First decriminalization, then plural marriages

[WIP]

I don't think you, or I, can make these judgments as we are not part of that minority and do not understand their cultural ways. I think our opinion is irrelevant.

There's an old saying:"you may be entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own truth.....unless you are a cultural relativist who believes everyone can walk around with their own personal truth and not have to abide by any sort of collective group standards!

I may not understand the cultural ways of Jehovah's Witnesses (well, actually I do since I spent some of my early years in the religion) but if a member of the religion refuses to allow one of his children to have a blood transfusion, I do not have to respect his church dogma of the sanctity of blood, I am going to apply the objective standard that most rational, thinking people share, that it is wrong to withhold lifesaving medical procedures for a child for any reason. The fact that they are going to such an extreme to apply the ancient Jewish belief that the soul of humans and animals is in the blood is of no consequence! Their religious rules should not override a higher principle to save lives. In a similar vein, if the evidence gathered about polygamous societies indicates that young men and women do not have the opportunity to pair off naturally, but instead, the daughters are jealously guarded until they can be sold off in marriage to some wealthy older man who already has many wives -- it becomes patently obvious that allowing this institution to flourish will mean drastically increased division between rich and poor, child brides and lost boys, who have no opportunity to get married; and that's enough reasons right there without going into further detail, why a stand has to be made now, before we end up in a situation like France, where they estimate that up to 500,000 of their Muslim, mainly North African immigrants are polygamous families. No surprise that they have the highest birth rates of any demographic group in that country.

I know there are plural marriages in existence. Why should they have to hide that fact and why not legalize? None of our business really. They are small minorities, not going to affect our rights in any way, imo.

One thing they are hiding is that the wives who have their own houses or apartments are usually listed as single, unmarried mothers. So why should the husbands be entitled to any legal recognition in the first place? If it wasn't for all of the religious indoctrination, most of the women would use their single status to find new mates or new husbands, and the polygamous arrangements would fall apart. Wherever it exists, it's an institution that depends on coercion and intimidation to thrive.

The other problem with saying "it's just a small minority," is that unlike homosexuals, who are a biologically determined and therefore fixed minority of the general population, The polygamous families are headed by the wealthiest men who also want to have lots of children. So that means they do not remain a small minority for very long. In Africa and parts of Asia, they are the chief cause of overpopulation and overcrowding. Consider that the population of Saudi Arabia has almost tripled since 1970.

[WIP]

Gay marriage is not about kissing it is about two intimately related matters. 1) Forming unions that will allow individuals to shelter their wealth away from the public purse

So! Marriage is also about protecting wealth from tax collection. Why shouldn't gay couples have the same opportunities to protect their money as well as the legal rights that are available through marriage?

and 2) having access to fewer types of holes. To fully understand, you have to witness the link in between having live through a traumatic anal stage and compulsive behavior to collect things.

More cryptic nonsense! And you are also focusing on male homosexuals since anal sex is not a lesbian thing. Whatever, why should it matter to you and Sigmund Freud what homosexuals are doing for sexual gratification?

[Molly]

Tango-- that they 'just want to be legal' is so excessively simplistic as to be a non-comment.

Until one answers the question of what aspects of polygamy (that are not already legal) require legal sanction, there's no way to even know what we are agreeing to.

One more time... In any given threesome, would each of them married to both others, or would only one of them have two spouses, while the others each have only one?

While I figure WIP is flogging the 'culturally undesireable' drum way too hard, that broader picture ties in to the answer to the above question. I giggle at the very thought of Winston Blackmore facing a division of matrimonial property action-- particularly needing to list the rest of his 'wives'/children in order to defend more assets... No, I don't believe that he, or any of his fellow 'good men' 'just want to be legal'. In fact, I figure they'd go to great lengths to avoid it, because if legally recognized, 'sister wives' would have some serious rights protected by the state.

The Canadian model of marriage is mutual care/responsibility/dependency/sharing/equality, NOT the ownership/subordination model that religion-based plural marriage proposes. So, the existing Canadian model would demand the collective/mutual form, in which all are married to all and all have equal rights, responsibilities and obligations.

I don't believe that model would satisfy the wishes of the folks who want plural marriage recognized. They are seeking a 'one is special, and the rest are chattels', and our charter simply would not bear that.

