From CTV:
A new study for the federal Justice Department says Canada should get rid of its law banning polygamy, and change other legislation to help women and children living in such multiple-spouse relationships.The Bailey report, consistent with other research for the project, also concludes the courts might well rule that Canada's law banning polygamy is a violation of Canada's constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion.
But Section 293 would survive such a challenge because the harm to women and children in many polygamous marriages is well documented - abuse, poverty, coercion, health problems - and the limit to religious freedom would be considered "reasonable," as allowed under Section 1 of the charter.
Chief author Martha Bailey - "In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society. Why are we singling out that particular form of behaviour for criminalization?"
With this type of thinking... why bother criminalizing anything?
In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society... why bother locking the doors to your home... we should just allow the thieves to walk in and help themselves.
In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society... why ban banned guns? Criminals should be allowed to have them.
In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society... why bother having a legal age of consent? Our children should be able to have sex no matter their age.
In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society... Why bother having a legal age to drink? Everyone should be able to if they choose.
Thank you BeatL(iberal) Bailey for your $150,000 load of crap! I am sure it will do this country a world of good.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Slidding
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20 comments:
Good post.. this ones getting around tonight ...
Why does everyone automatically equate polygamy with abuse? If there is no abuse, would you feel better about it?
Martha Bailey is right. Leave it alone. There are lots of polyamorous relationships that are doing just fine. They don't get any press coverage because there's no story when nothing bleeds, right?
Chimera, you have missed my point... it is her statement that I have a problem with.
"In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society. Why are we singling out that particular form of behaviour for criminalization?"
Do you not see a problem with this statement. I sure the heck do....
You're right -- I guess I'm missing your point.
I read Martha's statement to mean that government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation. I agree with her.
I don't see how you can extrapolate that to include burglary. Or am I reading you incorrectly?
ok... then why single out any particular behaviour at all? Everything should be acceptable no matter what it is as someone somewhere deems it as "its okay".
If you're talking about lifestyle, and no one is being injured (in other words, no crime is taking place, and there is no victimization of anyone), why not indeed?
Burglary is a crime --not okay.
Assault is injury -- not okay.
Whose is getting injured or victimized by consensual poly relationships?
I would argue, Chimera, that in towns like Bountiful BC, abuses are taking place, they just aren't being discussed. The same way incest wasn't discussed prior to what, 1970s? 80s? The same way rape wasn't. The same way child abuse wasn't (I remember bringing a friend home after her stepdad tossed her down the stairs - circa 1972. My parents took us to the RCMP detachment to discuss our options. At that point in time, she could stay with us until such time as her parents requested her return; to refuse would be the legal equivalent of kidnapping. She ended up in a foster home because the parents didn't request her return before my parents talked to Social Services or whatever they were called at the time. There were no 24-hour hotlines at the time.)
Should I do a google & see if I can find a comment or post from you, say around May 05, to see if you were accusing conservatives of being alarmist about slippery slopes? Because finding such a post/comment would (a) depress me (b) piss me off because I ended up buying some of those arguments (c)... you get my drift.
Do you have children? I ask not in a snarky way, but because I know that I had a fundamental (really, not PMPM kind) shift occur upon giving birth. Two weeks earlier, I was convinced that a Porsche 911 (Porsche makes matching carseats) was an appropriate choice for a car. Upon leaving the hospital, I was incredibly relieved that I had been overruled & we were in a German tank instead.
Just wondering. Because I can tell you that if my legal-at-14 child came to me at 14/15/16 & said she was going to "marry" someone with 4 or 5 wives & 20 or so kids, I'd have a serious problem with it.
Valid arguement Candace, and I would have gone with the Porche myself, your the woman and men aren't supposed to argue with women....
The lifestyle of the polygamist as in bountiful won't last more than about 50 more years I suspect, as the women there start to feel empowered in some way. I wonder, statisticaly if any women there are happy with the relationship. The possibility of "playing" one wife against the other is astronomical, and unlike a regular relationship where if say, I tried that on my wife, well i shudder to think of the reaction. Whereas there, it's a way they use to control situations.
Man, my old lady would sure reek havok in THAT place let me tell you.
Candace, you and her should go undercover and gain access, teach em a few things there....
Candace -- Sure, go ahead and google, but don't look for the term "slippery slope" from me; it's one of those catch-phrases that I loathe. And I don't remember what I said last May, but feel free to look. I always have the outlook that anything I say in print could possibly end up on the front page of my local newspaper, so I'm usually pretty careful in how I formulate and publish my opinions.
Would I have "accused" anyone of being alarmist? It's possible. But there are lots of things to be alarmed about. I just don't happen to think that consensual poly relationships belong in that category.
I just recently did a post on this topic. I didn't want to mention it here -- pimping your own blog in someone else's comments is rude, I think. But this post of Tim's was what inspired me to do the research (and I do mention that at the top of my post), so... One of the things I found was that the women of Bountiful are free to come and go as they choose, and they choose to stay.
This is obviously not for everyone. But it's a lifestyle that is chosen by some, and again I ask, what's the harm?
