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291 Postscript On November 23, 2011, when my book was already in production with Brandeis University Press, I learned that a British Columbia trial court had upheld Canada’s anti-polygamy law (Sec. 293 of Criminal Code of Canada), in spite of the many challenges it poses to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, the court found the Canadian polygamy ban to be constitutional. Chief Justice Robert Bauman stated that although the law violates the religious freedom of fundamentalist Mormons, Muslims, and African immigrants, polygamy’s potential harm against women and children outweighs that concern. The arguments made against polygamy were based predominantly on negative stereotypes, largely ignoring the widespread variability in the expression of poly love and poly family structure. Also ignored was the evidence that many polygamist unions involve consensual sexuality with no presence of abuse. The B.C. court assumed that all polygamy is equally and uniformly abusive. “Polygamy’s harm to society includes the critical fact that a great many of its individual harms are not specific to any particular religious, cultural or regional context. They can be generalized and expected to occur wherever polygamy exists.” The court dismissed evidence about successful polygamy, assuming a positive correlation between polygamy and the decline of civil liberties. Thus, in agreement with America’s legal opposition to polygamy, Canada is maintaining its original statute, that polygamy is inappropriate in a democratic nation and may be associated with abuse. My prediction that Canada would adopt a progressive stance on polygamy was proven wrong. Yet, there is still hope that this ruling may be appealed to the higher courts in Canada, and eventually in the United States. Toward that end, I would argue that South Africa continues to set a prime example for managing plural unions and protecting women and children against the harms associated with polygamy . I would also direct our gaze to the current struggle in the state of Utah, where lead counsel Jon Turley is challenging the constitutionality of Utah’s statute criminalizing plural or polygamous marriage. After a December 2011 hearing, a federal judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to allow 292 postscript Sister Wives’ Brown family to pursue a lawsuit challenging Utah’s bigamy law. The task ahead for Turley and the Browns is to show that there is a real and viable threat to their constitutional rights, in order for the lawsuit to hold up in court. Rather than criminalize polygamy, which will continue to exist whether we like it or not, we should acknowledge the rights of individuals to pursue their own unique pathways to love and marriage, so long as those choices do not harm other people and so long as they occur with free, informed, and full consent. ...

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