[benny]

So! Marriage is also about protecting wealth from tax collection. Why shouldn't gay couples have the same opportunities to protect their money as well as the legal rights that are available through marriage?

More cryptic nonsense! And you are also focusing on male homosexuals since anal sex is not a lesbian thing. Whatever, why should it matter to you and Sigmund Freud what homosexuals are doing for sexual gratification?

To escape biopolitics, access to holes has to be much more politicized than what gay activists and polygamists think.

Edited April 9, 2009 by benny

[GostHacked]

Capitalism concentrates wealth by using human (which are formal and individualistic) rights to get mobility from us. In other words, allowing (barely, minimally, for the form only) "consenting" individuals to do whatever they want has become the most powerful marketing tools.

I call this being a 'free slave'. You are free to choose how you are used/abused in and by society.

[Michael Hardner]

VS

Uh, really!? Did a political forum inspire some kind of political grass-roots movement that ultimately led to the legalization of SSM? No, it didn't. SSM was gained by systematically eroding barriers regardless of wider public opinion. Real change, real justice, real progress has always come from the judiciary. The judicial branch pulls our heads out of the sand and says: "look here, this is wrong and we must change". And faced with such a challenge, society takes its head out of the sand and starts to come to grips with, and accept the issue as decided.

I think public support had to be there. Otherwise, we didn't we get these changes in 1980 ?

[benny]

I call this being a 'free slave'. You are free to choose how you are used/abused in and by society.

Unfreedom of choice

As to freedom of choice: the pseudo-choice offered to the adolescents of Amish communities who, after the strictest of upbringings, are invited at the age of seventeen to plunge themselves into every excess of contemporary capitalist culture—a whirl of fast cars, wild sex, drugs, drink and so forth. After a couple of years, they are allowed to choose whether they want to return to the Amish way. Since they have been brought up in virtual ignorance of American society, the youngsters are quite unprepared to cope with such permissiveness, which in most cases generates a backlash of unbearable anxiety. The vast majority vote to return to the seclusion of their communities. This is a perfect case of the difficulties that invariably accompany ‘freedom of choice’: while Amish children are formally given a free choice, the conditions in which they must make it render the choice unfree.

The problem of pseudo-choice also demonstrates the limitations of the standard liberal attitude towards Muslim women who wear the veil: acceptable if it is their own free choice rather than imposed on them by husbands or family. However, the moment a woman dons the veil as the result of personal choice, its meaning changes completely: it is no longer a sign of belonging to the Muslim community, but an expression of idiosyncratic individuality. In other words, a choice is always a meta-choice, a choice of the modality of the choice itself: it is only the woman who does not choose to wear a veil that effectively chooses a choice. This is why, in our secular liberal democracies, people who maintain a substantial religious allegiance are in a subordinate position: their faith is ‘tolerated’ as their own personal choice, but the moment they present it publicly as what it is for them—a matter of substantial belonging—they stand accused of ‘fundamentalism’. Plainly, the ‘subject of free choice’, in the ‘tolerant’, multicultural sense, can only emerge as the result of an extremely violent process of being uprooted from one’s particular life-world.

The material force of the ideological notion of ‘free choice’ within capitalist democracy was well illustrated by the fate of the Clinton Administration’s ultra-modest health reform programme. The medical lobby (twice as strong as the infamous defence lobby) succeeded in imposing on the public the idea that universal healthcare would somehow threaten freedom of choice in that domain. Against this conviction, all enumeration of ‘hard facts’ proved ineffective. We are here at the very nerve-centre of liberal ideology: freedom of choice, grounded in the notion of the ‘psychological’ subject, endowed with propensities which he or she strives to realize. And this especially holds today, in the era of a ‘risk society’ in which the ruling ideology endeavours to sell us the very insecurities caused by the dismantling of the welfare state as the opportunity for new freedoms. If labour flexibilization means you have to change jobs every year, why not see it as a liberation from the constraints of a permanent career, a chance to reinvent yourself and realize the hidden potential of your personality? If there is a shortfall on your standard health insurance and retirement plan, meaning you have to opt for extra coverage, why not perceive it as an additional opportunity to choose: either a better lifestyle now or long-term security? Should this predicament cause you anxiety, the ‘second modernity’ ideologist will diagnose you as desiring to ‘escape from freedom’, of an immature sticking to old stable forms. Even better, when this is inscribed into the ideology of the subject as the ‘psychological’ individual, pregnant with natural abilities, you will automatically tend to interpret all these changes as the outcome of your personality, not as the result of being thrown around by market forces.

http://libcom.org/library/against-human-rights-zizek

[Visionseeker]

VS

I think public support had to be there. Otherwise, we didn't we get these changes in 1980 ?

