Tag Archives: Topic: Polygamy

The Salt Lake Tribune: A bill advancing in the Arizona Legislature would abolish the police department in Colorado City, a northern Arizona community where state Attorney General Tom Horne says officers who are followers of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs flout the law.

The Austin Daily Herald: A Hollandale man has been charged with marrying a woman even though he is already married to another. Wayne Allen DeMay, 41, faces one felony count of bigamy in Freeborn County District Court.

Religion Clause: In Brown v. Herbert, (D UT, Feb. 3, 2012), a Utah federal district court held that members of an openly polygamous family (subjects of the television show Sister Wives) have standing to bring suit against the County Attorney to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s Anti-Bigamy Statute.

Slate Magazine: History suggests that it is. A new study out of the University of British Columbia documents how societies have systematically evolved away from polygamy because of the social problems it causes. The Canadian researchers are really talking about polygyny, which is the term for one man with multiple wives, and which is by far the most common expression of polygamy.

CBC News (includes video): A Montreal couple and their son were convicted Sunday of first-degree murder in the deaths of four family members in a case the judge called “despicable,” “heinous” and stemming from “a completely twisted concept of honour.”

The Christian Institute: A pagan woman who lives with her lover and his wife, but denies it is a polygamous arrangement, has won a ‘right to family life’ immigration case.

Telegraph: Ministers are to bring to an end an “absurd” benefits regime which has seen husbands with multiple wives able to claim extra welfare payments.

Religion Clause: Blackmore claims that Bountiful split from the U.S. based FLDS church in 2002 and that its residents make up a separate religious congregation so that income from businesses in the community should be spread for tax purposes over all the residents. Canadian tax officials, on the other hand, say that Blackmore is merely the patriarch of a large polygamous family

Religion Clause Blog: Now according to yesterday’s Globe and Mail, Vancouver lawyer Peter Wilson has been named new special prosecutor by the British Columbia Criminal Justice Branch to look into sexual offenses against minors in the FLDS town of Bountiful. However his mandate does not include looking into polygamy charges.

Winnipeg Free Press: The B.C. government has several options to take last month’s B.C. Supreme Court ruling upholding Canada’s ban on polygamy to a higher court to give it more weight, even though one appeal deadline expires on Friday.

A polygamous family made famous on a reality television show is asking a Utah federal judge not to block their challenge of the state’s bigamy law.

Mirror.co.uk: But the Government has said it will not stop the controversial payments until 2013, when it will officially no longer accept group marriages for welfare handouts.

The Volokh Conspiracy: That’s the result of Mussa v. Palmer-Mussa (N.C. Ct. App. Dec. 6, 2011) (2–1 vote) . . .

Wendy Wright at Turtle Bay and Beyond: A researcher from Sweden argues that if two parents are good, then why not three? In a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Daniela Cutas is heavy on “may” and “might” conjectures and – as you’d expect – light on any evidence. As timing would have it, Cutas’ silliness was slapped down by a Canadian court when it ruled recently that polygamy is detrimental to women, children and society – basing its decision on solid evidence.

Toronto Sun: B.C. court ruling upholds polygamy ban, but does it go too far limiting religious freedom?

Payvand.com: The activists say they discovered that at least 65 male members of the country’s 290-strong parliament had two or more wives. This is despite the fact that polygamy contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Iran has ratified.

Alarabiya.net: As Moroccans begin to become more curious about their new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, it seems only appropriate to learn more about his family and meet the Moroccan premier’s wife, Nabila Benkirane, finding out how the two met.

The Christian Institute: Austin R. Nimocks, Senior Legal Counsel for the Alliance Defence Fund, said: “Some organizations claim that same-sex ‘marriage’ won’t open the door to polygamy and group marriage, but that’s what nearly happened in British Columbia. “Had marriage never been attacked there in the first place, it’s questionable whether this particular assault would have ever occurred.”

bdnews24.com: The Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) has imposed extra taxes on polygamous marriages.

The Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled that the government of Canada may continue to prohibit polygamy and polyamory–a decision that rejects an approach that could have had far-reaching effects on marriage throughout Canada and other countries.

In a 335-page decision released on Wednesday, Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled in favour of the section of the Criminal Code outlawing polygamous unions.

