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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Polygamy allowed ‘limited’ status
I was just channel surfing and came across the CBC’s 5th Estate doing a story on Winston Blackmore from the polygomous community of Bountiful, B.C. with the usual CBC stuff:
Hana Gartner sat down with the then-Bishop of Bountiful
in an exclusive interview to talk about his life there, his 26 wives
and 80 children, his faith, and allegations of child brides and of
abuse in the church’s chapter in Canada.
Then low and behold this bit of breaking news:
The former Liberal government long maintained that
polygamy is criminal in Canada but documents obtained by Sun Media
under Access to Information show that polygamous marriages have been
recognized “for limited purposes” to enforce the financial obligations
of husbands.
Religious organizations say same-sex marriage opened the door to
decriminalizing polygamy, and worry that formal recognitions of plural
marriages will weaken the government’s ability to defend the
anti-polygamy law if it faces a constitutional challenge on religious
grounds. A polygamist from Bountiful, British Columbia has warned he
will fight for his constitutional right to have plural wives on
religious grounds. (h/t Cybermenace)
In the CBC documentary Winston Blackmore asks if its about sex,
whats the difference between what he is doing and the legal wife
swapping clubs? Remember the judges statement on that bit - Moral views, even if strongly held, do not suffice.
Winston’s lawyers are going to use the charter.
Posted by Darcey on May 31, 2006 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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» But Its Certainly Not the Next Step! from The American Princess
Apparently, Big Love is more than just a Gray's Anatomy substitute north of the 49th. Canada has been making limited allowances for polygamy. Welcome to the snowball.... [Read More]
Tracked on 2006-06-01 8:49:42 PM
Comments
So if SSM is in why not polygamy?
Can SS Polygamy be far behind?
Horny toad
Posted by: Horny Toad | 2006-05-31 11:43:42 PM
So if SSM is in why not polygamy?
Can SS Polygamy be far behind?
Horny toad
Posted by: Horny Toad | 2006-05-31 11:44:44 PM
"Can SS polygamy be far behind?"
Apparently not. In the same Fifth Estate piece, Gartner asks Blackmore if he was aware that two of his 26 wives had in fact, gotten married?
There was no denial and this takes us back to the Supreme Court which recently decided that 3'somes and up are fine, as long as it's all consenting adults.
Canada. Such a fine country.
Posted by: Randy | 2006-06-01 2:23:02 AM
Let me state I have only one wife and that is plenty as it all I can stand. When this S.S.M. was made legal I said next multi wives would be next. I took a lot of heat for that but suprise suprise now what did I see on the Socialist Network.
With a little web site surfing and lots of time I am not sure if having multi wives is morally wrong but sure isn't bright.
2 0r 3 years ago I wrote an story about this subject to stir things up on a quiet day but as I look at the subject I find more and more evidence that the anti polgamy rule was developed for inhaatince purposes only.
Posted by: Carl Roy | 2006-06-01 4:54:07 AM
Another blast from the future? Will the next Red Book include a pledge to lower the age of consent that those Neanderthal Tories want to raise?
http://tinyurl.com/mrrph
Posted by: Drained Brain | 2006-06-01 8:58:56 AM
I am surprised that anyone would be surprised. The legalization of SSM threw the door wide open, and to try to argue that different combinations of people must remain illegal is nonsense and useless. In truth the demise of traditional marriage started with legal acceptance of 'common-law', with SSM being the next logical step.
Posted by: verdad | 2006-06-01 12:00:21 PM
Undoubtedly I sound very preachy and hyper religious, which is not how I view myself, but I really do believe all of our problems stem from the actual fact of dramatic deterioration in simple basic moral standards of chastity before marriage and cultural reinforcement and honor for adhering to marriage vows, really through the thick and thin, until death do you part.
It is all about self control and acknowledging human weakness but having a community support for the concepts and virtues which hold families and communities (and nations) together.
It is very tough to hold even obvious important values in face of the fact that all the results of bad behavior heap burden on the backs of those few who persevere and then live as virtual outcasts in the now hostile "community."
We really have to help our own children in every way possible and bolster and exhalt everyone who is in fact pulling an oar and keeping our society on coarse.
I realize nobody cares, but I blame the Roman Catholic Church for all of this. They have the core traditions in absolute terms, with the crystal clear understanding of human nature's propensity to screw up, all offset and accomodated by a "Sacramental" mechanism for counsel and foregivness (now nearly extinct).
