A Predictor

It has often been said that a powerful predictor of FUTURE conduct or outcomes is the conduct evidenced in the PAST.

In the Canada Polygamy Reference case, much has been said about the ills and harms of polygamy. For example:

Polygamy deprives many single men of a chance to mate
Polygamy makes men marry 13-year-old girls
Polygamy oppresses women
Polygamy causes incest
Polygamy drains welfare program funds
Polygamy is patriarchal and religious
Polygamy harms children
Polygamy is secretive
Polygamy hurts the government
Polygamy deprives its practitioners of education
Polygamy is inherently abusive
Polygamy is sinful
Polygamy threatens promiscuous people
Polygamy causes over-population
Polygamy causes wars
Polygamy makes men rape women
Polygamy makes men commit domestic violence and murder
Polygamy causes earthquakes . . . . - - ????

WAIT !! NO, I think that last one was added in error - sorry!

I think Canada is petrified. If Canada were to allow polygamy (like it has already done for the last 100 years), then it can surely expect the above harms to immediately erupt on a catastrophic scale. Not to mention the fact that hundreds of thousands of aspiring polygamists will storm across our northern border and practice polygamy brazenly. Life (as we know it) in Canada will grind to a halt, eh?

I just want to ask one question, though. If all these dreadful harms can be expected to occur imminently, wouldn't we base that assumption - that prediction - on previous crime statistics in the U.S., where some 38,000 believers still embrace biblical polygamy, and an estimated 50 million Americans openly practice recreational polygamy (thanks to the Lawrence v. Texas decision)?

If the most horrible kind of polygamy is the FUNDAMENTALIST MORMON kind, then let's look honestly at the statistics. Let's ask and tabulate the following (over the last 100 years):

How many polygamous men have been incarcerated for domestic violence?
How many polygamous men have been incarcerated for rape?
How many polygamous men have been incarcerated for incest?
How many polygamous men have been incarcerated for murder?
How many polygamous men have been incarcerated for sexual abuse of a child (and I'm not talking about "marriages" with 15-year-olds - which were acceptable in the Americas [for centuries] until the Shurtleffozoic era)?

I'm actually scratching my (very bald) head to think of more than even one or two such incarcerations in the last hundred years. Maybe you can think of one or two more . . .

I'm sincerely hoping that poor judge Robert Bauman won't pass out from all the fumes in the courtroom from all the glue that the anti-polygamy experts have been sniffing. I want him to be alert enough to see through the snow-job being foisted upon him.