Anglican Mainstream

From The Christian Institute

From The Telegraph

Monogamy has replaced polygamy because societies where men can marry more than one woman are more violent, researchers say.
 
A study found that in polygamous cultures, levels of rape, kidnap, murder and robbery increase as the dissatsified men left on the shelf go on the rampage.
 
Researchers from the University of British Columbia say that monogamous marriage has replaced polygamy because it has lower levels of inherent social problems.
 
Prof Joseph Henrich said: "Our goal was to understand why monogamous marriage has become standard in most developed nations in recent centuries, when most recorded cultures have practiced polygaymy.
 
"The emergence of monogamous marriage is also puzzling for some as the very people who most benefit from polygymy – wealthy, powerful men – were best positioned to reject it.
 
"Our findings suggest that that institutionalised monogamous marriage provides greater net benefits for society at large by reducing social problems that are inherent in polygymous societies."

Read here

By Patrick Hennessy, Telegraph

Ministers are to bring to an end an "absurd" benefits regime which has seen husbands with multiple wives able to claim extra welfare payments.

From The Christian Institute

Polygamists in America are continuing their attempt to overturn Utah’s law against bigamy, citing a leading homosexual ruling from the US Supreme Court.

Kody Brown and his four ‘wives’ claim that Utah’s bigamy law is unconstitutional because it violates their right to privacy.

Their lawyers are using historical Supreme Court rulings, such as a case from 2003 when judges ruled that homosexual acts in private were protected by the US constitution, to argue against the law.
 
A supporter of polygamy has also argued that if same-sex marriage is allowed polygamy should be too.

Read here

By John Hutchinson, Mailonline

An American woman who lives with her boyfriend and his wife has avoided deportation after claiming that their pagan beliefs forbid divorce.

Emily DiSanto was originally told that on the grounds of public morality which ban polygamous relationships, she would not be granted a Visa to stay in the UK.

But appealing on the grounds of her right to family life, she has won her case under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Miss DiSanto shares the home of Alan and Anne-Marie Caulfield in Eltham, South East London – and both women have a child by Mr Caulfield.

Read here

From Polyinthemedia

Reactions are spreading to Wednesday's court ruling in Canada, in which British Columbia Chief Justice Robert Bauman upheld Canada's anti-polygamy law while narrowing its scope. As part of his ruling, he drew a new distinction that puts "common law" polyamorous households and intimate groups outside the law's reach — unless they perform a marriage-type ceremony or "sanctioning event" seeking sanction from higher powers or authorities and/or the community, in ways not well defined. To catch up on the news, see my previous post.

Read here

By Peter Baklinski, LifeSite News

The British Columbia Supreme Court today upheld Canada’s 121-year-old ban on polygamy, calling the monogamous protecting provision “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

“I have concluded that this case is essentially about harm … arising out of the practice of polygamy,” said B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman, who heard 42 days of testimony and legal arguments in relation to the case.

“Based on the most comprehensive judicial record on the subject ever produced, I have concluded that [there is] a reasoned apprehension of harm to many in our society inherent in the practice of polygamy,” said Justice Bauman.

“This includes harm to women, to children, to society and to the institution of monogamous marriage.”

The case arose in January of 2009 when Winston Blackmore and James Oler, two men from a Mormon community in Bountiful, British Columbia, were arrested and charged under Section 293 of Canada’s Criminal Code for entering into “conjugal union with more than one person at the same time.”

Blackmore claimed to have had 26 wives who gave him collectively 108 children.

Read here

At 1 p.m. EST … Wednesday November. 23, the Supreme Court of British Columbia will announce its ruling on the constitutionality of Canada's broad anti-polygamy and anti-polyamory law.

We'll post news here ASAP, along with the official response from the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association (CPAA) — whose activists and Chief Counsel plan to be in the thick of the media scrum at the Vancouver courthouse.

Their key point: Although attention has focused on the group of Fundamentalist Mormons in Bountiful, BC, that prompted the case, the vast majority of people criminalized by the law are the thousands all across Canada living in healthy, modern, egalitarian, polyamorous relationships.  Read here

From Polyinthemedia

Long-term gay partners agree on some form of non-monogamy more often than straight couples do, though gay spokespeople sometimes act embarrassed by this fact and try to sweep it under the rug.

Gay-marriage advocates in particular often mirror the straight trope that young people will sow their wild oats and then want to settle down into monogamy. Some do, some don't. Gay media gradually seem to be getting more forthright about reporting on committed couples in open relationships — and, less often, on fully poly households of three or more.

There's even a term for a gay triad — a thruple — that I don't see used elsewhere.

Two San Francisco thruples were recently profiled GayExpress, New Zealand's only gay magazine:

Read here

By Mike Judge, Christian Institute

David Cameron said yesterday that homosexual marriage is Conservative, because it encourages strong bonds of commitment between two homosexuals.

The text of his speech shows that he said “Conservative” with a big ‘C’, but it is clear that he also meant conservative will a little ‘c’ – socially conservative.

Dave Landrum of the Evangelical Alliance hit the nail on the head: “If you can’t conserve the institution of marriage, what can you conserve?”

It’s good to see that at least one Dave is thinking clearly about this.

As for the other Dave, has he thought about polygamy? Does David Cameron believe polygamy encourages strong bonds of commitment between several people? Is polygamy conservative too?

I’m not being far fetched. Canada has legalised homosexual marriage, and as a result there is now a courtroom battle in one Canadian province pushing for polygamy to be legalised.

If marriage can be redefined for homosexuals, why not redefine it for polygamists? Given the track record of British Courts interpreting the Human Rights Act, how long would it be before polygamy is legalised in Britain?

