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The Evidence That Polygamy And Polyamory Will Be Next Claim |
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MEDIA RELEASE
10 January
2013
The Evidence That Polygamy And Polyamory
Will Be Next Claim
Family First NZ has released evidence from overseas showing growing demands for recognition of polygamy and polyamory on the back of the ‘gay marriage’ campaigns.
“This evidence is not ‘scaremongering’ or ‘dishonest’ as claimed by MP Louisa Wall. It is fact, and is just one outcome of redefining the definition of marriage,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.
“We were accused of scaremongering and being dishonest when we raised the issue of churches and marriage celebrants being forced to host and perform same-sex ‘marriages’ as well – but of course, our opinion has been backed up by a number of legal experts. The name-calling won’t stop us from highlighting facts.”
“Our basic argument is simply this. If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined again? Allowing only same-sex marriage on the basis of love and human rights would then open the door for those arguing for polygamous and group marriage. Why would discrimination against these loving adults be ok? They may be illegal now, but it wasn’t that long ago that same-sex marriage was illegal also,” says Mr McCoskrie.
EXAMPLE 1 – CANADA:
Two
government studies released by Canada’s justice department
in 2006 recommended the decriminalisation of polygamy, with
one arguing that the move was justified by the need to
attract more skilled Muslim immigrants. “Criminalization
does not address the harms associated with valid foreign
polygamous marriages and plural unions, in particular the
harms to women,” says the report, obtained by The Canadian
Press under the Access to Information Act. The research
paper is part of a controversial $150,000 polygamy project,
launched a year ago and paid for by the Justice Department
and Status of Women Canada. The paper by three law
professors at Queen’s University in Kingston argues that
Section 293 of the Criminal Code banning polygamy serves no
useful purpose and in any case is rarely prosecuted.
http://www.wluml.org/english/newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd[157]=x-157-507316
Note:
The courts in Canada have so far rejected attempts to
decriminalise polygamy. However, as we know in NZ from the
Quilter v Attorney-General case, court decisions will
be challenged, and can easily be overturned by legislation,
as will happen if the gay marriage bill passes in
NZ.
EXAMPLE 2 – CANADA:
A major
report issued in 2001 by the Law Commission of Canada,
Beyond Conjugality:Recognizing and Supporting Close
Personal Relationships, viewed marriage as a “close
personal relationship” and asked whether such
relationships should be “limited to two people.” Its
conclusion: probably not. Although the authors of “Beyond
Conjugality” are politic enough to relegate the point to
footnotes, they state that they see no reason, in principle,
to limit registered partnerships to two people.
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2002/rpt/2002-R-0172.htm
EXAMPLE
3 – U.S.A.:
A July 2009 Newsweek story
entitled “Polyamory: the next sexual revolution”
estimates that there are more than half a million “open
polyamorous families” living in America.
“It’s
enough to make any monogamist’s head spin. But the
traditionalists had better get used to it.
Researchers are just beginniung to study the phenomenon, but
the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in
the United States number more than half a million, with
thriving continents in nearly every major city.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/07/28/only-you-and-you-and-you.html
EXAMPLE
4 – U.S.A.:
In their statement “Beyond
Same-Sex Marriage,” more than 300 “LGBT and allied”
scholars and advocates— including prominent Ivy League
professors—call for legal recognition of sexual
relationships involving more than two partners.
Beyond
Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our
Families & Relationships, (July 26, 2006),
http://beyondmarriage.org/full_statement.html
EXAMPLE
5 – U.S.A.:
In 1972 the National Coalition of
Gay Organizations in the US demanded the “repeal of all
legislative provisions that restrict the sex or number of
persons entering into a marriage unit;”
National
Coalition of Gay Organizations, “The 1972 Gay Rights
Platform,” Chicago, 1972
http://www.article8.org/docs/general/platform.htm
EXAMPLE
6 – NEW ZEALAND:
Ministry of Women’s
Affairs, The New Zealand Jurisdictional Report — Work and
Family Balance: A policy perspective, March
2002
“New Zealand legislation gives a mixed message
about what State counts as family. For example… only the
male and one wife from a polygamous family are
allowed to immigrate to New Zealand. There is an
increasing recognition of the need to avoid enshrining in
legislation concepts of family which are
exclusive.”
EXAMPLE 7 – NEW
ZEALAND:
Ruth Dyson – Speech to Victoria
University first year Social and Public Policy students 6
May 2008 (subsequently pulled after media
exposure)
“Shifting the focus from social
welfare to social development is about considering the
wellbeing of the whole population, and communities within
that population, rather than solely focusing on the
traditional family group. We must cater for the diversity,
we know exists. By this I mean the range of relationships
from single, couples, triples, blended, de facto, and so on.
