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There's been a trial going on in British Columbia for a long time now to overturn our polygamy law.

Our law states:



There is a bit of legalese in there, so basically, if anyone isn't sure what all that means, it mean that ON SUSPICION, you, your partners and anyone who knew you were in poly relationships CAN be JAILED for 5 years, with no trial, no lawyer, no ANYTHING.

What this also means is, the courts don't care if you have a wife and 30 mistresses, they don't care if you have 12 boyfriends. But once you all reside at the same address, you're breaking the law.

If you live in an apartment building, and spouse 1 lives with you and spouse 2 lives next door, YOU ARE NOT BREAKING THE LAW. If spouse 2 moves in with you and spouse 1, YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW.

Everything is perfectly legal, until you share the same legal address with more than 1 person. Just that small thing, an address, is what makes poly illegal in Canada. Not the acts themselves. Hell, in a lot of provinces, adultry is not grounds for divorce. We expect people are going to hook up. It's bloody cold up here. wink

This law hasn't been used in a very, very long time, successfully. There is a Mormon comune in BC and some members of the courts have tried over and over to use this law to jail members of that comune. After the 3rd or 4th time, other lawyers, poly groups and Canadians who feel that it is wrong to jail people with no trial banded together and they challenged the law.

In Canada, that means that the courts have to go through a lot of research, a bunch of people have to be appointed to either support the law or not, and much fun happens... >.>

There are many lawyers representing many different people and groups involved in this case. Some are for poly being legalized, some are just for the law being changed so that it matches the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it can't be on suspicion, trial has to be granted, etc., and some are against it being touched at all.

If you go to the Canadian Poly Advocacy a**.'s website, they've put every court document, meaningless or not, up on a google docs site that's open for everyone to read. So far, they are the ONLY people who have put up both sides court documents. In Canada, both sides get full discolsure, if one side has a piece of paper, the court gets a copy and the oposing side gets a copy, and all court documents are public property, unless the court orders a media blackout, which they haven't done here.

On top of that, the case is coming to a close, and the closing remarks are being streamed on the internet live during the court proceedings by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC).

I encourage everyone to check it out. The law is flawed, it is biased and it's proven to be so. At the least, the law needs to be reworded so that the accused has the same rights and freedoms as someone who committed any other crime, and a the most, we could be the first country to decriminalize or even (hopefully!) legalize polyamory.

Where I live the only code is for bigamy and you have to knowingly enter into a legal marriage when you already hold one that hasn't been dissolved.

Yup, if you live with your partner, and need a roommate to help pay the bills, and then you and that roommate hook up, or your partner and the roommate hook up, all 3 of you are breaking the law.

Yeah, both sides have already said that they'll appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada should the other side win.

Either way, I expect it to go the same way legalizing gay marriage went. Legalizing it, and when the appeal was tabled, "vacation!", until so many people were married that they couldn't reasonable disolve that many marriages, so the law stuck.

At least, that's how their actions looked from outside the meetings. lol I expect them to avoid the issue as much as possible.

Well it's different than gay marriage. The marriage system and laws don't need to be significantly altered for such relationships, it was pretty much just breaking down the sex barriers there. For polygamy it would require a lot more of an overhaul to the current laws and systems in place. Just think of things like dependent benefits, tax benefits and a whole bunch of other things that would need to be changed that would be a lot more complicated than just allowing same-sex couples to marry, since they are at least still couples and nothing major need change in the current law.

The best we can really hope for from this *particular* case would be decriminalization of polyamory, perhaps polygamy, but I highly doubt there would be enough support and comfort of the population to actually change the current marriage laws. This really is just about the broad catch-all that is the current polygamy law and decriminalizing consensual multiple partner relationships not so much the fight to be legally recognized and sanctioned. It's about not being a criminal for having multiple consensual relationships not so much making things legally sanctioned.



Not having DP and a marriage at the same time sort of makes sense as the systems are set up for monogamy. But hetero couples not being able to get DPs? That seems strange to me. Why not, I wonder? If it's supposed to be 'like marriage but not' then why not let hetero couples engage in it as well?