France24.com: France’s infamous ‘polygamous Muslim butcher’ was back in the headlines Monday, this time because two of his supposed wives were caught wearing the niqab, or full Muslim veil, on the school run. The development is the latest twist in a surreal tale that we have yet to hear the last of.

Tomorrow, November 23, Chief Justice Bauman of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, will render his decision in the Constitutional Reference on Polygamy.

Joe Darger is a polygamist with three wives — Alina and identical twins, Vicki and Valerie. Together, they are raising 24 children.

Is the prospect of group marriage far-fetched? Probably not. There are several avenues that could soon lead to legal recognition of unions involving three or more people.

LifeSiteNews.com: Reports from some northern Indian states that have the worst gender imbalance in the country due to sex-selective abortion say that “wife-sharing” among brothers is becoming a common occurrence.

But this strange state of affairs also presents an opportunity: as the economy evolves, it’s time to embrace new ideas about romance and family—and to acknowledge the end of “traditional” marriage as society’s highest ideal.

NC Family Policy Council: On July 12, 2011, Kody Brown and his “wives” stood before the cameras to announce that they were filing a lawsuit challenging Utah’s antipolygamy law . . .

ABC News: The common perception of polygamy is that men pick out the women they want to marry. But at Centennial Park, a polygamist community in Arizona, the opposite is true: It’s up to the women to choose their husbands with the help of God, a choice that has brought tension into the household of Michael, Rose, Connie and Teresa.

The Washington Post: The family from cable television’s polygamous “Sister Wives” reality show has told a federal judge in Utah how much they’ve been hurt by the threat of prosecution under the state’s bigamy law.

Fox Nation: A father’s complaint that his daughter’s homework promotes the Muslim faith could lead to a lesson change in Cobb County.

The Australian (carrying a story from The Times) today reports that Britain is experiencing an unexpected rise in polygamy among young Muslims. Even though polygamy is illegal in Britain, it is permitted under Shariah law and accepted in many Muslim communities.

Religion Clause Blog: In Adgeh v. Oklahoma, (10th Cir., Sept. 8, 2011), the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in a brief opinion (after refusing to hear oral argument in the case) rejected as frivolous a claim that Oklahoma’s statute barring polygamy is unconstitutional.

Joseph Farah at The big same-sex marriage lie: I have to laugh every time a same-sex marriage apologist suggests a society can somehow, arbitrarily, without consequences and further confusion, redefine marriage as an institution between two people of either sex.

And countless studies have shown that, the more polygamous a society, the more aggressive its males. Polygamous hunter-gather societies are absurdly violent. Why?

A law professor attempts to use a homosexual rights ruling to defend a polygamous family in Utah.

CSMonitor.com: The Texas trial of Warren Jeffs should shine a spotlight on the global problem of child marriages, and efforts to prevent them.

Associated Press: Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs broke his silence Friday, delivering before jurors a 55-minute sermon defending plural marriage as ordered by God and protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Testimony by Ed Whelan before Congressat EPPC: I will briefly explain in my testimony why I oppose S. 598 and why I support the continuation in law of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”). S. 598 should also be understood in the broader political context of the Obama administration’s stealth campaign to induce the courts to invalidate DOMA and to invent a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. I will therefore discuss more extensively how, even before its February announcement of its formal decision to abandon defending DOMA, the Obama administration’s Department of Justice was systematically sabotaging its supposed defense of DOMA.

OneNewsNow.com: “We are seeing growing evidence that the polygamists are moving forward in their attempts to redefine marriage to being more than one spouse,” the Focus spokesperson warns. “To use the same-sex ‘marriage’ arguments will be one of the best ways that they will be able to achieve that.”

Cristina Odon at The Telegraph: A Government “discussion paper” seen by Paul Goodman of Conservative Home argues that, to create “the conditions for integration”, all religious marriages should be recognised by the state.

Telegraph: Ministers have ruled out legalising polygamy after a leaked Whitehall paper suggested multiple Islamic marriages could be officially recorded by the state.

One might expect the civil liberties community to defend those cases as a natural extension of its campaign for greater privacy and personal choice.

Brian Raum at Human Events: Marriage supporters have warned for years that fabricating same-sex “marriage” will only serve to usher in more and more assaults on the foundational building block of society. And now, in a perfect yet appalling example of what’s been foretold, polygamist Kody Brown is chasing the success of the homosexual agenda in New York State by filing a lawsuit to strike down the laws against polygamy in an effort to save himself and his four “wives” from prosecution.