Public support grew with each court decision. The question in 1980 was repulsive, in the 90's it beacmae plausible and in the our present decade, it became a fore-gone conclusion. But it only came to that because the Court instructed us of our folly.

[normanchateau]

And if we are going to maintain some organized, civil society, we are going to have to put an end to this concept that religious freedom trumps everything.

The concept will remain as long as the religious fundamentalist and born-again Evangelical Christian Stephen Harper remains PM of Canada. It was Stephen Harper who voted against Bill C-250, the legislation which made it a hate crime to promote or advocate the murder of homosexuals. Harper voted against it on the grounds that it infringed upon people's religious freedom. Because the Bible advocates the murder of homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13), Harper feared that the Bible would be deemed hate literature. Harper's fear was irrational given that Bill C-250 was amended specifically to protect people's religious freedom to loathe lesbians and hate homosexuals. The amendment, which was adopted, "creates a defense from prosecution for opinions expressed 'in good faith' or based on a belief in a religious text" like the Bible. Despite that, the religious fundamentalist Stephen Harper voted against C-250.

It's ironic that intolerant religious institutions and their fear-crazed defenders like Harper want an exemption from hate speech and propaganda laws, apparently so that they can feel free to denigrate groups of individuals without any risk of being charged with a crime.

[WIP]

The Canadian model of marriage is mutual care/responsibility/dependency/sharing/equality, NOT the ownership/subordination model that religion-based plural marriage proposes. So, the existing Canadian model would demand the collective/mutual form, in which all are married to all and all have equal rights, responsibilities and obligations.

So now who's flogging the culturally undesirable drum? If you open the door for non-religious plural marriage or polyamory, then you have to allow that religion-based polygamy that you don't like, since not doing so, would be a clear violation of religious freedoms.

Let's be clear what we're talking about here -- the issue at stake isn't whether a man and two women, or two men and a women can form relationships (I could care less what they agree to do with their time); the question is should these three way or four way or more way relationships be legally binding, and recognized as equivalent to normal marriage? For example, if I convince two or three women to move in with me, should my employer be obligated to extend group insurance and group health benefits to my new extra wives? That should be a clear example of why the limit should be set at one life partner (at a time).

[tango]

It's a very small group. No need to discriminate, I say, for the small cost involved.

[WIP]

Uh, really!? Did a political forum inspire some kind of political grass-roots movement that ultimately led to the legalization of SSM? No, it didn't. SSM was gained by systematically eroding barriers regardless of wider public opinion. Real change, real justice, real progress has always come from the judiciary. The judicial branch pulls our heads out of the sand and says: "look here, this is wrong and we must change". And faced with such a challenge, society takes its head out of the sand and starts to come to grips with, and accept the issue as decided.

It may be true that the courts are usually ahead of the curve when movements for social change are campaigning for reform, but how far out in front of the parade can those judges really be? In the States, most judges are elected and act like politicians on issues, and even here in Canada, I doubt that the Supreme Court would take action if more than 90% of Canadians were against gay marriage. Even though they are appointed, they would not want to enact laws that were unenforceable, so if anything, they would have taken a more cautious, incremental approach.

I don't think you can dismiss the change in public opinion that has occurred during my lifetime, where gays went from being told to keep silent and stay out of sight, to being considered a minority group with its own needs for protection against discrimination. The change in opinion in the last two generations have been as dramatic as the change in attitudes about race from the 1950's to the 70's. I've heard James Dobson and some of the other religious right hacks lamenting the fact that in some recent polling last year, even young fundamentalist Christians support gay rights and would approve gay marriage. The courts may write the laws, but politicians who enforce them won't act if the polling numbers are stacked against them.