All of this has been eroded if not trashed by the last four or five foolish popes, seeking "modern" popularity, while also being so obviously homosexaully conflicted and burdened themselves. These problems of our nations are not fixed by elected officials but by religious Faith and knowledge. You guys have a bunch of Atheism to deal with, we have phony "religion" rather than sober guiding uplifting Faith.
Look after your families, with encouragement about their Spiritual life.
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2006-06-01 12:15:53 PM
Conrad, what sort of preachy, hyper religious guy are you? Your first paragraph summarizes certain RC teachings quite nicely. Which begs the question: why the anti-RC tirade at the end of post? You seem to have at least a few (fundamental) viewpoints in common.
Posted by: Ham | 2006-06-01 2:00:18 PM
Somebody want to tell me what exactly is the real problem here?
Even if polygamy-by-government-marriage-contract is not permitted, nobody can stop consenting adults from entering into polyamorous relationships if they want to.
Matter fo fact, I'm performing a handfasting for a same-sex couple who also happen to be polyamorous. I'm doing this in Washington State, where same sex marriage isn't even allowed yet. And I'm doing it this summer.
Oddly enough, there are no guns involved, and no one is being forced into anything. No harm is being done to anyone.
So what the fuck is the problem?
Posted by: Chimera | 2006-06-01 2:20:21 PM
Honestly, if all parties are of legal age and give full consent, what does it matter if they are polygamous or not? What effect does it have on you?
As for same sex marriage...I think it is absolutely ridiculous to deny them that right. And don't go on about 'it's a privilege not a right' because I've seen many many many heterosexual couples make a mockery of that 'privilege' well enough.
Posted by: himbly | 2006-06-01 5:00:37 PM
Conrad,
are you suggesting that the Church is not rigid enough?
Posted by: himbly | 2006-06-01 5:02:43 PM
karol karolak
Although I didn't ferret through your several web site links (I trust you to logically support your argument) I see your overview discussion of this issue as excellent "Internet" scholarship.
I used the scare quotes around Internet, in the manner I would in discussing any sort of open forum debate of mainly opinions versus facts. Don't misunderstand, I value opinion highly. I view the opinion as the basis or essence of human culture.
It seems to me that your opinion is well informed and important. An argument aimed right squarely at an issue which we debate down here (during our best days) about "Originalists" (i.e. members or nominees for our Supreme Court, or any Civil Court, who understand that they must endeavor to adhere to the original intent, or the plain language, of our Constitution when deciding legal issues) versus the modern day Liberals (i.e. Communists, essence of evil, scum of the earth, etc.) who want to unhinge society in order to serve their immediate purpose without concern for the continuity or just development of human society.
I don't quite know your legal system (Hell, I don't quite know my own), but it seems you are pointing out a situation where your entire legal system has been eclipsed by a crazy new "law" (it has to be "unconstitutional"? is that a concept in Canadian law?) has thrown out the entire body of fundamental human family law! At least down here we can in fact ultimately get Originalist jurists to dismantle those kind of insane actions which Liberals can temporarily construct. Can you do the same in Canada?
Then your seemingly little "shot" at me, suggesting that I lead an unexamined intellectual life (within my capacity), seems to have missed the mark.
I like old Benjamin Franklin, and guys like him coming to my defense. He said: "The sting in a rebuke, is the Truth."
You know that I'm a "sensitive guy" and yet still feeling no pain in LA.
Ham
We each get an opportunity to be children, then potentially we can experience being adult. As adults we might become parents and grandparents, or we might age and otherwise grow in experience unmarried, and/or childless. There are lots of ways to develop insight and knowledge and experience.
Actual human life experience is a valid and good teacher.
The traditional nuclear and extended human family has proven an enduringly successful means of restraining and expanding the capacity of mankind.
There really is a lot wrong with and dangerous about human "family" couplings or groupings, especially those which have no record of success.
Do you actually find that the odd pairings or clusterings which you say you are participating in, produce a postive result, and for everyone effected and for an extended period of time?
As an adult do you think it is important to be "responsible" as a societal value?
Himbly -
What I said to Ham also addresses some of your comment. I don't have the facility to access or throw down relevant web links to bolster my point (I should endeavor to learn how because there are some which I know of that would stand your hair on end), but I've experienced and come very close (encounters) to just devastating results of weird "family" groupings of the type you seem to naively approve.
