Tag Archives: Topic: Polygamy

Vancouver Sun: “A B.C. judge has approved the use of TV cameras and webcams to cover the closing arguments of the case examining the constitutionality of Canada’s anti-polygamy laws.”

Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Ho’s health is declining, and his succession plan has run off the rails. He has at least 16 children by four women, three of whom are alive and retain the title of “Mrs. Ho.” The four families are jostling for control of his assets, estimated at more than $3 billion.”

Toronto Star: “Only in Canada would this be a matter of constitutional challenge—which just goes to show how far the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been co-opted, manipulated, to turn fundamental concepts on their head in the ever-unravelling tapestry of classic Western democracy . . . While practitioners of plural marriage . . . have come forward to defend their lifestyle . . . so, too, have misguided sectarian allies added their support for striking down a law they claim criminalizes unconventional relationships.”

Vancouver Sun: “It is no secret that there are child brides and teen mothers in the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C., and that many of them are illegal immigrants from the United States . . . The numbers come from the B.C. Vital Statistics Agency and were filed as an affidavit last week in B.C. Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Robert Bauman is hearing a constitutional reference case to determine whether Canada’s polygamy law is valid.”

Montreal Gazette: “A woman from the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C., told a Vancouver courtroom Wednesday she wasn’t worried about her husband marrying a 15-year-old girl because she ‘seemed very responsible.’ The 24-year-old mother, who was married at 17, made the comment during her cross-examination at the polygamy trial in B.C. Supreme Court.”

Vancouver Sun: Child brides forced to make a marriage choice

Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, is interviewed in the Houston Chronicle. Here is an excerpt: “In the 1980s, the Anglican community started to wrestle with the issue of polygamy in Africa. Polygamy is not an issue here, except in very small pockets of Utah and Arizona, and the church has taken a very different position. We said no. In Africa, the church doesn’t officially recognize polygamy. They certainly have polygamous members of their churches. In some places, they say the man can’t take additional wives once he becomes a Christian, but he isn’t forced to divorce the wives he already has. The children generally are recognized as full members if they want to be baptized.” | Via Damian Thompson.

BBC: “Years of conflict in Iraq have left the country with more than one million war widows and a shortage of young unmarried men – pressures that may be bringing about the return of polygamy.”

Global Toronto: “A B.C. courtroom will hear testimony this week from women living in the secretive polygamous commune of Bountiful.”

Euractiv: “Nearly 187,000 women in Turkey, a candidate country for EU membership, are in polygamous marriages despite the practice being illegal in the country, a report has revealed.”

Times of India: “In a new study, scientists at the Centre for Evolutionary Biology, University of Western Australia, have found being polygamous could be more than being monogamous, when it comes to fertilization. The team discovered that sperm from polygamous mice are better competitors in the race for fertilisation.”

Experimental evolution of sperm competitiveness in a mammal

Vancouver Sun: “A polygamous mother from Utah on Wednesday agreed to lift an anonymity order and testify using her name at the polygamy trial in B.C. Supreme Court. Alina Darger, who has seven children, spoke glowingly of her experiences growing up in a polygamous family and as one of three sister wives to her current husband.”

NewsDay: “Polygamy is an institution that has survived many centuries and despite the campaigns to do away with this practice, it is still deeply rooted in Zimbabwe.”

The Canadian Press: “Residents of a fundamentalist Mormon sect in the small British Columbia commune of Bountiful believe they are adhering to the original word of the religion’s prophet, says a former plural wife and advocate of polygamy.”

CKNW: “Carolyn Jessop recounted how she escaped her abusive husband, and the community of Colorado City, Arizona in april of 2003. She loaded up all eight of her kids into an uninsured van and drove away with the lights off. She described the terror she felt every time a car approached her vehicle, convinced it was someone coming to force her back.”

The Vancouver Sun: “Evidence so far has been overwhelming that polygamy is inherently harmful both to individuals and to society. That’s the bar that government lawyers must leap in order for Chief Justice Robert Bauman of the B.C. Supreme Court to conclude that it’s okay to override the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and freedom of expression.”

Winnipeg Free Press: “A law professor says polygamy has been defined as a crime in western cultures for centuries because it has been considered ‘unnatural and dangerous.’”