That’s where we’re going with social policy.
http://www.investigatemagazine.com/dysonspeech.pdf
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/577274
EXAMPLE
8 – NEW ZEALAND:
Wellington-based activist
group The Queer Avengers is calling for a struggle “beyond
marriage”, saying while it supports marriage equality,
it’s not the end of the line for GLBT rights. While the
group supports Louisa Wall’s Bill to introduce marriage
equality, it says the community still faces a number of
obstacles. Member Sara Fraser says these include bullying,
suicide and homelessness among GLBT youth, inadequate access
to quality healthcare for trans people and common
intimidation and violence in the streets. She adds that
there are many family structures which marriage and adoption
law does not cover, for example polyamory
and whangai adoption. “This is not the final struggle,”
Fraser says. “We’re looking ahead to the struggles
beyond marriage.”
http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_12052.php
EXAMPLE
9 – U.S.A.:
Promoting
polygamy
When Tom Green was put on trial in
Utah for polygamy in 2001, it played like a dress rehearsal
for the coming movement to legalize polygamy. True, Green
was convicted for violating what he called Utah’s
“don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on polygamy.
Pointedly refusing to “hide in the closet,” he touted
polygamy on the Sally Jessy Raphael, Queen Latifah, Geraldo
Rivera, and Jerry Springer shows, and on “Dateline NBC”
and “48 Hours.” But the Green trial was not just a cable
spectacle. It brought out a surprising number of mainstream
defenses of polygamy. And most of the defenders went to
bat for polygamy by drawing direct comparisons to gay
marriage.
Writing in the Village Voice, gay
leftist Richard Goldstein equated the drive for
state-sanctioned polygamy with the movement for gay
marriage. The political reluctance of gays to embrace
polygamists was understandable, said Goldstein, “but our
fates are entwined in fundamental ways.” Libertarian Jacob
Sullum defended polygamy, along with all other consensual
domestic arrangements, in the Washington Times.
Syndicated liberal columnist Ellen Goodman took up the
cause of polygamy with a direct comparison to gay
marriage. Steve Chapman, a member of the Chicago Tribune
editorial board, defended polygamy in the Tribune and in
Slate. The New York Times published a Week in Review article
juxtaposing photos of Tom Green’s family with
sociobiological arguments about the naturalness of polygamy
and promiscuity.
The ACLU’s Matt Coles may have
derided the idea of a slippery slope from gay marriage to
polygamy, but the ACLU itself stepped in to help Tom
Green during his trial and declared its support for the
repeal of all “laws prohibiting or penalizing the practice
of plural marriage.” There is of course a
difference between repealing such laws and formal state
recognition of polygamous marriages. Neither the ACLU nor,
say, Ellen Goodman has directly advocated formal state
recognition. Yet they give us no reason to suppose that,
when the time is ripe, they will not do so. Stephen Clark,
the legal director of the Utah ACLU, has said, “Talking to
Utah’s polygamists is like talking to gays and lesbians
who really want the right to live their
lives.”
All this was in 2001, well before the
prospect that legal gay marriage might create the cultural
conditions for state-sanctioned polygamy. Can anyone doubt
that greater public support will be forthcoming once gay
marriage has become a reality? Surely the ACLU will lead the
charge.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/938xpsxy.asp?nopager=1
EXAMPLE
10 – CANADA:
School posters produced as
part of the Toronto District School Board’s “Safe and
Positive Spaces” campaign have raised the ire of critics
who point out that, besides the expected promotion of
homosexuality as normal, one of the posters appears to
promote polygamy. The poster titled “Love has no gender”
depicts washroom-sign-style stick men and stick women inside
colorful hearts. Along with hearts that contain 2 stick men
or 2 stick women, one heart has one man and 2 women while
another has one woman and 2 men.
http://familyfirst.org.nz/2012/10/toronto-school-board-poster-promotes-polygamy/
EXAMPLE
11 – AUSTRALIA:
Herald Sun (Australia)
September 03, 2008
Love triangles could get legal
recognition as part of a push to give de facto partners
access to the Family Court. The aim of the Rudd
Government’s Bill is to give de facto couples —
heterosexual and same-sex — greater rights in property
disputes. But critics fear it could leave innocent spouses
facing financial ruin if a partner’s lover makes a
property claim. The Bill asserts that a de facto
relationship can exist even if one of the persons is legally
married to someone else or in another de facto relationship.
The Federal Opposition said the Bill would give a green
light to polygamy. “There’ll be no Big Love under our
watch,” Liberal senator Mitch Fifield said, referring to
the US TV series on SBS about a man and his three wives.