[WIP]

The concept will remain as long as the religious fundamentalist and born-again Evangelical Christian Stephen Harper remains PM of Canada.

And that won't be much longer if more people keep losing their jobs. His "don't worry, be happy" attitude and do-nothing strategy when it first started, won't be forgotten soon by many people, including me.

It was Stephen Harper who voted against Bill C-250, the legislation which made it a hate crime to promote or advocate the murder of homosexuals. Harper voted against it on the grounds that it infringed upon people's religious freedom. Because the Bible advocates the murder of homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13), Harper feared that the Bible would be deemed hate literature. Harper's fear was irrational given that Bill C-250 was amended specifically to protect people's religious freedom to loathe lesbians and hate homosexuals. The amendment, which was adopted, "creates a defense from prosecution for opinions expressed 'in good faith' or based on a belief in a religious text" like the Bible. Despite that, the religious fundamentalist Stephen Harper voted against C-250.

If he opposed hate crime laws because they provide unequal protection to victims, he might have had an argument.

A couple of years ago at Ryerson College in Toronto, Justin Trottier, then a student at Ryerson and head of the campus Freethought Association, was physically assaulted by two Muslim students while he was putting up posters for an upcoming event. Since his attackers assaulted him when he admitted to being an atheist, his lawyer felt that a case could be made for the attack being regarded as a hate crime. But the Ontario Human Rights board that reviewed the case, determined that the hate crimes provision regarding religion didn't apply to him, because HE HAD NO RELIGION! And that's one reason why hate crimes legislation should be scrapped for laws that punish the crime irrespective of the attacker's motives....and that's the other problem with "hate crimes" -- the attacker doesn't always confess why they are committing the crime, so a court will be forced to guess what the person's motives were, armed with the circumstantial evidence that the victim was a woman, or from a racial or religious minority group.

Anyway, that Bill C-250 should not have been amended to give the Bible an exemption that other books with similar statements or commandments would not be entitled to. I don't like the concept of banning some literature as hate speech, and when the Bible has to get special exemptions because of the many verses that advocate murder and genocide, it's a matter of ban all of them, or don't have these laws and let people read what they want to. With the internet, it's not practical to ban literature.

It's ironic that intolerant religious institutions and their fear-crazed defenders like Harper want an exemption from hate speech and propaganda laws, apparently so that they can feel free to denigrate groups of individuals without any risk of being charged with a crime.

Why should someone be entitled to heap scorn on homosexuals because their religion sanctions it? That's no more valid than denying blood transfusions to a minor because of religious prohibition.

I can respect religious practice right up to the point where it demands exemptions to violate the common law that most people are bound by. It's kind of ironic that the hyper-religious are always lecturing me and other unbelievers that we are moral relativitists! In reality, the religious communities create moral relativism because of their demands for special treatment so they can adhere to their own individual religious dogmas!

[Molly]

So now who's flogging the culturally undesirable drum? If you open the door for non-religious plural marriage or polyamory, then you have to allow that religion-based polygamy that you don't like, since not doing so, would be a clear violation of religious freedoms.

Let's be clear what we're talking about here -- the issue at stake isn't whether a man and two women, or two men and a women can form relationships (I could care less what they agree to do with their time); the question is should these three way or four way or more way relationships be legally binding, and recognized as equivalent to normal marriage? For example, if I convince two or three women to move in with me, should my employer be obligated to extend group insurance and group health benefits to my new extra wives? That should be a clear example of why the limit should be set at one life partner (at a time).

LOL No, WIP, we don't have to open the door for 'chattel' marriage, with one-way, gender-based rights and obligations. The charter simply wouldn't allow that, nor should it. Without gender discrimination, there's no discernible difference between religious plural marriage, and non-religion-based plural marriage.

(And my own question is really about whether an employer might be obliged to extend one of your wives' /husbands' health benefits to the rest of your/their extra wives/husbands.) ;o)

[rdepelteau]

Sorry I couldn't come up with something bashing Harper and the CPC but this is a change..

Personally I hope this doesn't happen, but legally, now the legal definition of marriage is changed how an they stop this.. as long as minors are protected !