International News Network: A vast majority of young Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia disapprove of the traditional acceptance of polygamy. They are, however, reluctant to openly support interfaith marriages or premarital sex, says a new survey.

NPR (includes audio): The latest episode in Sister Wives is playing out in the courtroom, not on cable. On Wednesday, the Brown family — the husband, four wives, and 16 children who star in the reality TV show — plans to file a lawsuit in federal court in Utah. The family members say the state’s anti-bigamy law is unconstitutional and that Supreme Court precedent backs them up.

Ralph Richard Banks at NYTimes.com: The cases against polygamy and incest are not nearly as strong as most people imagine. Yet they will not become legal anytime soon. To see why, it helps to understand the evolution of moral assessments of interracial and same-sex marriage.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2011: A bill on “Marriage and Family” seeking to legalize polygamous marriages returned to parliament in 2008. But once again it failed to pass after coming under strong criticism from female lawmakers, notably Bakhyt Syzdykova, a young deputy and woman’s rights activist.

Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy: In Friday’s Ex Parte E.R.G., the Alabama Supreme Court struck down the Alabama grandparent visitation statute, holding that it violated the rights of parents. The decision was a splintered 4–3-2 decision, which reflects the Supreme Court’s splintered decision in Troxel v. Granville (2000) — which held that some such laws are unconstitutional, but didn’t decide whether all such laws are unconstitutional. And the opinion among state courts is likewise splintered. I hope to have a chance to blog about this in the next few days. But for now, I just wanted to note this passage from Justice Parker’s concurrence (which also contains various assertions about the Christian basis of American law) . . .

UPI: A Turkish family consultant says legalizing polygamy would protect women who are already involved in what are in effect polygamous marriages.

The Post.ie: The government has been told that it may be risking causing offence to Muslims living in Ireland who wish to engage in polygamous marriages.

AFP: A young Egyptian woman whose complicated love life led to Muslim-Christian clashes that killed 15 people in Cairo was arrested on Thursday and charged with polyandry, a judicial source told AFP.

AP on Google: An internal tug-of-war over control of jailed polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs’ southern Utah-based church may force Utah courts to walk a constitutional tightrope that experts say could tread a little too close to separation of church and state.

Canada.com: Today’s judges are making decisions that should be in the domain of our elected representatives. Do we want a judge in British Columbia rewriting our 121-year-old law banning polygamy? Should an Ontario judge be responsible for the decriminalization of cannabis? An elected bench would be democratically accountable to the public.

UGPulse.com: The marriage and divorce bill coalition has called for the outlawing of polygamy. The group of representatives from over 40 women and civil society organisations made the call while appearing before the legal and Parliamentary affairs committee.

LocalNews8.com: A federal appeals court is blocking a federal judge in Utah from handing control of a communal land trust back to leaders of Warren Jeffs’ polygamous church.

Russell Nieli at Public Discourse: While often hostile to the Calvinist Christianity in which he was reared, David Hume’s essay “Of Polygamy and Divorces” offers a vigorous and well-argued defense of marriage arrangements as they existed in England and many other parts of Europe from the early Middle Ages through most of the 18th century. His arguments have great relevance for us today as we struggle to cope with unprecedented rates of divorce and unprecedented ease of both entering into and exiting marriages and other intimate procreative relationships. His arguments against polygamy are also important as that practice seems to be undergoing something of a resurgence in parts of the southwest, with renewed interest in the popular culture.

Chuck Colson at LifeSiteNews: The supreme irony here of course, is that liberal elites, including professors at Brown University, my alma mater, have been leading the charge for sexual license, feminine autonomy, and of course, so-called same-sex “marriage.” And now, suddenly, they are bumping up against reality and the logical consequences of their own ideas. In this case, polygamy’s exploitation of the women who have been promoting sexual freedom.

Anthony Esolen at Public Discourse: In other words, let the sexual revolution be justified on grounds of the common good. I believe it fails that test miserably, with evidence that is weighty, obvious, manifold, logically and anthropologically deducible, and clearly predictable by wisdom both pagan and Christian. Let them make their case, rather than asserting a principle that, in reality, would destroy the very idea of the common good. For if we cannot appeal to the common good in a matter so fundamental, I do not see how we can appeal to it in any other.

