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Thursday, September 02, 2004
Steyn in Polygamy
When Ezra invited me to participate here he didn't fully disclose that he was also running a service to find a mate for polygamous marriages, but now we've had our first touching courtship, proposal and acceptance right here in the comments section of the Shotgun. I just hope I get invited to Kathy and Mark's pending marriage.
But having twice read Norman's post, I don't see how slippery slope arguments can be dismissed. One landmark legal decision sets a precedent and feeds into the argument for those that follow. The decision that imposed gay employment benefits implicitly "read in" sexual orientation as a protected status in the Charter, which laid the foundation for the courts to impose gay marriage next. Who's to say they won't impose polygamy, too?
And Norman says "I think Canadians would be wise to demand that the government produce a principled justification for treating the "right" to gay marriage and (voluntary) polygamy differently under the law and the constitution." I would just observe that it won't matter one whit what Canadians demand, we are simply bystanders in this process. And the government is only marginally less a bystander, the major influence they have being appointing the judges to the Supreme Court in the first place. Once that's been done the only role parliament will have is to eventually pass the legislation that conforms to the Supreme Court's diktat.
And what will that be? Who knows? I suspect it will depend on the test case that is ultimately presented to the court. If it's a racist misogynist homophobe trying to pick up a second wife it will likely be struck down, as this sort of polygamy would be unfashionable among the Chardonnay socialist set. But if a bisexual woman who already has a wife and insists on adding a husband to make her life complete and enable her to have a child I'd say we have an excellent chance of seeing the court impose legal polygamy as well.
But all of this is just guessing. Since we have a Supreme Court that claims to read things in the Charter that simply aren't there we have no idea what their definition of sexual orientation as a protected class means. Perhaps when they are given their robes they also receive the secret glasses that unveil these hidden clauses such as the one that guarantees the right to bugger teenage boys and the one that says the right to free expression means the government can silence the National Citizens' Coalition if they are so inclined.
Ultimately they will put on their secret glasses and tell us if their version of the Charter includes bisexual and polygamous relationships as a protected class and inform us subjects of their findings. Then parliament will do their duty and pass the required legislation, or they will just let it lapse and the court's rulings will stand as the last word. I know I don't have any ability to influence whether Mark and Kathy's wedding will have legal effect, but I am looking forward to the event nonetheless.
Posted by Kevin Jaeger on September 2, 2004 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Quote of the day:
""It's not the business of government to decided when a family is a family," said Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant. "
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/09/02/spouse_ont040902.html
Posted by: jonathan | 2004-09-02 3:04:36 PM
I'll have to confess I still don't see the problem. What appears to me to be the unstated concern behind the opposition to gay marriage and/or polygamous marriage is that if the fetters are lifted, society is suddenly going to be awash in millions of polyamorous groupings throwing down in the streets. Put more simply: if tomorrow all prohibitions on polygamy were abolished, I'm pretty sure the number of polygamous relationships would be roughly the same as it is now, whether you counted them the next day, a year from then or ten years hence.
The staggering majority of people don't avoid polygamous relationships (or relationships with their relatives or with their pets or whatever) because there's a law which calls such things illegal, they do it for vastly complicated social reasons (of which the legality/illegality is a minor component). And the illegal nature of the act doesn't prevent those who want to do it from doing it.
Bottom line: if consenting adults are doing things with other consenting adults, so long as they are not harming non-consenting third parties, who cares?
As for visions of tens of millions of dollars being spent by the government on "survivor benefits" or what-have-you (setting aside for the moment whether such programs are a good idea in the first place), the solution really wouldn't be terribly convoluted: for any benefit, set a dollar amount per "family", which the family can divvy up as it sees fit. If there's only two members, they would each get more than if there were five.
Posted by: Bob Tarantino | 2004-09-02 3:30:04 PM
Personally, the topic doesn't interest me so much. If there were a democratic debate on gay marriage and polygamy I think I would leave it to those who have strong opinions on the topic to debate, observe the vote in parliament and I'd be quite content to live with the result, whatever that would happen to be.
But that's not what's happening. Parliament did debate whether or not to include sexual orientation in the Charter and opted not to. Parliament opted also to pass a motion in 1999 to uphold the definition of marriage. None of it mattered, judges in two provinces and one territory imposed their views on the rest of us nonetheless.
The point is whether or not you are in favour of polygamy. It appears you at least have no objection. The question is more are you in favour of this being decided in a democratic manner or by the Supreme Court?
Posted by: Kevin Jaeger | 2004-09-02 4:33:22 PM
"The question is more are you in favour of this being decided in a democratic manner or by the Supreme Court?" -- Or do you think Human beings are capable of making up their own minds about whatever contractual agreements they get involved in - and it's really nobody else's business.
Posted by: MWW | 2004-09-02 5:21:11 PM
But since this ultimately decides what is a family*, why are we so confident that the third party - children - is in no way harmed?
*Or is family no longer the issue, having been replaced by the primacy of the self-indulgence of adults?
Posted by: lrC | 2004-09-02 5:42:58 PM
We're registered at Krispie Kreme, Target and Chuckie's Guns & Ammo.
Actually, I'm thinking of divorcing Mark. Yeah, we're not married yet, but so what?!? Don't you oppress me! It's just a piece of paper and so forth!
I'll settle for a Green Card and a nice blurb for my blog.
Posted by: Kathy | 2004-09-02 7:09:42 PM
"But since this ultimately decides what is a family*, why are we so confident that the third party - children - is in no way harmed?" --
Why is there an assumption that such situations would harm children?
Look --married, non-polygamists commit adultery - sepparate, divorce, drink, smoke, abuse prescription medicine, etc... and engage in all manner of behaviour in their relationships with each other that every busy-body in the world could construe to be harmful to children.
The fact that there are more loving parents in childrens lives resulting from polygamous relationships could possible be a benefit to the kids. In fact - there could be a better opportunity to have at least one parent being a full-time homemaker while the other parenters work to provide income in these situations.
Look - it's not my cup of tea. I just don't think it's my business what consenting adults do in their relationships with each other, providing they are not instigating force or fraud against other people - It's really not my, or anybody else's concern.
Posted by: MWW | 2004-09-02 8:02:42 PM
MWW, I don't presume that unusual family structures will harm children. I also don't presume they _won't_ harm children. There was an initial rush to believe that widespread divorce and single parenthood weren't going to have ill side effects. What do we know now? (Yes, I acknowledge that having only one parent is clearly more of a disadvantage than having two or more.)
If unusual parenting situations cause children to be less favourably treated by peers but we expect those prejudices to disappear in five or ten or twenty years, should we just write off those five or ten or twenty years of mistreatment as the cost of social progress?
Posted by: lrC | 2004-09-02 11:50:46 PM
Hi Kevin
I've posted a longish response to your comment over at LIB. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on it.
Posted by: Bob Tarantino | 2004-09-03 12:26:41 PM
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