{"id":1155,"date":"2009-01-21T07:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T13:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2009-01-21T07:34:15","modified_gmt":"2009-01-21T13:34:15","slug":"how-slippery-is-that-slope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=1155","title":{"rendered":"How slippery is that slope?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doesn't look like it will be all that slippery.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

Polygamy, on the other hand, has a completely different dynamic, she said. "First of all, it's not a one-on-one partnership. Secondly, the dynamics of polygamous relationships in Bountiful certainly involved serious harms around the age of the women getting married, whether or not they are truly consenting to the marriage, the extent to which parental involvement is a coercive part of those marriages, and the patriarchy of how those marriages operate." <\/p>\n

And even if a lawyer could prove that a ban on polygamous marriage is a violation of the Charter, the government is entitled to defend the ban on the basis of greater societal good, Prof. Gilbert said.<\/p>\n

Don Hutchinson, the legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, said there have been several court decisions around same-sex marriage that could be used to defend polygamy. But he is counting on Parliament's current definition of marriage, which prevents multiple spouses, to douse the polygamy debate, he said.<\/p>\n

"I am hopeful that where the courts will land is where they landed in the same-sex reference case in 2004," said Mr. Hutchinson, "that they will say, 'You know what, marriage [is] defined by Parliament and we're going to stick with that.' "<\/p>\n

Salt Lake City lawyer Rodney Parker, who has represented members of the polygamous religious community in the United States, said yesterday the legalization of gay marriage in Canada will allow the court to focus directly on the defendants' constitutional rights in a way that U.S. courts could not.<\/p>\n

With the Supreme Court of Canada decision legalizing gay marriage, Canada is "further down the path" than the U.S. on marriage issues, he said. <\/p>\n

"It is a defence we've argued for in the states," Mr. Parker said in a phone interview from his office. The arguments, however, were ineffective because U.S. prosecutors went after sexual crimes, not polygamy. "The cases we had down here so far involved minors. Oler's case does not involve a minor."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Three possibilities are mentioned for distinguishing the polygamous and same-sex marriages.<\/p>\n

1. Marriage is reasonably defined as a pairing.<\/p>\n

2. The polygamous relationships involve "serious harms" and can be prevented on that basis. <\/p>\n

3. Parliament can make a "social good" argument in the case of polygamy. <\/p>\n

The last seems interesting in connection with Jerry Brown's Prop 8 brief, in which he argues that the legal question the S.C. must face is whether there is a compelling reason to abrogate the fundamental right to freedom that includes marriage. I.e. one might grant (if one were arguing in California) that polygamy falls under the protection of the right to freedom, and still make it illegal if you have a compelling reason for doing so. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doesn't look like it will be all that slippery. Polygamy, on the other hand, has a completely different dynamic, she said. "First of all, it's not a one-on-one partnership. Secondly, the dynamics of polygamous relationships in Bountiful certainly involved serious harms around the age of the women getting married, whether or not they are truly consenting … Continue reading How slippery is that slope?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}