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...ialComment/home

First decriminalization, then plural marriages

March 23, 2009 at 12:00 AM EDT

British Columbia has charged two fundamentalist Mormon men with violating the Criminal Code provision against polygamy. The defendants will argue "God made me do it," claiming their practice of polygamy is part of the religious freedom guaranteed by Section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But the Charter also says all rights are subject "to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."

Many other "free and democratic" societies, including the United States and many European countries, have criminalized polygamy, and their courts have always upheld such laws against legal challenge. What the U.S. Supreme Court said in its 1878 Reynolds decision is still compelling: Religious freedom means the state cannot punish people for religious opinions, but it can certainly regulate secular institutions such as marriage. The justification for prohibiting polygamy is that it leads to treating women and children as chattels and undermines the legal equality required to make democracy functional.

Nonetheless, Canadian courts may strike down Section 293 of the Criminal Code over the alleged conflict with religious liberty. One might think it hardly matters. Fundamentalist Mormons, after all, have flagrantly flouted the law for 50 years, so a failure to convict will just affirm the status quo. But it is not that simple.

Decriminalizing polygamy will make it impossible to maintain immigration regulations designed to prevent polygamous men from bringing in more than one wife. Extra spouses sometimes get in by concealing their marital status or by virtue of extraordinary circumstances. But, basically, the policy is clear: Check your extra wives at the door. As Queen's University law professor Nicholas Bala has pointed out, rescinding that policy would make Canada the only country in the world to welcome polygamous immigrants - an immigration magnet for polygamists from Africa and the Middle East as well as fundamentalist Mormons escaping prosecution in the United States.

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It is also predictable that newly arrived polygamists would join with those already in the country in litigation to advance the cause of polygamy. cont...

What's wrong with having four wives...? The legal system is hard pressed to legalise polygamy since it is legal by muslim law, the shariah, which the government grabs it's ankles for. So now they're doing an elaborate dog and poney show where they make it illegal for us to have five wives, but legal for muslims to do so. They will have five wives and 40 children per male, and in fifteen years, they're going to take over the country and bring in hard muslim tyranny where no christianity is allowed. They're already well on the way to criminalise christianity and disallowing any christians from political office as well as any position of power. These are reserved to antichristian slugs. They pick on mormon polygamists, but notice they never pick on muslim polygamists, who come here with their wives, one the legal one, and four on welfare, so that we the people pay for their houses. It's all a big scam of course, and all hush hush, no names given for publication ban... national security you understand, we can't release the names of the guilty.

Yeah right....

What's wrong with having two wives...? Isn't that better than divorce, when you have children and a house to maintain, and the wife doesn't give you sex anymore because she's no longer interested in sex? It's perfectly normal for women to lose interest in sex after a kid or five, that's why polygamy is allowed by God's law.

[Michael Hardner]

VS

Public support grew with each court decision. The question in 1980 was repulsive, in the 90's it beacmae plausible and in the our present decade, it became a fore-gone conclusion. But it only came to that because the Court instructed us of our folly.

They waited 20 years until the people were ready to accept equality for gays and lesbians.

[benny]

What's wrong with having four wives...? The legal system is hard pressed to legalise polygamy since it is legal by muslim law, the shariah, which the government grabs it's ankles for. So now they're doing an elaborate dog and poney show where they make it illegal for us to have five wives, but legal for muslims to do so. They will have five wives and 40 children per male, and in fifteen years, they're going to take over the country and bring in hard muslim tyranny where no christianity is allowed. They're already well on the way to criminalise christianity and disallowing any christians from political office as well as any position of power. These are reserved to antichristian slugs. They pick on mormon polygamists, but notice they never pick on muslim polygamists, who come here with their wives, one the legal one, and four on welfare, so that we the people pay for their houses. It's all a big scam of course, and all hush hush, no names given for publication ban... national security you understand, we can't release the names of the guilty.

When a cultural question (polygamy) becomes scary because of its economic effects (immigration of a lot of poor women), one needs to understand what is the cultural turn. The cultural turn describes a shift in emphasis towards meaning and on culture rather than politics or economics. This shift of emphasis occurred over a prolonged time, but particularly since the 1960s.

[85RZ500]

Hey now, I can't recall the question of the eighties but I clearly recall the HofC voting for the original definition of marriage with an overwhelming majority and that was in 1999.

