Eideard

The social harm of polygamy should outweigh any fear that enforcing the laws against it will violate protections of religious freedom, Canadian prosecutors said on Monday at the start of a judicial inquiry.

The inquiry will grapple with legal and moral questions raised by a breakaway Mormon church sect that has allowed men to have multiple wives at its rural British Columbia compound since the late 1940s.

The Canadian province had long refused to file charges against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints saying it feared the 19th century law ran afoul of more recent civil rights protections.

But provincial prosecutors told the hearing they have changed their minds, and now want the law declared constitutional so they can enforce it. Their past views had hampered their recent efforts to file criminal charges…

The FLDS, which split from the mainstream Mormon church over the issue of polygamy, has an estimated 10,000 followers in Utah, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota and British Columbia.

The church says it is exercising religious freedom. There’s another chunk of law to consider beyond this case. After all, many global religions, most notably Islam permit polygamy. Some allow polyandry.

And if the religious question is settled to allow polygamy, how can the stae justify special treatment for a religion – and disallow the right for the secular and sensible?