What about redefining marriage so that a marriage lasts only two years, to be renewed if both spouses like how things are going? Divorces would be replaced with quicker, simpler ‘non-renewals’.

Far fetched? Nope. It is being proposed right now in Mexico City – just two years after the city legalised homosexual marriage. Is that conservative?

Read here

By Paul Goodman, Conservative Home

By Rosemary Bennett, The Australian

A GROWING number of young British Muslims are taking second or third wives in an unexpected revival of polygamy, according to religious leaders.

By Sue Reid, Mailonline

[...]  I learned of Ghulam and Wasim this week while investigating a subject that is taboo in politically correct Britain. It is the huge rise of bigamy (having two wives) and polygamy (more than two) in our Muslim communities.

The issue was recently bravely highlighted by Baroness Flather, a crossbench life peer who was herself born in Lahore, now part of Pakistan.

She warned the Lords (and also wrote an article for the Mail on the subject) about how our shambolic benefits system is being exploited by men hailing from Pakistan and other Muslim nations who indulge in multiple marriages — with taxpayers forced to foot the bill.

As Baroness Flather explained: ‘The wives are regarded by the welfare system as single mothers, and are therefore entitled to a full range of lone parent payments.
'As a result, several “families” fathered by the same man can all claim benefits, as they are provided for by the welfare state, which treats them as if they were not related,’

The issue was recently bravely highlighted by Baroness Flather
Lady Flather also lamented the reluctance of politicians to address the issue: ‘It is certainly difficult to discuss this phenomenon of serial marriage and exploitation of the benefits system, with few people in Britain seeming to want to confront the disturbing truth.’

Two years ago, another peer, Baroness Warsi, born in Dewsbury to Pakistani parents, and now a Coalition Cabinet Minister, also voiced her concerns. She said cultural sensitivity was stopping politicians addressing the problem.

Yet this week I found those — from within the heart of the Asian communities — who were prepared to speak out.

Read here

From ITV's This Morning

We meet the three women who have all made the decision to share the same man…

Maxine, Eunice and Mimi each have more than one partner… and their partners have other partners… and all 3 women share the same man… and they all know about it, and are all friends…confused?

They have all adopted the Polyamorous lifestyle and are here to tell us all about how it works.

Denise Robertson joins them to give her views on polyamory.

Watch here

By Nelson Jones, New Statesman

Should the state sanction or condone polygamous unions?

Most notably, Islam permits a man to have up to four wives, although the same opportunity is not extended to women who would like more than one husband. The vast majority of Muslim marriages are of course monogamous, but there undoubtedly are polygamous households in modern Britain. It was recently suggested, in a briefing paper leaked last month to Conservative Home, that all religious marriages be might registered with the state as a way of protecting partners whose arrangements are at present informal. Such a system would inevitably raise the question of what to do about polygamy.

Reports that the government was considering giving recognition to religious polygamous marriages were soon quashed, but the suggestion raises the wider question of the state's involvement in registering and thus endorsing private relationships.

It was straightforward enough when marriage was restricted to heterosexual couples. Recently, however, the privileges and duties (social, but also significantly financial) of marriage have been extended to same-sex couples who chose to enter into civil partnerships. This complicates the picture. By extending recognition to same-sex couples, civil partnerships expand the scope of "marriage" (though the word itself is not used). But they also reinforce the notion of the couple itself as the only valid basis for a relationship, excluding both traditional polygamous unions and more modern, experimental arrangements such as polyamory, in which men and women live together (or separately) in various and shifting combinations. Civil partnerships offer respectability to gay couples but only provided that they are couples — that is, that they conform to the traditional pattern of Western Christian monogamy.

Read here

By Carolyn Moynihan, MercatorNet

In the wake of New York’s same-sex marriage law plural marriage is getting an airing, but no-one wants to talk about the kids.

Three years ago Texas authorities caused a sensation in the United States with a raid on the polygamous Mormon sect living at Yearning For Zion Ranch, during which 401 children were taken into state custody. The pretext for the crackdown was not so much polygamy, although it is a crime in Texas, but forced sex with under-age girls taken as wives by older men. In other words, the wellbeing of children was the main issue.

Community leader Warren Jeffs, already in trouble before the raid, is currently in jail awaiting trial in Texas on sexual assault and bigamy charges. If he sits tight a bit longer, though, the bigamy charge may collapse; with same-sex marriage apparently in the bag, polygamy is looking like the next big thing in the United States — and no-one seems to care what happens to the kids.

Read here

by Melanie Phillips

By Charlie Barker and Tim Ross, Telegraph

An internal document, prepared for ministers by civil servants, warned that women who enter religious marriages are “unprotected” if their husband then takes a second or third wife.

By Joe Carter, First Things

[...]  Advocates for same-sex marriage often refer to polls showing the social acceptance of homosexual relationships as a justification for expanding the definition of marriage. From this we can adduce, a fortiori, that since polygamy has an even stronger claim to historical and cultural acceptance, it should be included in the new expansion of marriage “rights.”

The appeal to “rights” also undercuts any reason to give special preference to same-sex relationships over polygamous ones. The precedents established in Lawrence and Goodridge are equally applicable to polyamorous relationships and homosexual couplings. As Scalia noted in his dissent, as long as polygamists are not violating established laws or committing child abuse, states no longer have the authority to regulate their living arrangements.

With this decriminalization comes the inevitable push for acceptance. It happened with homosexual relationships and it will happen with polyamorous ones too. And why should society deny a man the right to marry all the women he loves? What reasons do those who favor gay marriage have for excluding polygamy? Having rejected all arguments from nature and reason when they were used against their position, what do they have left to justify their discrimination?

Read here

By Paul Goodman, Conservative Home