Canadian Polygamous Leader Found Guilty Of Having 25 Wives

Thunderian

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Poor Winston Blackmore. A lot of folks were under the impression he was not going to be convicted, on account of it might makes things awkward when they didn't go after other guys in Canada with multiple wives. Maybe that's going to change.

Personally, I don't think the government has any business telling a man how many wives he can have. What possible interest in it could they have?

Canadian polygamous leader found guilty of having 25 wives
weny.com/story/35959649/canadian-polygamous-leader-found-guilty-of-having-25-wives

Two former leaders of an isolated polygamous community in Canada were convicted Monday of practicing polygamy after a decades-long legal fight, setting up another potential court battle over the constitutionality of Canada's polygamy laws.

Winston Blackmore, 60, and James Oler, 53, were found guilty by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Sheri Ann Donegan, who said the evidence was clear that Blackmore was married to 25 women at the same time and that Oler was married to five women in the tiny community of Bountiful.

Blackmore, 60, never denied having the wives as part of his religious beliefs that call for "celestial" marriages. His lawyer Blair Suffredine has already said Blackmore would challenge the constitutionality of Canada's polygamy laws if his client was found guilty.

"I'm guilty of living my religion and that's all I'm saying today because I've never denied that," Blackmore told reporters after the verdict. "Twenty-seven years and tens of millions of dollars later, all we've proved is something we've never denied. I've never denied my faith. This is what we expected."

Blackmore and Oler were prosecuted as part of an investigation first launched in the early 1990s by the provincial government.

Under Canadian law, the maximum penalty they will each face is five year in prison. The two will be sentenced at future hearings.

Blackmore and Oler are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect that believes in plural marriage. The group's main base is in a small community on the Utah-Arizona border in the United States.

Oler was chosen to lead the Canadian community just north of the U.S. state of Idaho following Blackmore's excommunication from the sect in 2002 by Warren Jeffs, considered the prophet and leader of the group.

Authorities have said Jeffs still leads the sect from a Texas prison, where he is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides.

The mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy in the late 19th century and disputes any connection to the fundamentalist group's form of Mormonism.

At the 12-day trial earlier this year, witnesses included mainstream Mormon experts, law enforcement officials who worked on the investigation and Jane Blackmore, a former wife of Winston Blackmore who left the Canadian community in 2003.

Justice Sheri Ann Donegan praised Jane Blackmore as a highly credible and reliable witness.

"She was a careful witness," Donegan said. "There was nothing contrived or rehearsed in her answers. She was impartial."

Much of the evidence in the trial came from marriage and personal records seized by law enforcement at a church compound in Texas in 2008. Donegan disagreed with assertions by Blackmore and his lawyer that the records should be given little or no weight, saying she found them reliable.

Donegan said Winston Blackmore's adherence to the practices and beliefs of the religious group were never in dispute, nothing that he did not deny his marriages to police in 2009. Blackmore even made two corrections to a detailed list of his alleged wives, she said.

"He spoke openly about his practice of polygamy," Donegan said. "Mr. Blackmore confirmed that all of his marriages were celestial marriages in accordance with FLDS rules and practices."

The investigation and attempted prosecution of Blackmore and Oler dragged on for years due to uncertainty about Canada's polygamy laws.

After a constitutional reference question was sent to the British Columbia Supreme Court, the court ruled in 2011 that laws banning polygamy were valid and did not violate religious freedoms guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
 

Aero

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Marriage is only a means to an end in the eyes of the state. So with multiple wives, that's just too many ends they have to deal with. I think we should go back to a simpler time. Before marriage was a 200 page contract.
 

justjess

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Polygamy has been illegal for decades.. not sure why this is shocking.

My grandmothers first husband as it turned out was already married when he married her. He was arrested and put in jail. My grandmother divorced him so hed be released. This was in NYC in the 1950's. Atleast thats how the story goes.

