Inside the inside-out and upside-down legal arguments offered at a sentencing hearing earlier this month for convicted polygamist Winston Blackmore was an entreaty for the ersatz bishop of the ersatzier Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to be given an outright discharge — so that he would not be prevented from visiting three of his two dozen wives who live in the U.S.Otherwise, crossing the border from British Columbia with a criminal record could be a problem.Now there’s unabashed unrepentance.Guilty, as per the B.C. Supreme Court, in the end zone legal spike of a prosecution that has picked at the polygamy scab for more than a quarter-century. But geez Your Honour, let me continue to polygamize with my sister-wives in Utah.Did we mention that half of Blackmore’s wives were under 17 when wedlocked?He posited freedom of religion as “divine commandment” underpinning for plural spouses — the FLDS in Bountiful a B.C. niche of the breakaway sect of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), which banned polygamy in 1890.Blackmore, 62, was purportedly motivated by “sincerely held religious beliefs,” but I have my doubts.Did we mention 149 children, the spawn from all those missuses?Only one of them, Mrs. No 1, has legal status as wife in either Canada or America. The rest are nuptial barnacles attached to the heel’s keel.On three occasions, according to documents filed in court, Blackmore wed sisters on the same day. Two of the women are actually wife & wife — taking out a marriage licence within months of Canada legalizing same-sex marriage and marrying each other. A tidy legal arrangement to sort of officialize their domestic arrangement.Co-accused James Oler, also a leader of the sect (five wives), was found guilty of polygamy as well.Polygamy is permitted in 26 of 54 African countries, primarily in Muslim-majority states, and some 60 countries worldwide. Islam allows for a ma ...
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