No, I don't have children. Never wanted them, and that was a stipulation for getting married -- that it never even become a topic for discussion. But I know that good parents are extremely protective of their offspring, and tend to want to imbue them with their own values. I'm all for good parents. I just don't want to be one.
My culture is different from yours (I would have gone for the tank in the first place, not the Porsche, which I think is over-rated and over-priced). But if someone with the same cultural background as mine had their 14-year-old daughter come home and say she wanted to marry an older guy who already had multiple wives -- believe me, they would look into it. They would not dismiss it without investigating -- they would want to know why. And they would be able to talk to their daughter and find out what her reasoning is. Parents within my culture can have in-depth discussion with their children at fairly young ages. And there are very few messed-up, drugged-out gang-bangers in those kids -- much lower than the continental average. (And please don't take that to mean that I think your child is going to end up messed up and drugged out. But take a look around at what society considers "normal" and ask yourself if something hasn't gone severly awry with that's considered "normal.")
Dino -- the poly lifestyle has been around for centuries, and will survive centuries more. If Bountiful gets shut down, the four families there will simply move to another place. They don't impose on anyone, and most of the women already feel empowered. How you gonna top that?
As for trying to play one wife against another -- from what I understand, they consider themselves to be sisters, and I wouldn't want to be the one to start messin' with family ties, here. That could bring serious injury if you get caught. Don't you remember the old warning from the Crusades? "Never let them give you to the women!" *grin*
Whew! Long comment -- sorry, Tim.
No problem Chimera... nice to see I have created something that has enough substance to it that you and others can do just that.....
Maybe I am looking at this with too broad of a view... but I for one am having a harder and harder time understanding what we as a country are willing to allow... and when I see a document that was prepaired for our government that has a statement like "In light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society. Why are we singling out that particular form of behaviour for criminalization?"
So where are we as a people going to draw the line? Where is our tipping point? What should we expect from our children? How can we teach them morals and laws if we as a nation are continually changing the rules as to what is acceptable? Change is ok, don't get me wrong. I just can't help but wonder as a society that is so permissive.... where does it stop?
"So where are we as a people going to draw the line?"
Draw the line at harm to someone else, or at victimizing someone else. As in your right to swing your fist stops before it hits someone else's nose. Or your right to express your opinion stops short of racism, hate speech, or yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater just to see the reaction (Not you, specifically, Tim, but the societal "you.")
I have never really understood what is meant by the phrase "tipping point."
"What should we expect from our children?"
I would say we should expect that they grow up to be fully functional adults, hopefully with some degree of curiosity and openness to new ideas. Beyond that, not much. They are children, after all.
"How can we teach them morals and laws if we as a nation are continually changing the rules as to what is acceptable?"
Ah, now you're getting to the meat of the question, I think...
Morals are subjective. Each person has his own particular code of behaviour that he sees as being moral. Anything outside that code is considered immoral, or at least questionable. And this is fine for the individual.
The problem I have is that some of these like-minded people get together, decide in a bunch what they want to define as moral, and then proceed to tell the rest of us that we have to see it the same way. Then they try to force their own morals into law, which would make them objective.
And in the process, the concepts of freedom of thought and choice get lost.
Suddenly, someone else's figurative nose becomes a much more viable target...
Society as a group should not be the arbiter of "permissive" when it comes to someone else's personal behaviour. If you (again, the societal "you") are not being injured, harmed, or imposed upon by another's behaviour, why should you be allowed to have any say about it?
To take the analogy to an extreme -- imagine a society wherein vegans suddenly are the majority, and they get to make the laws that will govern your dietary behaviour. They view meat as poison, and the eating of meat as immoral. I'm sure you've seen/heard the PETA people (and I don't disagree with them on everything, but they do tend to go overboard on some stuff, in my opinion).
Now, I don't know if you eat meat or not. But I imagine that you wouldn't force anyone else to eat meat if they didn't want to do so, right? Would you then allow someone else to decide that you are not allowed to eat meat if you want to do so?
I did mention that it was an extreme analogy. It's not a perfect analogy, but it holds the flavor of what I'm trying to say.
So...teach your children about those things which you believe to be moral. But keep in mind that they are not going to grow up in isolation from other peoples' morals and opinions. Be prepared for questions, objections, and rebellion to what you are teaching. Have your arguments ready. Be prepared to admit defeat gracefully or rejoice in victory quietly when your children finally make up their minds in which ways they are going to be moral. Love them no matter which way they go. And be prepared to be loved in return. Because the more you allow them to go their own way on subjective matters, the more likely they are to defend your right to disagree with them to someone else...
And the changing of the rules is necessary if we as a society are to continue to evolve. Otherwise we would stop growing, and that which does not grow, dies.
And a slightly sideways observation from my store of "useless trivia": When Queen Victoria passed the law forbidding homosexuality as deviant and immoral behaviour, she actually stated that men were prohibited from engaging in homosexual acts. She did not mention women at all. When she was asked about this (and I can't remember without going to my paper library, but I think it was Disraeli who asked), her response was: "Oh, don't be silly. Women would never do such a thing."
