A Vancouver Island woman with two male common-law partners says
Canada's polygamy laws need to be struck down by the B.C.
Supreme Court because they don't permit her to live her chosen
lifestyle.
Zoe Duff, a director of the Canadian Polyamory
Advocacy Association, lives in Esquimalt, west of Victoria, with
her two male partners. Duff says she and the two men are
polyamorists, a term that literally means "many loves."
But it wasn't until she looked at the laws that criminalize
polygamy that Duff realized their relationship was illegal, she
said.
"Holy cow — this affects me," said Duff, who came to
Vancouver this week to watch the B.C. Supreme Court hearing at
which Canada's polygamy ban is being tested.
Lawyers representing the attorneys general of B.C. and Canada
are arguing that polygamy forces child brides into the arms of
manipulative men and should remain illegal.
The special hearing into the issue was called after charges
against two religious leaders from Bountiful, B.C., with
multiple wives were dismissed by a judge because B.C.'s attorney
general was unable to fairly appoint a special prosecutor
willing to take the case to court.
Section 293 of the Criminal Code explicitly bans polygamy and
threatens offenders with a five-year prison term. Bigamy is
named as a similarly serious crime in Section 290.
The legal team for B.C.'s attorney general said Tuesday
morning that the law is intended to crack down on only one kind
of polygamy — polygyny, which involves one husband with multiple
wives, as opposed to polyandry, which is one woman with multiple
husbands. But the distinction remains a key point in the legal
debate at the hearing.
Consensual relationship in the shadows
Duff says the situation in Bountiful has little relevance to
her and the two men who share her bed, and she would like the
court to strike down the laws so that people like her don't have
to live in the shadows.
"I'm living common-law with two partners, and this law very
much overshadows my life and how I feel, how I relate to other
people in the community and causes a great need for secrecy
that's just not part of a lifestyle that I want," Duff said.
As written, the laws target people in any kind of conjugal
union with more than one person at the same time, and Duff says
that includes her.
"I'm a female with two partners ... and I would never have
called myself a polygamist, but the description does fall under
the description of this law," she said. "I'm currently in
contravention of a law if they chose to prosecute us."
Polygamy targets child brides
Not everyone agrees that polygamist or polyamorous
relationships are consensual. B.C.'s attorney general is arguing
that laws against polygamy are needed to prevent exploitation of
child brides.
Brenda Jensen left the tightly knit Mormon fundamentalist
community of Bountiful, located in southeastern B.C., at the age
of 14 and says polygamous relationships cannot exist without
exploitation.
"All the freedoms they're beating the drum about, they're the
ones not living by it," said Jensen, referring to the men in the
community with multiple wives. "They're not allowing their
children to have it. They're not educating their people so they
know they have choices.
"They take the freedom before the child is even old enough to
know what freedom is about."
The court has appointed a legal team to act as the amicus
curiae, or friend of the court, and make the legal argument that
Canada's polygamy laws should be struck down because they
violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The hearing, which began this week, is expected to last until
January.
Thirty-six witnesses, including some women in polygamous
relationships, are scheduled to testify — in some cases, behind
screens to shield their identity from spectators in the court.
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