One Argument

I have been surprised by the sheer volume of material presented and submitted at Canada's polygamy reference trial - - hundreds of affidavits, dozens of witnesses pro and con, months of live testimony, and now weeks of closing arguments.  I pity the poor judge who has to sit there and listen while hired gun lawyers jabber on endlessly about the supposed evils of polygamy.  I can't think of a similar situation in all of history.  The poor judge also knows that after he makes his solitary ruling, it will get appealed to the national justices above him.

In recent weeks, the anti-polygamy legal team has leapt into high gear, racing and begging to get recent sensational media narratives admitted into evidence.  The recent news has dozens of teen girls being trafficked across the U.S./Canadian border (in both directions) for the purpose of plural marriages.  There are also allegations that Warren Jeffs consummated his relationships with very young teens, too.  Stay tuned for the July trial in Texas.

As I have thought through the sheer barrage of pleadings submitted by B.C. A.G., Craig Jones, I have wanted to parse the arguments he and his posse have advanced.  Here is an exhaustive list of his arguments:

Polygamy is an evil concept
Polygamy is bad for humans
Polygamy is harmful to society
Polygamy causes most of the harms in the world

To bolster this vast and diverse set of arguments, Jones has striven desperately to parade an interminable list of all the wrongs ever committed or alleged to have been committed by Mormon Fundamentalists. In a recent post, I challenged the haters to come up with statistics of crimes committed by polygamists in the last 100 years - like domestic violence, murder, rape, etcetera.  I am not oblivious of the allegations regarding young marriages (for which several men remain incarcerated in Texas), but really, the list of crimes committed by polygs is statistically insignificant. This means that 99.999999942678153% of the crimes committed in modern America have been committed by monogs (insulting epithet for monogamists).

So, clearly, Jones' argument can be condensed as follows:

"I think polygamy is bad, so I want it eradicated. so I will endeavor to show that since some polygamists have done some bad things, then no Canadian should ever be allowed to be a polygamist again."

That's it.  That's his whole argument.  The frantic rush to pile on a mounting litany of alleged bad acts is merely an attempt to SHOUT HIS ONE SINGLE ARGUMENT SEVERAL TIMES LOUDER AND SEVERAL TIMES OVER !!!!!

So, Jonesy-boy, you have hitched your wagon to this sole central premise.  If your argument holds water, you should win.  If not, then you lose.  Take a look at my BRILLIANT argument now:

"I think monogamy is bad, so I want it eradicated. and I can show that since many monogamists have done many bad things, then no Canadian should ever be allowed to be a monogamist again."

How do you like that, Jonesy-boy?  My point is this - you have confined yourself to ONE ARGUMENT (mainly because no other argument exists), and your argument is myopic, condescending, disingenuous, insulting and downright illogical [remember my satirical discussion about banning knives].  Honestly, I believe there must be a lapse in your integrity continuum.  You are being paid close to $200,000.00 a year, so you are prostituting yourself to advance for the province an argument which any first-year law student could shoot spit-wads through.  Clearly, you have not learned the flaws in the pseudo-science of basing conclusions on ANECDOTAL DATA. Pretty soon you will be parroting the novelists of the 1800s who insisted that a child born into a Mormon family was likely to be mentally retarded (scientific research be damned).

So, British Columbia Chief Justice Robert Bauman, all eyes are on you.  Can you see through Jones' poppydash, horsewash, hogpucky and baldercock?

The Amicus, George Macintosh, and his illustrious colleagues have responded with these brilliant closing arguments  - - - - - - and these, too.