Canadian Polygamists Bring Gays Into Their Marriage Battle

Marriage is essentially a contract between to persons. For a contract to be valid there must be a 'meeting of the minds' on the terms of the contract. Given the intensely personal nature of a life long partnership and the high rate of marriages that end in catastrophic failure thus even between two people it is incredibly difficult to achieve a true meeting of the minds I hold that a true meeting of the minds necessary for a marriage cannot be achieved with more then two parties as the understandings between a and b will not be the understanding between a and c nor a b and c. Marriage requires an equality between the partners such equality is effectively impossible in bigamy.

Part I. It is not polygamy itself that is the problem; it is the rampant and deeply harmful abuses inextricably linked to polygamy that is. I'm reading Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven," and it is truly terrifying. The Winston Blackmore mentioned in this article has fathered around 100 children with over 30 wives, many of whom were around 14 or younger when they were forced into marriage. He controls everything in the community: he is the school superintendent, editor of the newspaper, and controls all business interests. His 14 year old brother sexually assaulted a 4 year old, who was later raped by her father, her husband molested her children, she attempted suicide, etc. Incest runs so rampant there, that she became her own step-grandmother (crazy I know), which is a completely normal thing in those circles. One huge family in Colorado City, Ariz cost the state $1 million in welfare since 1985.

Part II. Polygamy, or more specifically bigamy, is at best a deeply harmful institution that dehumanizes women and makes them nothing more than property. At worst, it perpetuates catastrophic psychological, mental, and physical abuse, replete with rape, incest, and the inability to function, much less understand, the greater world around them. Needless to say, it is ludicrous to associate polygamy with gay rights, although our community has allied behind them in the past. Same-sex marriage and its ideals embody everything that polygamy opposes. Gay marriage is about equality, mutual respect, and love; polygamy is about control, the denigration of women, and harms everyone, men and women, as well as society at large.

Polygamy is of male creation to benefit the men only. It gives them access to females of all ages. It is nothing but organized child molesting and exploitation. How dare they compare a gay couple to themselves!! Jason is right on...they are whack jobs. Talk about evil. And what about the young men being pushed out so those old perverts can do what they want. Pitty those children.

Call me crazy, but I don't know why in the world ANYONE would want multiple spouses, because more times than many, one spouse is far too much! LOL!

Sending people TO JAIL for being married with more than one person is a preposterous human rights violation. The victims should receive appropriate (millionaire) compensatory damages from the Canadian government.

For more about why the these men are soundly wrong in their arguments for polygamist marriages, please read Jon Krakauer's book "Under the Banner of Heaven." Polygamist marriages are based on oppressive, sexist, and anti-government policies. The Mormon Church has long been separated from its Fundamentalist arm due to the controversy over polygamy, and is most likely not one of the sources of funding. The Fundamentalist sect has managed to create a lot of wealth over the years, mostly due to their ability to leech onto government assistance. Their disdain for government gives one cause to question their motives in wanting more rights than they've already been allowed to have. Bountiful, Colorado City (AZ), and Hilldale (UT) have all been allowed to continue their polygamous marriages under careful government watch, yet nothing has been done to stop them except in proven cases of child abuse. Ignore their pleas of comparison--same-sex marriage is NOT akin to polygamy.

Jason's comments got me thinking: I wonder where the money is coming from to support the Polygamists actions. I wouldn't be surprised if this was an action taken by the church to make a bunch of noise to get rid of same sex marriage happening here in America. Follow the money, you'll always be surprised. What's the Mormon church doing right now? Anybody know?

It is ironic that in the Bible there is precedent and support for polygamy and monogamy - and celibacy. So what is right? Christian absolutists, there is no absolute fact, just your opinion. Maybe this is an issue to be solved by secular process and not religious interpretation or tradition.

On a human and societal level (aside from issues of government benefits, etc) there are numerous glaring problems with these polygamist cults. Think about it: If all of the 30 - 80 year olds in a ciommunity are snapping up all of the 16-20 year old girls/women as wives, where does that leave all of the 16-30 year old men in search of wives? In polygamist sects, 14- 18 year old boys are frequently banished from the communities under various pretexts in order to preserve the virginity of the young girls that these horny old goats want to get their hands on. Also keep in mind that girls as young as 10 can be "betrothed" to men as old as 80, that the girls and young women HAVE NO CHOICE in whom they marry and have NO RECOURSE to abuse from their appointed spouses. Girls receive virtually no educatioon and have almost no personal autonomy. Polygamist cults are just that: cults. They are inherently abusive situations and have no place in civil society.