January 13, 2006

Canadian-government-sponsored report calls for legalizing polygamy: Dean Beeby reports on Yahoo News:

Taxpayer-funded study recommends repealing law that bans polygamy in Canada

A new study for the federal Justice Department says Canada should get rid of its law banning polygamy, and change other legislation to help women and children living in such multiple-spouse relationships.

"Criminalization does not address the harms associated with valid foreign polygamous marriages and plural unions, in particular the harms to women," says the report, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. "The report therefore recommends that this provision be repealed."

The research paper is part of a controversial $150,000 polygamy project, launched a year ago and paid for by the Justice Department and Status of Women Canada.

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...

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 bestiality.

The combination of Canada's commitment to gay marriage, immigration, and multiculturalism means that the logic of legalizing polygamy will be difficult to resist.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

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