If the guy didnt have state sanctioned marriages though i dont see a justification for this
 

Thunderian

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Marriage is a religious covenant, and the state should have nothing to do with it, It's like if they issued baptismal certificates. None of their business.
 

justjess

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Well you can look at that either way... marriage existed before its religious connotation. But i do think people should be allowed to have a strictly religious marriage if thats what they want - just dont expect the state marriage benfits such as tax breaks to come with it if you dont want the state involved.
 

Thunderian

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Well you can look at that either way... marriage existed before its religious connotation
I think marriage as a religious or cultural contract existed long before organized government.

But i do think people should be allowed to have a strictly religious marriage if thats what they want - just dont expect the state marriage benfits such as tax breaks to come with it if you dont want the state involved.
If married people get tax breaks, does that mean that the government decides who gets to be married? On what grounds? Certainly not religious ones, or gay marriages wouldn't be a thing.
 

Fl-Fr-Fa

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The key is, if you don't want government involved, be married and committed to your heart's content but without the piece of paper.
However, the government even calls you common-law (in Canada) when you are living together for a year.
 

rainerann

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Polygamy creates domestic hardship and that is why it should be illegal. Ann Eliza Young wrote a book called Wife no. 19 about her marriage to the second leader of the Mormon church, Brigham Young.

In it she detailed how the wives would increase in poverty every time Brigham would start dating his next wife. The children were left to live in poverty and it was really a terrible situation. She divorced him and advocated against polygamy. Abraham Lincoln already signed a bill making bigamy illegal because of things like this, but this needed to be reinforced, which led to the Poland act.

Then, the Mormon church eventually agreed to give up the practice, but fundamentalists still think it is part of their faith and practice this illegally.

I agree marriage shouldn't be controlled by the state. However, in cases where injustice are created by the institution of polygamy, I think it is appropriate to intervene. I have read horror stories of women living in polygamous relationships. These women need legal support.
 

Thunderian

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Polygamy creates domestic hardship and that is why it should be illegal. Ann Eliza Young wrote a book called Wife no. 19 about her marriage to the second leader of the Mormon church, Brigham Young.

In it she detailed how the wives would increase in poverty every time Brigham would start dating his next wife. The children were left to live in poverty and it was really a terrible situation.
Winston Blackmore is a very wealthy man, so I don't think that would be a consideration for him.

I have to ask, if poverty is an argument against polygamy, couldn't it also be an argument against having children?

I'm not pro-polygamy, just against government interference in most things.
 

rainerann

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I think in the case of polygamy you could make a stronger case that you are not acting responsibly. With one person it is only possible to have so many children. Even if you had a lot of children this would be less than intentionally having children with more than one person.

The court system being able to act in cases where polygamy is practiced is different than creating laws requiring people to report being married. In theory, you don't need a law to declare to the state that you are married, but you do need a law to protect woman and children from the domestic hardship created by polygamy. So one is more invasive of our personal lives, the others is a method of creating justice which is what the justice system is for.
 

justjess

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I think marriage as a religious or cultural contract existed long before organized government.



If married people get tax breaks, does that mean that the government decides who gets to be married? On what grounds? Certainly not religious ones, or gay marriages wouldn't be a thing.
Marriage has existed in some form since before recorded history and while im sure there was some crude form of religious idea back then marriage itself was not a religious institution. Initially marriages were a way of monitoring inheritances and forging family alliances, they had nothing to do with religion.

http://www.ancient.eu/article/688/

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4589763

The state does not decide who can get married except in cases where exploitation is an issue (child brides) and in its traditional role of monitoring inheritance (polygamy).

Now i have no issue with people wanting to keep the state out of it but atleast in the USA theres no requirement to have a state sanctioned marriage. Most pastors and people who perform weddings will glafly do a commitment ceremony or vow renewal instead, no questions asked, if thats what the couple wants. Most people have state sanctioned marriages because they want the benefits the state allows for married couples - sharing health insurance, tax breaks, inheritance rights.

We dont have civil unions in the USA atleast not in any state ive ever lived in.
 
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