Sun Dec 26/04
Along came poly

According to Colby Cosh, you're currently reading "the best Canadian weblog you're not reading." (The shout out was very much appreciated, but he could have at least left me with a viable tagline.) However good it is, he and I still disagree mightily on whether legalized polygamy is coming our way, and especially on why it is or isn't. Given that I'm still pretty damn sure I'm right, I shall continue to press my case. If it helps, I think it all comes down to two questions, which have become confused over the course of our palaver:

1. Are polygamists soon to demand, and receive, legal marriage rights?

2. Is this "the same" as gay marriage? That is, did deciding to allow gay marriage open said door, leaving no structurally sound arguments to be made against polygamy?

In arguing "no" on question 1, I wrote that public opinion is far more forcefully against polygamy than it is against gay marriage, and that whereas homosexuals always numbered in the millions, the tiny number of Canadian polygamists means that public opinion is far less likely to shift. Colby never really addresses that. He responds by saying that (his emphasis) "common sense and justice itself are strongly in [polyamory's] favour insofar as they are in favour of same-sex marriage." The bold part might stand on its own as a libertarian principle, but the unbold part begs the question — question 2, to be exact. Whether the common sense and justice of gay marriage have anything to do with the common sense and justice of polygamy is half of what we're arguing about. The negative public opinion argument doesn't address whether polygamy should happen, just whether it will.

Indeed, one can make a persuasive argument for legalizing polygamy in the platonic sense: "Sure, Mr al-Saud, you can marry as many women people as you want, as long as your wives spouses aren't forced into it, as long as each of them is of legal age — in short, as long as none of the things are present in your situation that are so universally [and — prove me wrong, Colby — pretty much correctly] associated with your chosen way of life." Is it fair that three whip-smart, university-educated Canadian women would be prohibited from marrying the same gentle-souled Bay Street banker? Probably not. It's a good thing for them they don't exist. 

For better or for worse, rights are not normally granted to a group until it can produce respectable representatives to lobby on its behalf. There is no Incest Proponents of America, no Cannibals Conspicuous. NAMBLA remains, shall we say, severely marginalized. I see no reason to believe that Canadian polygamists have their Martin Luther King secreted away somewhere, working on The Big Speech. That has always been my most basic argument for "no" on question 1: there's just no one to demand that polygamy be legalized. M. al-Saud n'existe pas.

(As an aside, even if there were a polygamist "movement", I can't see how it would matter that "four-fifths of the world's cultures are estimated to be polygamous" — the inestimable Wikipedia, which Colby cited as a source for that statistic, also notes that "even within societies which allow polygamy, the actual practice… often occurs only rarely." Why would the mere fact that polygamy is practiced and/or or legal wherever Mr al-Saud comes from lend any "crushing weight" to his argument? We had no trouble arriving at legal opinions on female circumcision, foot-binding and child labour.)

In advocating "yes" on question 1 (and a little of question 2, too), Colby makes what I think is his flimsiest argument:

…supporters of polygamy are already… following the strategy of gays and lesbians; first make it legal, then make it equal. Ontario Muslims are fighting to establish the principle that their communities can make family law for themselves contractually, within a traditionalist Muslim framework under sharia.

That's the first time I've seen the word "polygamy" raised in the debate he is describing. Some "Ontario Muslims," none of whom I have any reason to believe are "supporters of polygamy", are seeking more official recognition of sharia (or definitely not sharia, depending on whom you talk to) as an arbitration framework to decide issues like divorce, alimony and child custody. It's one giant leap for mankind and his wives to think that this would somehow grease the wheels of legalized polygamy. I'll quote Marion Boyd's report directly: "The Review heard concerns about polygamy and child abduction, but these issues are not affected by arbitration."

Actually, Colby himself allows that "Legal polygamy may or may not be a direct result of the ongoing struggle," which makes me wonder why he brought it up at all (especially since the "legally enshrined form of religious arbitration" road to legalization is rather humongously different from the "religious people hate us" road gay marriage took — hence, "no" to question 2). We are still left with exactly zero confirmed candidates who might raise the issue of legalized polygamy. Hopefully Colby and I do agree that it won't happen until someone asks for it. Once and for all: who is that someone?

Speaking of question 2, Colby claims that "Child abuse in backwoods Mormon communities isn't any better as an argument against polygamy than AIDS is against same-sex marriage." Like fun it isn't. Disease is not a logical barrier to matrimony — if anything, in the case of AIDS, it's probably an argument for it. Nor, in theory, is child abuse an inherent by-product of (or precursor to) platonic polygamous marriage. But we live in Canada, not in a universe of perfect shapes and forms, and in this country child abuse and other clearly illegal or highly dubious practices occur far too frequently in polygamous communities for us to simply overlook them because we can't think of a foolproof reason why platonic polygamy — the hypothetically consenting and blissful union of multiple people — should be illegal.

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