I percieve that you are female. It is so vital that you have the sense to preserve and protect human life. Can you perhaps reconnect with your parents and explore their thinking on these issues? How did you get to be here, without their "protection" (not necessarily their perfection).
And finally, himbly,
Absolutely! I think the Catholic Church should be completely rigid as a teaching authority, charged with carrying forth Truth.
The Truth is the goal. Humans are not the Truth. We seek Truth and we emulate Truth. Failure, individual or collective or massive does not invalidate the goal.
But somebody (our "corporate" enduring institutions) must teach Truth. First it is parents, but then the Church, and hopefully good governmental institutions.
We each have responsibility in that effort. If we are actually adults we "cannot" act in an unthinking manner, just for our own interests.
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2006-06-01 6:33:56 PM
Conrad,
I have just received some bad news so I don't have the time or concentration to go into this too deeply. I just have to tell you that your response to me had to be both the most condescending and least meaningful response I've seen...well...in a long while. Yes, you got the female part right, but 'reconnect with my parents' and 'naively approve'?? How can you possibly make judgements like that? Oh, yes...that's right...that's all you're doing. Judgments without good information or common sense. Just pass a judgement because you feel icky that others may not see life the same way you do.
I'll probably come back to address things further, but for now I'm leaving it at that.
Posted by: himbly | 2006-06-01 9:21:47 PM
I watched this show at least twice and I was appalled by the level of arrogance of this Winston Blackmore guy - he knew pretty well that nobody would punish him, no matter what.
The 5th Estate's take was that what he was doing was damaging to so many people, and that they kinda supported the position of one of his former wives, who escaped Bountiful and started a new life and a campaign against her own ex-husband.
The show clearly demonstrated that the government did not do anything for years to stop this atrocity, though they were definitely aware of what was going on.
Posted by: Acer | 2006-06-01 10:50:47 PM
Ham -
Somehow I mixed up or combined your comment with that which - Chimera - wrote on this topic. Sorry if my confusion maligned what you said.
My invective regarding the Catholic Church is somewhat of a compliment to Hillary Clinton's notion that "It Takes A Village" to raise children (I think Hillary is spectacularly full of beans). But, in a modern Western Nations setting, particularly America and Canada, where there is real geographic mobility, I think the importance of cultural institutions, such as the Church is magnified. So when the Church becomes "Liberal" or the priests become queer (and thus fundamentally incapable of interacting with a normal human family: husband, wife, father, mother, son, daughter) rather than normal men who have in fact profoundly GIVEN UP something fundamental of their lives (e.g. their own family prospects) in order to serve as a spiritual father of a human family (the Church), then we "find out" the a heretofore trusted institution is actually just a cleverly concealed and extreme source of corruption, if not merely a source of "encouragement" for all manner of selfishness and family discord.
We had the last four or five popes who turned the Catholic Church into an emotional girly popularity contest rather than a source of strength appealing to enduring unchanging Truth needed to bolster human beings and families in storm raveged modern societies.
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2006-06-02 8:27:49 AM
Conrad:
It sound that, like Prince Charles of England, you need to reconnect with your inner Orthodoxy. Start your search with the word Pentarchy.
Anyway, back on topic about equalities and legalities.
I have often used the technique of taking arguments to their apparent logical conclusion by finding an absurd application.
Such was the intent in the previous daycare debate.
It seems much of the focus today is about natural and unnatural acts.
Which leads me to this proposition in the very technique of activists.
As I man, I find it patently unfair that I am unable to become impregnated, carry a child for nine months deliver it and nurture it with my milk.
The only solution I see to this conundrum is to agitate our government until they succumb to our wishes, as they must do in a democracy.
First, we will protest on Parliament Hill about how unfair it is, at least in the egalitarian sense where all human beings must have the same opportunity.
After drawing attention from the doltish MSM, we will get our message out. That will create the impression this issue is important to all Canadians, not just a small band of kooks.
Our intent, of course, would be to pressure the government to make us stop our protest. They would appease us only when a law is passed that all men, being created equal to woman, have an inherent right to bear children.
And, once that law is finally passed, I will await my bundle of joy. After an evening of mad, passionate sex of course.
If the law is not passed in my lifetime, I will at least be satisfied that I have left my natural-born, yet egalitarian-challenged child that he too, someday may look forward to the day where he can be equal to women in all senses.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-06-02 9:39:07 AM
SSM = the struggle of religious rights over individual rights
polygamy = the struggle of individual rights over religious rights
I know you people hate facts and reason - faith and witchcraft is more your style - but I thought I'd point out that SMM and POLYGAMY have NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER.
