Viewpoint has argued since our inception last May that legalizing same sex marriage will ultimately destroy marriage as an institution because it will remove any rationale for proscribing unions of any or all conceivable permutations. Once marriage is no longer limited to one man and one woman there is no logical basis for placing any limits on the number or gender composition of any union. When marriage can be anything at all it will cease to exist in any meaningful sense.
Now comes this story. from the Ottawa Citizen essentially placing an exclamation point at the end of the previous paragraph:
Just weeks before it introduces divisive same-sex marriage legislation, the federal government has launched an urgent study into the legal and social ramifications of polygamy. Critics say the study underscores a deep concern in the Martin government that legalized homosexual marriage may lead to constitutional challenges from minority groups who claim polygamy as a religious right.
It also suggests that the government is suspicious that multi-marriage is more commonplace in Canada than widely realized. Polygamy, outlawed in Canada but accepted and practised in many countries, typically means a man having several wives at the same time.
"In order to best prepare for possible debate surrounding Canada's polygamy policy, critical research is needed," says a Status of Women Canada document. "It is vital that researchers explore the impacts of polygamy on women and children and gender equality as well as the challenges that polygamy presents to society."
Conservative party justice critic Vic Toews says there is a direct link between the Status of Women concern and the same-sex marriage legislation due to be introduced by the government in February.
"This government understands it has a problem on its hands," said Mr. Toews, a former Manitoba constitutional lawyer. "What they are looking for is evidence to demonstrate that polygamy is inconsistent with Charter and Canadian values. If I was a lawyer prosecuting a polygamist that's the type of evidence I would be looking for."
But when same-sex marriage becomes legal, the door will open to more Charter challenges, said Conservative critic Mr. Toews. "Once you change the definition of marriage from one man and one woman and you move to two persons," he said, "what then is the distinction between two persons, or three or more persons? If I was a lawyer defending polygamists, I'd say 'hey this is a constitutional right, a freedom of religion.' Why can't freedom of religion trump this new definition of marriage?"
The article includes comments from lawyer Peter Hogg, who argued the federal government's case for same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court of Canada. Mr. Hogg said that he doubts legalizing homosexual marriage will lead to legal challenges from polygamists, but his reasoning sounds to us to be either naive or disingenuous.
"We have to recognize that over time society changes and marriage changes to mirror the attitude, mores and needs of a particular society," said Mr Hogg. "If some kind of cataclysm occurred to make women far more numerous than men for a long period of time then a significant movement might develop to change the institution of marriage to reflect that. But that is unlikely."
The fact that bigamy is a crime in Canada is also a huge obstacle for a polygamist launching a Charter of Rights challenge, he said.
"I don't think you can say there are any inexorable steps here," added Mr Hogg. "What has sparked the concern over same-sex marriage is a series of Charter decisions holding that opposite-sex marriage discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and you can't make arguments of that sort with respect to polygamy."
Mr. Hogg elides the real point. The issue is not whether bigamy is currently a crime or how the majority of people feel about marriage, it is rather whether there is or can be any legal or philosophical basis more solid than simply arbitrary preference for preventing groups of people of whatever gender combinations from marrying. The fact is that once marriage is separated from its Biblical definition and two thousand years of tradition there is nothing left to rest it upon. Any law against it will be overturned just as laws against sodomy have been overturned. The whole society may believe marriage should be limited to two people, but they have no grounds for imposing what is a mere personal preference upon others who decide that they are sexually oriented toward polyamory and want the right to marry for themselves.