The Globe and Mail: “A landmark court proceeding to weigh the constitutionality of Canada’s polygamy law resumed Wednesday with testimony from a religious scholar who said fundamentalist Mormon beliefs do not provide for someone to be forced into a polygamous relationship.”

Kuwait Times: “A women’s group campaigning to stop polygamous marriages among Israeli bedouin is running into strong resistance from Islamic groups and even some politicians.”

Kenji Yoshino writing at Slate: “[T]hose who have propounded trans-historical, much less eternal, definitions of marriage have often been time’s fools. Fifty years from now, I expect new challenges will be made to the definition of marriage. Yes, such challenges could take the form of challenges to recognize polygamous marriages (in fact, such challenges would not be new, as they were made on grounds of the free exercise of religion in the 19th century) . . .  I refuse to answer the question ‘What is marriage?’ by saying ‘Marriage is one thing, always and everywhere, for all people.’ I regard that refusal as a strength, rather than as a weakness, of my position, as I do not think we stand at the end of history today.”

Indian Express: “A Bangladeshi man was clubbed to death allegedly by his four wives for cheating on them by keeping his marriages a secret.”

ynetnews.com: “Local Bedouin newspaper sparks calls on single Bedouin women who are over 30 to consider polygamous marriages, saying ‘it’s the Sharia solution’ . . . As polygamy is illegal in Israel, the people behind the ad campaign refuse to reveal their identities, but sign the ad as The Negev Committee for Women’s Rights.”

Salt Lake Tribune: “A judge has reversed a custody order barring a Juab County man from talking to his children about his religious belief in plural marriage and taking his children to the largely polygamous community he lives in.”

Toronto Star: “Rose McDermott, who teaches political psychology at Brown University in Rhode Island, testified Thursday at a B.C. Supreme Court reference case examining polygamy that she’s conducted a statistical analysis of polygyny — in which a man has multiple wives. McDermott says her data shows that as polygyny increases, so do the rates of maternal mortality, teenage marriages and births, sex trafficking and domestic violence.”

Marina Adshade, economist at Dalhousie University, writing in the Globe and Mail: “In the economic sense a policy is not optimal if someone can be made better off without making others worse off. If this is the criterion, then it has to be that criminalization of polygamy not be an optimal policy. If we allow everyone to act in their own best interests when making marriage choices, and assume that parents act in the best interest of their children, then surely those who chose to live in a polygamous household are better off than they would be in a monogamous household. They have to be because that is the arrangement they have chosen.”

Washington Post: “A federal judge has blocked the sale of assets held in a polygamous church’s communal land trust while he decides whether the faith’s constitutional rights have been violated by Utah authorities.”

Christian Web News: “‘No government should experiment with a practice that has been clearly demonstrated as harmful to women, children, and societies around the world,’ said ADF Senior Legal Counsel [Austin R. Nimocks] . . . Gerald Chipeur, one of more than 1,800 attorneys in the ADF alliance, examined Dr. Shoshana Grossbard before the court Tuesday.”

The Globe and Mail: “In contrast, Prof. Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia told a judge examining Canada’s polygamy laws that multiple marriage is linked to increases in crime, substance abuse, child mortality and discrimination against women.”

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys are available for media interviews via phone or satellite regarding the ongoing hearing at the Supreme Court of British Columbia on the question of whether polygamy can continue to be prohibited in that province and throughout Canada.

Vancouver Sun: “Women of marriage age are a rare and highly desirable commodity and should have ‘increased market value’ in economics speak. In practice, they should have their pick of marriage partners. But they don’t. Over her years of study, Grossbard has found that far from women having increased value, invariably the male leaders in polygamous societies have institutionalized women into subservience.”

All Headline News: “Dr. Shoshana Grossbard, economics professor at San Diego State University, said polygamy would place women under constant threat by the husband of taking another wife.”

CTV: “Chief Justice Robert Bauman is hearing from experts, as well as video testimony from former residents of Bountiful, B.C., and other polygamous communities, as he considers Canada’s current ban on multiple marriages. While current residents of Bountiful say they live happy lives, some past residents are calling it a cult and allege that abuse was rampant.”

The Tribune: “The Conservative government is quietly reminding embassy and consular staff around the world that Canada doesn’t accept immigrants who plan to practise polygamy here.”