Forbes: Third District Judge Denise Lindberg has been ordered appear Monday and explain why she sought to block a federal court ruling giving the trust back to church leaders.

Reuters: A Canadian law criminalizing polygamy is not unlike the country’s stance on homosexuality, which was decriminalized in 1969, a lawyer for members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints told a British Columbia court yesterday.

Pravda: The debate regarding officially allowing polygamy in Russia has been going on for years. The main arguments in favor of polygamy are the existing families with multiple wives, whose position is now not protected by law, as well as shortage of men. Perhaps the fate of the third or fourth wife is better than being alone?

The Canadian Press: A lawyer for so-called polyamorists says their non-religious, egalitarian relationships are the “Achilles heel” in the governments’ defence of the anti-polygamy law.

East Valley Tribune: “Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed legislation designed to shield people from being disciplined professionally because of their religious views, at least in part over the issue of polygamy.”

CTV.ca: A lawyer arguing against Canada’s law barring polygamy says the ban is a relic of another time that violates freedom of religion.

Islamist Watch: In 2008, the Toronto Sun reported that “hundreds of [Greater Toronto Area] Muslim men in polygamous marriages — some with a harem of wives — are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say.” . . . Instead, welfare abuse by Muslims appears to have metastasized across the Western world. Almost three years later, news stories about radical Muslims — often immigrants — engaged in social benefits scams emerge regularly from Europe, Canada, and Australia. Even when they are not involved in fraud, Muslims frequently are overrepresented on welfare rolls, compared with other communities. The statistics from around the globe are jaw-dropping, especially in economically uncertain times.

Toronto Star: A lawyer fighting to overturn Canada’s ban on polygamy is urging a judge not to base his decision on what may be criminal behaviour by some of the residents of a polygamous commune in B.C. George Macintosh, a government-appointed lawyer . . .

Reuters: “Religious rights are being weighed against those of women and children in a landmark Canadian court case deciding if the country’s long-standing law against polygamy should be struck down.”

Rose McDermott writes at the Wall Street Journal (via Google): Polygamy—or more specifically polygyny, the marriage of one man to more than one woman—has been widespread in human history. And it is becoming increasingly common, particularly in Muslim enclaves—including in Paris, London and New York.

The Christian Legal Fellowship will present its closing statement in the Constitutional Reference on Polygamy tomorrow before the Supreme Court of British Columbia at or around 10am pst in courtroom 55; interested individuals may view the closing statements via live webcast . . .

Carolyn Castiglia writes at Babble.com: In 2008, when California first sanctioned gay marriage, many people argued that “the California Supreme Court’s legal reasoning could be applied to polygamous and incestuous marriages.” Glen Lavy of the right-wing Alliance Defense Fund wrote in the LA Times, “Although some proponents of same-sex “marriage” have been trying to distance themselves from polygamy, it is, and long has been, defended by powerful voices like the American Civil Liberties Union.” . . . No one wants to see incest supported by society, but victims of GSA need some level of sympathy. After all, if your child was conceived using a donor embryo and he or she wishes to meet her biological parents someday, there’s a 50% chance they’ll experience some level of obsession or Genetic Sexual Attraction, too.

The Province: “The closing arguments are being broadcast virtually live on webcam after B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman approved a media application by the CBC. The courtroom was packed as the submissions got under way Monday. The final arguments are expected to run two weeks.” | Live Streaming

CTVBC.ctv.ca (video): A lawyer for the B.C. government warns that making Canada the only western country to legalize polygamy would make more victims out of society’s most vulnerable people.

C-FAM: The cohesion of the American family is about the worst in the world, according to a new UN report. Rather than recommending policies reinforcing traditional family roles, the study recommends social policies reflecting the new reality . . . he report promotes the concept of “social fatherhood,” which “encompasses the care and support of males for children who are not necessarily their biological offspring.”

Valerie Richardson writes at the Washington Times: “Unlike same-sex marriage, which has no historical roots and is a new frontier — you can’t say the same thing about polygamy,” said Austin Nimocks, attorney for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which opposes same-sex marriage. “There’s a cultural underpinning and support for plural marriage, so one could say the case is actually stronger for plural marriage.”