Canada Should Let All Consenting Adults Marry if They Want To

Polygamy as a criminal matter is back on the news in Canada, and as a result, someone identified as Lee Harding of Coquitlam wrote a letter printed at vancouversun.com...

The idea that something that is otherwise immoral or even illegal in Canada becomes somehow acceptable if someone claims it as a religious tenet is ridiculous.

Consenting adults should be free to be together however they mutually agree. I'm sure most Canadians, if polled on that without inflammatory phrasing, would agree.

Something is immoral if it violates human rights.

Consenting adults loving each other hardly does that.

This includes forcing or coercing children into life-altering situations, such as early marriage; even worse, into polygamy.

Ahhhh... yes, well child abuse a completely different matter than consenting adults being together. Guilt by association is not fair.

Whether or not polygamy among consenting adults is immoral is perhaps a global grey area, but it’s significant that most countries that permit it do so with restrictions and it’s rarely practised.

This is Discredited Argument #3

In Anne Innis Dagg’s and my book, Human Evolution and Male Aggression (Cambria Press, 2012), we argue that social monogamy is the natural human mating system and has been since before we were fully human.

What an absurd statement, but I guess he wants to sell books. First of all, even if polygamy was "unnatural," (Discredited Argument #5) so what? So are books. So is vancouversun.com. Also, there's enough human history to demonstrate that some people simply are polyamorous.

Wearing the veil or turban, attending religious festivals, praying toward Mecca, eating halal foods: these are religious tenets that do nobody harm.

Adults marrying each other doesn't harm anyone, either.

They aren’t immoral and they don’t violate Canadian values

Same!

Various forms of child abuse, discrimination against women and other human-rights violations are offensive to Canadians, would be damaging to the individuals involved if allowed and are illegal for these reasons.

Right. So prosecute those things.

This includes polygamy.

No, it doesn't. Not when talking about consenting adults.

Removing criminalization, discrimination, and stigmas against relationships between consenting adults will make it easier to prosecute domestic violence and child abuse. Isn't what what we all want most of all in these situations?

People who are abusing children (or adults for that matter) should be prosecuted. Don't deny adults their freedom to marry over prejudice.