Vancouver Sun: “A clinical psychologist from Utah, testifying Thursday at court hearing testing the validity of Canada’s polygamy law, described the dark side of plural marriages in fundamentalist Mormon communities.”

Toronto Sun: “The woman known as ‘Witness No.8′ says she does not understand why polygamy should be illegal, and her court testimony is offering a glimpse into a religious sect that has vexed officials for years.”

National Post: “Some of the women to come forward despise it. Polygamy is synonymous with abuse, they say. Mental punishment. Rape and torture. They ran from it and they’ll never go back. Other women insist they could ask for no better life. Their fulfillment and happiness on Earth and in heaven depend on plural marriage, an arrangement they call godly and ‘celestial.’”

Winnipeg Free Press: “A lawyer at the court case on Canada’s polygamy laws says the prohibition against multiple marriage is unconstitutional and persecutes the residents of a small B.C. town that celebrates practice.”

CBC: “Canada’s prohibition against polygamy does not criminalize women who have multiple husbands, a lawyer for the British Columbia government said Tuesday. Craig Jones told court the law was intended to only prohibit men from marrying multiple women.”

The Globe and Mail: “Canada’s law against polygamy should be upheld to protect society from ill effects that include the expulsion of young men from polygamous communities, a lawyer representing the federal government said in her opening statements. Such expulsions can be a potentially destabilizing element to society and comes along with other harms associated with polygamy, such as teen pregnancies and early sexualizing of girls.”

Vancouver Sun: “This story contains graphic descriptions that some readers may find objectionable. When lawyers talk about the harms of polygamy, there’s scarcely one that Kathleen and Rena Mackert haven’t personally endured. The sisters have had front-row seats in B.C. Supreme Court for the opening week of the constitutional reference case to determine whether Canada’s anti-polygamy law is valid.”

Global News: “References are brought to determine whether controversial legislation is constitutional. Such reference cases aren’t technically binding, but the decision will constitute a legal precedent, the same way decisions of criminal cases do. Other courts would likely adopt the eventual ruling, particularly if it is heard by the Supreme Court of Canada.”

Associated Press: “An Indonesian Muslim cleric who sparked a national outcry by marrying a 12-year-old girl was sentenced Wednesday to four years in prison.”

Evidence to be heard in the case suggests that polygamy is already beginning to take root in Canada’s Muslim community, especially among immigrants . . .

Winnipeg Free Press: “The ‘historic’ court case in British Columbia that could decide whether polygamy is legal in Canada is a matter of immense national importance and should be televised, a lawyer for the CBC argued Monday on the opening day of the hearings.”

“A landmark debate begins today in British Columbia Supreme Court. Lawyers representing the attorneys-general of Canada and B.C. will argue the current law against polygamy – Section 293 of the Criminal Code – should be upheld. Their arguments are expected to focus on alleged harms resulting from polygamy to women, children and society.”

UVA Today Press Release: “McGill debated [Jordan Lorence], a lawyer from Alliance Defense Fund, who supports Proposition 8 and a ban on same-sex marriage . . . A marriage that consists of a mother and father raising children ‘shows the best results,’ Lorence said.”

Jordand Lorence writing at Speak Up Movement: “I want to dispel a false argument made by those seeking to redefine marriage. They frequently argue that marriage laws are unconstitutional like old laws banning interracial marriage . . . ”

The Post Zambia: “Polygamy is just a selfish matter for men, newly-appointed World Bank alternative executive director Dr Denny Hamachila Kalyalya has observed. Dr Kalyalya discourages men from marrying more than one wife as such old-age traditional norms amount to injustice to children who grow up in polygamous homes.”

San Angelo Standard-Times: “‘Keith believed he was a part of a lawful wedding,’ FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said of the union between Dutson when he was 20 and the victim when she was 15.”

Deborah Anapol, Ph.D., writing at Psychology Today: “It doesn’t matter what we call it, the fact is that my body can tell me if a lover is making love with someone else. My body can detect the blood type of a man I’m making love with and select a compatible match for conception. My body can refuse to respond if a potential lover is unhealthy in some way. If my body can do this, so can the bodies of others, but a closed mind will not listen when the body talks . . . For today’s humans, sex almost always involves egoic considerations of one form or another. These considerations sometimes overpower the wisdom of the body and sometimes they don’t.”