Another critic, Victorian Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella, said
the Bill had serious flaws. “Not only is the Labor Party
legalising polygamy, but it’s changing the law so that the
third person in an extramarital relationship can effectively
claim the assets of a marriage or of the long-term de facto
relationship,” she said.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24285129-662,00.html
EXAMPLE
12 – U.S.A.:
Newsweek / NZ Herald March 18
2006
Polygamists, Unite!
Hammon,
who’s involved in a polygamous relationship, is a founding
member of the Centennial Park Action Committee, a group that
lobbies for decriminalization of the practice. She’s among
a new wave of polygamy activists emerging in the wake of
the gay-marriage movement–just as a federal lawsuit
challenging anti-polygamy laws makes its way through the
courts and a new show about polygamy debuts on HBO.
“Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights
battle,” says Mark Henkel, who, as founder of the
Christian evangelical polygamy organization TruthBearer.org,
is at the forefront of the movement. His argument:
if Heather can have two mommies, she should also be able to
have two mommies and a daddy. Henkel and Hammon
have been joined by other activist groups like Principle
Voices, a Utah-based group run by wives from polygamous
marriages. Activists point to Canada, where, in January, a
report commissioned by the Justice Department recommended
decriminalizing polygamy.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2006/03/19/polygamists-unite.html
EXAMPLE
13 – U.K.:
Multiple wives means
multiple benefits
Telegraph (UK) 04 February
2008
Husbands with multiple wives have been given the
go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a
year-long Government review, The Sunday Telegraph can
reveal. Even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, the
decision by ministers means that polygamous marriages can
now be recognised formally by the state, so long as the
weddings took place in countries where the arrangement is
legal.
http://familyfirst.org.nz/2008/02/multiple-wives-will-mean-multiple-benefits-uk/
EXAMPLE
14 – BRAZIL:
BBC News 28 Aug 2012
A
notary in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo has sparked
controversy by accepting a civil union between three people.
Public Notary Claudia do Nascimento Domingues has said the
man and two women should be entitled to family rights. She
says there is nothing in law to prevent such an arrangement.
But the move has angered some religious groups, while one
lawyer described it as “absurd and totally illegal”. The
three individuals, who have declined to speak to the press,
have lived in Rio de Janeiro together for three years and
share bills and other expenses. Ms Domingues says they have
already opened a joint bank account, which is also not
prohibited by any law.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19402508
EXAMPLE
15: AUSTRALIA
My life ‘married’ to
twin sisters
The West (Australia) 29 May
2012
A Perth man living in a polyamorous relationship
with identical twin sisters has spoken about the ups and
downs of being ‘the meat in the sandwich’. Marc Glasby
was married and faithful to his wife of 30 years, Belle; but
then her long lost twin sister arrived on the scene and
things got complicated. Mr Glasby says he quickly fell in
love with Dorothy when she and her sister were reunited
three years ago, and they now live in a happy, healthy
polyamorous relationship.
….Polygamy is illegal
in Australia, but there are no laws stopping consenting
adults from living together in a relationship. Polyamory is
an accepted part of many cultures in Australia, including
parts of the Aboriginal and Muslim communities. ….Mr
Glasby believes polygamy poses no threat to Australian
society, and would simply legally recognise something which
already exists here informally.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/13805006/my-life-married-to-twin-sisters/
EXAMPLE
16 – NETHERLANDS:
First Trio
“Married” in The Netherlands
In the
Netherlands polygamy has been legalised in all but name. Last Friday
the first civil union of three partners was registered.
Victor de Bruijn (46) from Roosendaal “married” both
Bianca (31) and Mirjam (35) in a ceremony before a notary
who duly registered their civil union.
Dutch
Minister Not to Prevent Polygamy
Brussels
Journal Nov 2006
The Dutch authorities are not going to
annul the so-called samenlevingscontract or
“cohabitation contract,” a civil union registered before
a notary, which a man recently concluded with two women whom
he now considers to both be his wives. Piet-Hein Donner, the
Dutch minister of Justice, responded in the negative to a
request of the Dutch parliamentarian Cees Van der Staaij to
annul the “trio marriage.” Van der Staaij is a member of
the smallest party elected in the January 2003 general
elections, the Calvinist SGP, holding two of the 150 seats
in parliament. Homosexual couples are legally allowed to
marry in the Netherlands, but those in polygamous
relationships must find other ways of formalizing their
cohabitation. Donner, a member of the largest Dutch party,
the Christian-Democrat CDA (44 seats), said that such
samenlevingscontracten are not illegal because the polygamy
prohibition only applies to people that are formally
married.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/421
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