Friday February 4, 2005
Provincial Attorney-General Warns Canada's Polygamy Law Open to Legal Challenge
VANCOUVER, February 4, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – BC’s Attorney General warned Thursday that Canada’s law prohibiting polygamy will not stand up to a legal challenge, because of potential conflicts with laws protecting religious freedoms. Attorney-General Geoff Plant said, “There might well be a case where the court would have to deal with religious freedoms arguments, and I think there is at least some risk that those arguments might succeed,” according to a CanWest News Service report.
Plant is concerned, in part, because police have never laid polygamy charges, despite allegations that polygamists in Bountiful, BC, are marrying girls as young as 13 to much older men.
“My view is that if there is evidence that would support a charge ... it is in the public interest to prosecute, because the section has never been struck down by a judge, by a court, and so it has to be treated as though it's good law,” he said. “I know that some prosecutors may well have some concerns about that, and we won't have to cross that bridge until we find out if there's real evidence out there.”
Former B.C. chief justice Allan McEachern agreed with Plant’s assessment that a court challenge of the polygamy law would probably result in the law being overturned. However, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler disagreed. He said the law, “In my view” is “constitutional and it is enforceable.”
The RCMP has been conducting an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse and incest, since several women from the Bountiful community have left and complained to authorities. The community, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is an offshoot of the Mormon Church.
tv
Latest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.

- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats

- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case

- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6

- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation

- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative

- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum

- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats

- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"

- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors

- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms

- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment

- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues

- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters

- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"

- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts

- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser

- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)

- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal

- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups

Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS:
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page
Last 10 Days
Archives
Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.







Back to Top