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Slip, slip sliding away.
Study Recommends Legalizing Polygamy
The paper by three law professors at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., argues that Sec. 293 of the Criminal Code banning polygamy serves no useful purpose and in any case is rarely prosecuted.
Instead, Canadian laws should be changed to better accommodate the problems of women in polygamous marriages, providing them clearer spousal support and inheritance rights.
...
The Justice Department project was prompted in part by an RCMP investigation into the religious community of Bountiful in Creston, B.C., where polygamy is practised openly.
The British Columbia government has long been considering whether to lay charges under Section 293.
But the project was also intended to provide the Liberal government with ammunition to help defend its same-sex marriage bill last spring.
Opponents claimed the bill, now law, was a slippery slope that would open the door to polygamy and even beastiality.
Another report for the project, also led by two Queen's University professors, dismisses the slippery-slope argument, saying that allowing same-sex marriages promotes equality while polygamous marriages are generally harmful to women's interests and would therefore promote inequality.
Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said he has seen only a summary of the research reports, but already rejects lifting the criminal ban on polygamy.
Study Recommends Legalizing Polygamy
The paper by three law professors at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., argues that Sec. 293 of the Criminal Code banning polygamy serves no useful purpose and in any case is rarely prosecuted.
Instead, Canadian laws should be changed to better accommodate the problems of women in polygamous marriages, providing them clearer spousal support and inheritance rights.
...
The Justice Department project was prompted in part by an RCMP investigation into the religious community of Bountiful in Creston, B.C., where polygamy is practised openly.
The British Columbia government has long been considering whether to lay charges under Section 293.
But the project was also intended to provide the Liberal government with ammunition to help defend its same-sex marriage bill last spring.
Opponents claimed the bill, now law, was a slippery slope that would open the door to polygamy and even beastiality.
Another report for the project, also led by two Queen's University professors, dismisses the slippery-slope argument, saying that allowing same-sex marriages promotes equality while polygamous marriages are generally harmful to women's interests and would therefore promote inequality.
Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said he has seen only a summary of the research reports, but already rejects lifting the criminal ban on polygamy.