Gay ‘marriage’, polygamy and female inequality: where’s the link?
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From Lapido Media
Conservative Muslims and others will ‘inevitably’ push for polygamous and polyamorous marriages to be legalised if the government goes ahead with its plans to redefine marriage, according to one top barrister.
Following the closure of the government’s public consultation on equal marriage on Thursday, lawyer Neil Addison told Lapido: ‘If same-sex marriage is legalised then it is inevitable that legal polygamy will be requested.
‘After all if heterosexuality is no longer to be part of the legal definition of marriage, why should monogamy continue?’
A recent report by the BBC Asian Network revealed that polygamy – or more specifically polygyny, the practice of having more than one wife – was on the rise among Muslim communities where men can marry several women under the religious ‘nikah’ ceremony despite these marriages not being recognised in UK law.
Mr Addison, the UK’s authority on religious freedom legislation, said: ‘It is already an open secret that amongst the Muslim community there are a number of unregistered polygamous marriages and this means that these extra ‘wives’ are denied legal status, the rights of a next of kin and rights of inheritance – all the arguments that were originally used to justify same-sex civil partnerships.’
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