Daily Nation: “Polygamy is not news in Kenya, except when somebody like Akuku Danger marries over 46 wives and sires over 200 children. But the case of one Elisha Koli is rather unique. He has four wives… and two of them are biological sisters.”

Houston Chronicle (AP): “. . . from the evidence . . .  there was no legal marriage between Dutson, who was 21, and the 16-year-old girl. The San Angelo Standard-Times reports defense attorney Brandon Hudson suggested all that was lacking for a legal marriage ‘was the paperwork . . . ‘”

One of the greatest strengths of Western civilization (which comes straight from Christianity) is monogamy. This marital relationship became the DNA of the whole social structure of the West and all its societies. But for the last 200 years, there’s been an assault on monogamy as part of the agenda to change our culture. Polyamory (multiple partners) is the competition. To learn more about this aggressive push to redefine the West, join us tomorrow, October 27, for a lecture by FRC’s Dr. Patrick Fagan. Starting at noon at FRC’s headquarters (801 G Street, NW, Washington, D.C.), Dr. Fagan will explain how this culture clash affects America’s future. For more information or to register, click here

Middle East Online: “SingleMuslim.com, an online interactive community of more than 500,000 members seeking potential marriage partners, recently polled its members to find out what they think about polygamy. The results revealed Tuesday show that 26.2 per cent of people who completed the survey believe that polygamy is legal with Islam and that all Muslims have the right to practise polygamy if they choose to (73 per cent of respondents to this question were male, with just 27 per cent of female respondents selecting this view).”

More details about the event available here.

Globe & Gazette: “A conservative businessman spearheading an effort to unseat three Iowa Supreme Court justices believes that by allowing gay marriage in the state, the high court opened the door for intrafamily marriage and polygamy.”

Suad Hamada writing at The WIP: “Although polygamy is not widespread in Bahrain – according to official statistics only 4% of the male population here are polygamists – the open option for men is a major concern of Bahraini women who are mistreated by husbands who threaten to marry other women and have the power to do so by law.”

Deseret News: “Prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney’s Office are scheduled to meet with Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff Tuesday to discuss potential bigamy charges against the Lehi family.”

Lemondrop.com: “During the past two years, Verlan had constructed separate adobe homes for each wife. He married Lillie, and now he was busily courting another teenage girl named Kim. Three babies were being born into our family on average each year. Indeed, Verlan was adding many new jewels to his eternal crown. There were over 40 children in our family now — 40 kids who hardly knew their own father. Children who needed a relationship with him in the worst way. Unfortunately, Verlan never had time to spend with them.”

AP: “President Barack Obama’s polygamist half brother in Kenya has married a 19-year-old woman more than 30 years his junior.”

TIME News Feed: “Ancentus Akuku, a legendary Kenyan polygamist, passed away due to natural causes; he was in his late 90s. He first married in 1939, became a polygamist at 22 and married his last wife in 1992. He had more than 100 wives, and more than 200 children, each of whom he named personally.”

Religion & Politics Examiner: “Advocates for polygamy are closely watching the Supreme Court in British Columbia, Canada, as a case is set to challenge the legal obstruction of polygamy there. With the new TLC reality show, ‘Sister Wives’ (about a family of polygamists) gaining attention here in the United States, how far off is the challenge to the laws in this country that make polygamy illegal? Advocates for it argue that what right does the law have to come between what consenting adults agree to?”

AOL Travel: “Tourists from as far away as Europe and Scandinavia and from throughout the U.S., are paying $70 for a look at isolated life in the polygamist community at the Utah-Arizona border, the wire service reports.”

KansasCity.com: “Police in Lehi, Utah are investigating the polygamist family in TLC’s new reality show, ‘Sister Wives,’ for possible charges of felony bigamy – something that is rarely investigated in Utah.”

Miller-McCune: “Anthropologists say 83 percent of societies they have studied traditionally permitted polygyny — marriage with multiple wives. (The more common term ‘polygamy’ has the broader definition of having multiple spouses.) Just 17 percent insisted on monogamous marriage . . . Most evolutionary biologists think monogamy originated as a form of social leveling that reduced male competition for mates, fostered cooperation and led to the rise of successful nation-states . . . ”

Eurasia Review: “A group of women’s rights activists delivered a petition with five thousand signatures to the Iranian parliament urging the legislative body to ‘bar polygamy.’ ILNA reports that the petition was delivered by 40 women who called on the parliament to halt all efforts in ‘promoting temporary marriages and polygamy.’”