And the SCof C did not change anything really, they opined and sent it back to the HofC to be voted on.

The piliticians and their so-called "free vote" is what made the change.

Given what I witnessed in that whole fiasco, I say that the jury is way out on the issue of polygamy.

[benny]

Hey now, I can't recall the question of the eighties but I clearly recall the HofC voting for the original definition of marriage with an overwhelming majority and that was in 1999.

And the SCof C did not change anything really, they opined and sent it back to the HofC to be voted on.

The piliticians and their so-called "free vote" is what made the change.

Given what I witnessed in that whole fiasco, I say that the jury is way out on the issue of polygamy.

Courts have fewer contacts than MPs and Senators with Canadians. From there, courts can cater to the needs of capitalists which benefit from a lax immigration policy.

Edited April 10, 2009 by benny

[normanchateau]

Hey now, I can't recall the question of the eighties but I clearly recall the HofC voting for the original definition of marriage with an overwhelming majority and that was in 1999.

And the SCof C did not change anything really, they opined and sent it back to the HofC to be voted on.

The piliticians and their so-called "free vote" is what made the change.

On December 7th, 2006, the House of Commons voted 175-123 in a free vote to reject Stephen Harper's discriminatory definition of marriage.

Stephen Harper on December 7, 2006: "We made a promise to have a free vote on this issue, we kept that promise, and obviously the vote was decisive and obviously we'll accept the democratic result of the people's representatives," said Harper. "I don't see reopening this question in the future."

Perhaps Harper should reopen the question. It would please the so-cons, religious nuts and homophobes in his party.

[fellowtraveller]

On December 7th, 2006, the House of Commons voted 175-123 in a free vote to reject Stephen Harper's discriminatory definition of marriage.

Stephen Harper on December 7, 2006: "We made a promise to have a free vote on this issue, we kept that promise, and obviously the vote was decisive and obviously we'll accept the democratic result of the people's representatives," said Harper. "I don't see reopening this question in the future."

Perhaps Harper should reopen the question. It would please the so-cons, religious nuts and homophobes in his party.

You forgot to cite the two occasions that the Liberal Party of Canada- forming the govt of the day- decisively voted agaoinst same sex marriage.

The same party with the same people did a 180 degree turn a couple years later.

"It would please the so-cons, religious nuts and homophobes in his party."

Don't forget, it would also please the same groups in your party Normie.

[Smallc]

You forgot to cite the two occasions that the Liberal Party of Canada- forming the govt of the day- decisively voted against same sex marriage.

The same party with the same people did a 180 degree turn a couple years later.

The Liberal Party changed its position because it was determined that the issue was a matter of human rights. The Liberals made the wrong decision the first two times really....I'm glad paul martin woke up to what was really needed and did what was right. People should not be second class citizens when they do nothing wrong just because one group doesn't like what they do.

[normanchateau]

You forgot to cite the two occasions that the Liberal Party of Canada- forming the govt of the day- decisively voted agaoinst same sex marriage.

The same party with the same people did a 180 degree turn a couple years later.

"It would please the so-cons, religious nuts and homophobes in his party."

On December 7, 2006, some Conservatives voted against Harper's discriminatory motion and some Liberals voted for it. There are so-cons, religious nuts and homophobes in both parties.

Nonetheless, it was Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, who introduced the motion to take away legislated human rights granted previously by "revisiting" the issue.

[benny]

Since polygamy as immigration issue is close to human trafficking, we have to relate it to former Liberal Immigration Minister Judy Sgro’s exotic dancers program.

[85RZ500]

On December 7th, 2006, the House of Commons voted 175-123 in a free vote to reject Stephen Harper's discriminatory definition of marriage.

Stephen Harper on December 7, 2006: "We made a promise to have a free vote on this issue, we kept that promise, and obviously the vote was decisive and obviously we'll accept the democratic result of the people's representatives," said Harper. "I don't see reopening this question in the future."

Perhaps Harper should reopen the question. It would please the so-cons, religious nuts and homophobes in his party.

Free vote my a$$. Jackboot Layton whipped the Dippers, Martin whipped his cabinet. Both those scumbags lost good people over it.

The Bloc was also whipped, Harper was the only one to allow the "free" vote

On what planet was the TV you were watching?