Please return to your regularly scheduled ShotDumb.
Posted by: Justin... | 2006-06-02 11:48:45 AM
Justin:
Your posts= a complete inability to understand the forces of nature.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-06-02 11:56:02 AM
Justin,
You're and idiot, as usual.
I support SSM myself. I do not support polygamy. I assume you agree with this.
That said your assertion that they are unrelated is flat wrong. They are identical in their reasons and arguments. Either society is allowed to discriminate against all forms of relationships except those that we define as marriage or you do not. If you do not, you can't deny polygamy equal status as SSM. I don't see how you can offer SSM but not polygamy.
Take every argument used by the SSM set to argue for inclusiveness and they all work for polygamy. Every one.
The (non-religious) arguments against polygamy are of the same nature as that against SSM. They are statements of values, morality and standards. If the values, morality and standards of those against SSM are not enough to outweigh the rights of SS couples to get what they want, your values (and mine) are not enough to outweigh the rights of polygamous groups to get what they want.
Posted by: Warwick | 2006-06-02 12:00:03 PM
Given that this is the place where I was seeing the proposition "one man can impregnate many wombs" given the big thumbs-up last week, I'm not sure why some of the same people are bitching about polygamy this week.
Oh that's right, I forgot. This is the Shotgun, the place where logical consistency went to die...
Posted by: Jim in Toronto | 2006-06-02 11:38:22 PM
karol karolak -- You're too kind, finding room for admiration of "other qualities" among a "typically arrogant and ignorant" population.
It seems my assertion that Roman Catholic philosophy impacting western civilization (up to the change to modernist/collectivist/feminist thinking which characterizes the Post Vatican II Councilar Catholic Church) was too blunt or broad brushed for your more nuanced analysis.
That the Catholic Church was a major force in western civilization, centered on their enduring ability to hold to and communicate Absolute Truths (and particularly difficult for the modernist were those truths dealing with human sexuality, human family formation, the sanctity of innocent human life from the moment of conception to the natural demise, and the responsibility of those who might engage in sexual activity which may produce a child, and the immorality of disordered/homosexual activity).
The recognition and appreciation of Absolute Truth is a hallmark of America historical development, most obvious in the civil government recognized concept of a Creator in direct communion with individual human beings. This concept was held longest and best by Catholic Church philosophy, with tremendous enduring impact on American civil laws.
It is the modernist atheist philosophy of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trudeauxism, which is truly arrogant, because the individual, who is obviously physically subservient to the group or the gang or the mob or the polygamous herd or the (yuck) government, can most certainly snuff out those "arrogant" opinions of individual human rights borne of Truth.
Was it Pilate who asked: "What is truth?" An early Liberal?
The arrogance you evidently find and disdain in me is Catholic philosphy, and my constant distress with a Church clergy-episocpacy thoroughly polluted with homosexuals who "give up" nothing of their terribly psychologically troubled lives in order to pretend to celebacy, all the while wearing expensive fancy dresses.
Homosexuals are "super-girls" amazingly "attractive" to silly modernist-feminist "women" who wish to compare themselves "equally" to "males" (i.e. homosexuals and metrosexuals) while having zero understanding or appreciation for normal men (or women).
When I first joined in reading this web site, I was thrilled to find that the unrelentingly repeated "hatred" that Canadians felt for Americans was actually just a northern version of the fraud which the "main stream media" perpetrates upon society. I also found to my profound amazement, that many Canadian folks, who were seemingly entirely conservative ("normal" is my preferred styling) were also famously Atheist! I'd never actually met an Atheist who wasn't a government employee or other similarly low life creature. It turns out, to my ignorant dim lights, that Atheists even in Canada are actually just still a Liberal variant, with "ideas" like polygamy and same sex marriage, as a contribution to the huge duty of adult humanity to prepare for and carry on into the future "for our children" (to quote Hillary and the other truth-telling Saints of Liberalism).
Posted by: Conrad-USA | 2006-06-03 8:12:02 AM
Conrad:
What you have been articulating is today's struggle between the church and state religions.
The atheists/secular humanists are natural inheritors of the Marxist philosophy and, in some ways the concept of egalitarianism that was prevalent in the French Revolution.
There's a marked difference in styles between the two camps.