Brent Bozell writing at Townhall: “The sexual revolution always seems to have another frontier . . . HBO started the normalization of polygamy with its drama ‘Big Love,’ but TLC is openly pushing for the walls of judgment to come falling down. Its slogan for the show is ‘Rethink love. Rethink marriage. Rethink family reality’ . . . This isn’t the only TLC show to promote the ‘poly’ — yup, the hip new word — lifestyle. They also aired a series this summer called ‘Strange Sex,’ which also had a plot about ‘polyamory,’ which is described as ‘consensual, responsible non-monogamy.’ TLC started as the Learning Channel; it’s fast becoming the Libertine Channel.”

LifeSiteNews: “The stars of a controversial new TLC television show are gearing up to help change America’s idea of the family, encourage an end to what they call ‘discrimination’ and promote legal acceptance of a new definition of marriage.”

Thaddeus M. Baklinski writing at LifeSiteNews: “Chief Justice Bauman reserved judgment on the [Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association] CPAA request [to declare whether polyamorists might be prosecuted as a result of a ban on polygamy]. BC Crown Attorney Craig Jones said there is currently no legal or psychological definition of polyamory on which Bauman could base a judgment. Federal Crown Attorney Deborah Strachan said that the CPAA request is tantamount to seeking immunity from future prosecution, which would be a violation of the court’s right to prosecutorial discretion in Canada.” For more information, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/country-canada+topic-polyamory/

RFI: “American photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair won this year’s Visa d’Or prize for best feature for her report Polygamy in America, an intimate look at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) community in Eldorado, Texas. Never before had this most secretive of Mormon sects let an outsider see how they live.”

Diane Noble, author of “The Sister Wife,” the first book in her new historical polygamy fiction series “Brides of Gabriel,” writing at CNN: “I’m also concerned that HBO’s popular ‘Big Love’ and TLC’s upcoming reality show ‘Sister Wives,’ for the sake of entertainment and palatability, can’t give us the whole truth about life in polygamous families. I’m concerned that both shows are essentially promoting a lifestyle that is illegal in the U.S.”

Telegraph: “Reports of the pregnancy comes only a fortnight after the arrival of Mr Zuma’s 21st child, which was born to the second of his current wives . . . While polygamy is accepted in South Africa, the spiralling cost to the taxpayer of Mr Zuma’s cultural observance has led to bitter clashes between the president’s ruling African National Congress and the leading opposition party. News of yet another child and another marriage is bound to reignite the debate.”

Toronto Sun: “The unusual test case on the constitutional validity of Canada’s anti-polygamy law hasn’t even begun but the pre-trial jousting suggests it will be quite a show . . . Among the groups in the other corner is the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association which supports what it describes as ethical non-monogamy — adults involved in multiple committed intimate relationships. The association wants the anti-polygamy law struck down. ‘Polyamory is based on complete equality of the genders,’ explains association director John Ince. ‘It’s what we call a post-modern relationship configuration.’”

New York Post (video): “Although ‘Big Love’ has already humanized many of plural marriages most confusing practices, there is a lot left to demystify. Thankfully a pair of new projects aim to do just that. On September 13, Lifetime will debut ‘The 19th Wife’ — a TV movie about a murder inside the fundamentalist sect First Church of Latter Day Saints — starring Patricia Wettig, Matt Czuchry, Chyler Leigh and some serious AquaNet. 13 days later we are gifted with TLC’s new docu-series ‘Sister Wives,’ which looks to be a real life ‘Big Love,’ following one family — a single father, three mothers — as they live, learn and prepare to welcome a fourth wife into the mix.”

Megan Mcardle writing at The Atlantic: “If we’re evolved to be polyamorous, why do we also seem to be evolved to be extraordinarily possessive? . . . Lifetime monogamy may not be the evolved human template. But I’m pretty sure that carefree polyamory isn’t either.”

“The largest polygamous group in North America only wants to participate in the trial to determine whether Canada’s anti-polygamy law is constitutional if its members can provide testimony anonymously, under pseudonyms or behind a screen.”