On November 23rd, a British Colombia judge opted to uphold laws banning polygamy in Canada. Questions of the constitutionality of laws prohibiting multiple marriages in BC were first raised in 2009, when two men from BC’s Bountiful Community, whose residents are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were arrested on charges of polygamy. Multiple marriage is an important part of FLDS religious practices, and the defense of the two men argued that laws prohibiting multiple marriage impinged on their constitutional rights to religious freedom under Canadian law. Ultimately, BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled that while barring polygamy “minimally impaired” rights to religious freedoms, the social and physical harms of polygamy justified banning the practice.
While Canada is still considering how to best pursue prosecutions of polygamist, in the US public trials of polygamy-practicing FDLS members have become old hat. The practice of multiple marriages has long been forbidden under US law, and prosecutions of suspected polygamists have been the focus of national attention and outrage. Perhaps the most well publicized of these trials has been that of Warren Jeffs, the leader of a breakaway polygamist FLDS sect in Utah, who is charged with multiple counts of sex with minors. Jeffs himself has claimed that his trial has infringed on his religious freedoms, though these objections have been dismissed by the judge presiding over his trial.
Polygamy was freely practiced in Thailand until 1935, when laws were passed banning the practice of taking multiple wives; lawyers in Thailand report that a husband taking a second wife is grounds for a court divorce in Thailand, and a marriage conducted when one partner is already married is considered a void marriage. However, specific allowances have been made for Muslim residents of Thailand’s southernmost provinces (Yala, Pattani, Songkhla, and Narathiwat), which are predominately Muslim and are ruled by Sharia law. In these provinces, Muslim men are permitted to take up to 4 wives, as per Sharia rulings which permits the marriage of up to four wives as a “compassionate act” and a mechanism for ensuring social stability.
Please weigh in. Does banning polygamy impinge on religious freedoms? Should special allowances be made for certain communities, as they are under Thai law? Or does the harm done by polygamy override issues of religious freedom?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I’m an evangelical Christian, and also a believer that polygamy should be legalized. If it can be legal for Muslims to practice it, then charges of religious discrimination could be raised.
{ 1 trackback }