One of the basic tenets of Christianity is to love your enemy. It grew from scientific observations of the world around us when humanity was earthbound and I'll give an astounding example of this spirit later on.
Secular humanism praises those who can slag the enemy. And, the enemy is all who do not tow the line to their particular worldview. Taken to an extreme, this fundamental intolerance means the imposition of their beliefs can only be achieved through violent means.
Christianity recognizes there are powerful forces in nature that we still cannot define, but at some point could be defined. Like nature, man is also eternal and his physical manifestation is just a blink of an eye in the history of creation.
Each human is given the ability to discover universal truths at their own pace, a sort of autocratic self-rule. Societies are built first through families, then communities, then nations of individuals who have come to the same conclusion, a bottom-up type of rule.
Secular humanist purports that each human life has a finite beginning and end and all religious revelations are some sort of mythology created by a less-advanced peoples. This though has cross-bred the concepts of evolution and progress into a belief that creates its own mythology about an issue it does not want to address – creation.
Secular humanists are very effective communicators and, even though internally indecisive on many issues, use this conundrum not to unite humanity, but to create doubts within its opponents mindset ... a divide and conquer tactic.
Yet, the price for their philosophy is giving up their gift of reasoning. To obtain power, they must subjugate themselves to the system and lose all their individuality.
One of their most effective wedge issues has been the Darwinism question, where secular humanists have effectively defined themselves, through the courts, as on the side of science over superstition.
Yet, it was the church, or temple, from its earliest time, who were the real scientists.
OK, here is the scientific proof religion knows more than secular humanism can ever hope to achieve.
In Genesis, what is meant by the phrase let there be light?
It certainly cannot be the light from the sun. That (Gen 1:13) was only created on the third day. Now days, for all the secular humanists out there, are not measured in the same way as we do today, based on the rotation of the sun around the earth.
It can't be, since the terminology ‘day' came before the billions of years that everybody knows the earth has existed for.
So, what is this mysterious light mentioned in Gen 1:3, in the so-called mythology written by Moses?
Go back to the triumphal period of secular humanist science, when it delared it had unlocked the final secret of the universe.
What, you haven't heard about the atom? In Wikipedia, it's an ancient Greek word meaning the smallest possible part. And, it was used at the time as a propoganda tool to show the triumph of science over the mumbo-jumbo Christians, who were also dealt a bodyblow on the question of evolution.
Yet, by defining itself in this triumphant way, the inevitable loss of credibility followed as a nucleus ... then neutrons, protons and electrons were discovered.
This was no surprise to Christians who had read Genesis.
They knew there was yet another level to be discovered, three layers of infinity smaller than what had already been not only declared, but named as the smallest indivisible part of the physical world.
So, when quantum physics theorists disovered what they named quarks, electrical impulses at the very core, Christians knew their soulmates, the scientists, were coming closer to the ultimate truth of scientific discovery.
What's yet to be defined is how the apparently random behaviour of the quarks are actually behaving in a perfectly ordered manner ... otherwise the universe could also behave in a random manner.
Let there be light is a brilliant scientific observation from thousands of years ago. You know, at a time which was less progressive that today's perfect world as defined by the gurus of secular humanism.
We all know know light is generated through the harnessing of electricity. Before all this old ‘mythology' was written down, there had been an oral tradition.
Even the most ignorant caveman knew that there must have been some type of invisible force when he gazed into the sky on a rainy day and saw lightning.
That light was not from the sun, it was from electical generation. It is around us always.
Secular humanists would like us to deny this inherent knowledge, this scientific curiosity that's within all of us.
Instead, they must willingly give up their free will for a formula of power through putdown.
Atheists of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your slavery. You can gain knowledge through your own efforts, not from some list you got from your university professor.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-06-03 9:19:07 AM
IMO, legalization of SSM and 'multi spouse marriage' is a cover-up for the attempt to enrich lawyers and consolidate wealth at the expense of families. The acceptance of any living arrangement being a family has the lawyers rubbing their hands in glee. Ever notice the unhealthy, cosy relationships judges have with lawyers?
Posted by: jema54j | 2006-06-03 11:36:32 AM
conrad:
Follow the example of Prince Charles of England and find your inner Orthodoxy.
The four remainins pillars of the ancient church would have checked any arrogance that crept up in Rome, had Rome been humble enough to understand the group also works in its interest and had not exercised its option to go it alone.
History is laid out, plain to see, for anybody willing to search.
Posted by: Set you free | 2006-06-03 12:14:50 PM
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