"Polyamorists strive for future legal recognition as national convention wraps up"

The Canadian Press (press service)

This banner appeared in a Pride parade in Canada a few years ago, but the CTV News website uses it this morning to illustrate its coverage of PolyCon.

Here's Monday morning's media coverage of PolyCon (#polyconvan), which just ended in Vancouver.

Get in there early with the comments, folks. And check back here for any further updates.

Polyamorists strive for future legal recognition as national convention wraps up

By Vivian Luk, The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER - While Canada's polyamorists — people with multiple partners outside a religious context — do not face criminalization as do polygamists, it is not enough for them to be considered "just not illegal," they said on Sunday.

As the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association wrapped up its three-day convention, the first of its kind to be held in Canada, the association's director and conference chairwoman Zoe Duff said polyamorists hope to one day gain the same legal recognition as other couples.

"It would be nice...to have households where our spouses are equal under the law, and moving forward in terms of pensions, and inheritances and property division," she said.

...Polyamory came to the forefront in 2011, when B.C. Supreme Court upheld Canada's polygamy law after the province launched a constitutional reference case to clarify the law.... The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association was an intervenor in the 2011 case, and saw the B.C. Supreme Court decision as a victory because the decision also concluded that anti-polygamy laws shouldn't apply to polyamorous couples unless they decide to get married.

Duff said the judge was unclear on what he meant with regards to marriage, however she added that striving for that clarity, and eventually for legal status, won't be happening anytime soon. For the time being, the polyamorous community is focusing on raising awareness about the movement, connecting people within the community with each other, and providing people with resources such as legal advice or counselling.

The three-day convention, called "Claiming our Right to Love," included workshops on how to deal with jealousy within a polyamorist relationship, how family laws affect polyamorist households, and how newcomers to existing polyamorist relationships can be treated ethically.

Tiffany Sostar, a Calgary-based student activist and panelist at the convention, said consensual, non-monogamous relationships have been happening for many years. However, polyamory has gained more public profile recently, and Sostar said the practice is becoming more acceptable within mainstream society.

Last year, Sostar brought home two partners to her family's Easter Dinner, explaining to her mother that she believes polyamory is an ethical alternative to monogamy, and that she loves multiple people.

"Even though she struggled with it, she handled it quite well," said Sostar. "She said, 'I don't understand, but I don't understand a lot of things that you do and I still love you.' "

Still, Sostar says there are those who are not so accepting, and who can only equate having multiple partners with cheating.

"Probably the most negative response I got was when someone said that when they think of that type of person, they think of cesspools of disease, which was pretty awful," said Sostar. "And actually, I think it was grossly misinformed since the poly community tends to talk quite openly about safer sex practices and risk management."

Here's the whole article as it appears at the Winnipeg Free Press site (June 2, 2013).

The article also appears on the sites of CTV News, Macleans (prominent national news magazine), Yahoo News, CBC News British Columbia, MSN Canada, HuffPost British Columbia, The Tyee, and probably elsewhere.

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P.S.: Don't forget — 15 other poly conferences, retreats, campouts, and other regional/national gatherings for the coming year are listed at ALAN'S LIST of POLYAMORY EVENTS, with detailed descriptions. Pass it on.

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