Poly family demands not to be criminal in Canada

Macleans magazine

Canada's national news magazine uses an MFM poly family to lead off its article on the 16 diverse interveners in the upcoming polygamy test case now heading toward trial:

Making their bed

Some 16 groups take sides on polygamy in a landmark case

By Ken MacQueen | March 17, 2010

The British Columbia government’s decision to test the legality of Canada’s 120-year-old polygamy law led to a shocking revelation for Karen and her two male partners. The 37-year-old Winnipeg-area mother, her husband of 15 years and a second male partner concede their arrangement is unconventional. She calls it a plural union based on equality, not religious ideas of male dominance. What she didn’t realize, until the B.C. court reference drew attention to the issue, was that they’re breaking the law by sharing a home. “This has been a real learning experience,” she says.

Karen, who doesn’t want her surname used in order to protect her children, is part of a constituency of polyamorists, one of many groups seeking standing in the B.C. Supreme Court. The case will determine if the polygamy law — Section 293 of the Criminal Code — is constitutional....

...The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association... includes many gay and lesbian multiple partnerships. Vancouver lawyer John Ince, legal counsel for the group, and in a polyamorous relationship himself, says the case will determine only if plural relationships are legal. What flows from that — the rights of multiple partners to pensions, adoption or immigration sponsorship — are issues for future rulings many years, and many appeals, down the road, he said.

From her home in Manitoba, Karen says she is offended that the law labels her and her partners criminals, yet it would have been legal, and more socially acceptable, to disrupt her family life by leaving her husband or having an adulterous affair. As much as she hates the attention, polyamorists have to take a stand in what promises to be a high-profile case, she says. “The irony is we’re really fighting for the right to be left alone.”

Read the whole article (March 17, 2010).

Here's more about the case and the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association.

Karen in the article blogs about her interview with Macleans and related thoughts.

Jasmine Walston of the Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness has just produced an introductory brochure on the differences between polygamy and polyamory.

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