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?

Some 40,000 people in the US state of Utah live in illegal polygamous families in which a man takes more than one wife. These fundamentalist Mormons have now begun a campaign for a change in the law they regard as discriminatory and unfair…The campaign is called Principle Voices and one of the organisers was Anne Wilde, now a widow after a 33-year marriage.

Anne Wilde talks about her late husband and his other wives. I had met Anne the evening before her big campaigning day and she was worried as to how many would turn up for fear of being identified for future prosecution. But she need not have worried.

Those piling into a conference room to hear from the state’s politicians were from a breakaway group that had refused to opt for monogamy. “I see myself as a free man in a free society,” said one father, who came with his two daughters, both aged 12.

On the podium was Republican politician Ric Cantrel who had a surprising message for people seen to be openly breaking the law.

“Your patriotism is unquestionable,” he said, “and your faith inspiring. “You have no hesitation to put God’s law above the law of the state with a propensity toward civil disobedience and I find that very American.”

It’s…clear that Utah’s polygamous communities would be safe from the police as long as they stuck to other laws and, for example, did not indulge in child marriages or paedophilia.

That’s the point I would make. As long as folks aren’t harming each other or breaking essential laws grounded in fact, what’s the harm in allowing multiple marriages – which are accepted throughout the world – ranging from polyandry to polygamy? Maintaining laws passed on the basis of one or another religion makes our code no less absurd than the worst of Sharia.

Yes, keeping a happy, healthy marriage together can be difficult under the best of circumstances. Which is why so many opt for something less demanding throughout the educated industrial West. But, if you wish to live within a more complex form, you should have the right to do so.

A dozen Mormon missionaries are again taking off their trademark white shirts for a calendar that seeks to strip away stereotypes about their church.

The 2009 version of the Men on Mission calendar was released Thursday – two months after its creator was excommunicated by leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for producing this year’s calendar…

Calendar producer Hardy was excommunicated July 13 by a panel of church leaders for conduct unbecoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Calendar model Cody Bloomfield, who graces the 2009 cover, said he’s not worried about disciplinary action. He said shining a light on the church’s younger members is good.

Dedication to public good is always praiseworthy. I don’t care whether you’re a Mormon or atheist, Catholic or Bright, Gay or straight. I’ve known a few missionaries and I credit them for their devotion to a better life for others.

Some stay in their church. Many don’t. I’m reminded of a Maryknoll priest I knew who worked to organize tenant farmers in The Phillippines – and when he found out their absentee landlord was his bishop, he left his church. He didn’t leave his work.