So, in all those years for which homosexuality was a crime in England, it applied only to men. Lesbians were perfectly safe from the law.
LOL! How fair was that?
I've been re-reading this post and the comments, and just had a sudden thought:
Is the key word here "permissive?"
As in "we permit someone to (...*insert personal and private behaviour here*...).
That suggests that we as a society can control another person's personal and private thoughts and behaviour.
What if we change "permit" to "accept."
As in, "I may not agree with your poly relationship, but no one is being harmed by it, so I will accept that you choose it so long as you do not impose it upon me."
Would that work?
No it wouldn't work... sorry... I really could care less what someone does or how they think when those things do not affect someone else... I already accept that people will do what people do no matter what others may think of it. I may accept these things but that does not mean I have to condone them nor condem them. It makes no matter to me. However when the government of the day comes out with legislation that tells me how I should think and that I should condone these things is an entirely different matter. Now it does effect me. Now how do I explain to my kids about morals when they come back with, "the government says". Should I say... "the government is wrong".
Do I think that we should criminalize these actions... no... it serves no purpose... should our government comeout and tell me to condone their behaviour with legislation. I don't think so...
Tipping point in my point of view is... as a group, society has a balancing act to do... lets use the playground teeter totter as an example...
We have at one end a group asking for what they think is right on the other end we have another group asking for what they think is right... The government is the pivoting point in the middle... it is as far as I am concerned, the job of the government to keep things balanced... not by moving the pivot point but by truely balancing out all the issues... the liberal government has not been doing this... they simply move the pivot point further to one side in order to balance things out... this is not how things should be done... it is not a true balance... the tipping point is when the balance is out of wack... merely moving the pivot point does not correct things even though it does appear to be ballanced... (the board still remains level).
"Do I think that we should criminalize these actions... no... it serves no purpose... should our government comeout and tell me to condone their behaviour with legislation. I don't think so..."
Looks like you and I are actually on the same page, here, after all. The government should just leave it alone. No legislation either for or against. Let each individual think and decide for himself.
If I have been giving a different impression, I apologize. I don't wish to force anyone to endorse polyamory against his instincts, beliefs, or wishes, either. That would be just as wrong as legislating against it, IMHO.
"Should I say... "the government is wrong"."
When you think the government is wrong, you absolutely should say so! But don't just say it -- back it up with good, solid reasons why you think so.
Thanks for the explanation of "tipping point." I understand you to mean that it's a balancing act? Would an example of this be the Nazi party's annual march in Skokie, Illinois (two polar-opposite groups in terms of culture, viewpoint, and degree of imposition)? SCOTUS, I believe, decided in favor of allowing the Nazis to march through the mostly-Jewish Skokie on the basis of civil rights and freedom of expression.
I would have wanted the Nazi party to justify their reasoning in deliberately taunting and forcing their views on an unwilling segment of the population. I would very likely then have suggested that they find another venue in which to march -- the gods know that there are plenty of places that would have welcomed them!
(Note: For some reason, this is the first ferinstance that popped into my head. It may not be the best analogy -- but I have yet to discover the perfect analogy to any question...)
I am now trying to decide if I would always want things to be perfectly balanced, never out of whack. Do I think it would be a good thing? I have to think about this...
These are quite the "examples" you keep coming up with. You are far more informed on issues than I. Yes we are on the same page.. but I am still looking at the statement made in a a "bigger picture" than you I think. I see her statement as going way beyond the "bedrooms of the nation" some hippy guy said that once I think.... lmao... there was also a rumour about him giving the west the finger... anyways.... "permissive society" can be taken much further than just our bedrooms... we have become more permissive in many other ways... perhaps we should change 'permissive' to 'lenient' to get my point across...... or maybe not....
Okay... How about an example of what would bother you about a more permissive (or lenient) society? Those two words have different meanings, though. Sometimes I really do need for someone to "draw me a picture" before I understand what they mean.
Far more informed? Naw -- just older, I think.
Chimera... may I suggest you try a little seaqrch of these two words...permissive and lenient They are not all that different...
Maybe I should try a spell checker myself... doh!... Knowledge comes with age... not sure you are that much older than me.... I will admit I am not very well read...
LOL! The influence of Zorpheous is all-pervasive!
I'm 13 years older than you are. That's about a generation, I think (o/t -- how long is a generation, and how do "they" know? Now back to regular programming...)
On definitions, I usually go by an etymological dictionary rather than a thesaurus, but you are correct -- for purposes of this particular topic, the words are practically the same. "Permissive" suggests before the fact and "lenient" after the fact, is all.
I think I finally got your drift from the comments you left at my place -- let me know, okay?
whew.... that did not take toooooo long... maybe I need a course in communication.... as long as I don't take the same one Martin took... I tend to use both on a regular basis... good way to expand my limited vocabulary...
If 13 is a generation... then I guess I have a couple of brothers that are from another generation as well... Don't think they would like me saying that... I would say we are all baby boomers... you at the forefront of that generation and I am at the very end....
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