the preservation of civil society. The government may craft its laws in such a way that certain practices receive a privileged position in our social fabric, and actions contrary to them should be prohibited or at least discouraged, even if they have religious sanction. Such practices as polygamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, and child sacrifice, therefore, may be forbidden even if they arise from a religious understanding of the world; for they are actions that are deleterious to the public good.
On the other hand, the public good is undermined when citizens are forced to choose between the law and their religious practices when those practices do not undermine, and may very well advance, the public good. For example, when the Supreme Court in Yoder gave a free exercise exemption to the Amish, the public good was advanced. When Catholic Charities was forced by the California Supreme Court to pay for its employees’ contraceptive use, however, CC was literally required to underwrite sexual practices that are overtly hostile to its own theological understanding, an understanding that is integral to a well-established tradition in moral philosophy. This ruling runs counter to the public good.
The Courts should return to the reasoning of the founders. It is a reasoning that allows for the widest possible religious free exercise consistent with preserving and protecting the public good. This, of course, will not eliminate debates on controversial questions over which reasonable citizens disagree. What it will do is provide us with a conceptual framework that puts teeth back into the free exercise clause while reintroducing us to the language of natural law, one that places a premium on the government’s obligation to protect the intrinsic dignity of the person and advance the public good.
This next audio piece is mainly about same-sex marriage and what Jesus endorsed or didn’t endorse. Many of the positions taken in response to the skeptic here can be applied somewhat to some of what Medved mentions.