Sincere but Naive: Methodological Queries Concerning the British Columbia Polygamy Reference Trial

Abstract

Academics frequently serve as expert witnesses in legal cases, yet their role as transmitters of social scientific knowledge remains under-examined. The present study analyzes the deployment of social science within British Columbia's polygamy reference trial where research is used to support the assertion that polygamy is inherently harmful to society. Within the trial record and the written decision, the protection of monogamy as an institution is performed in part through the marginalization of qualitative methodology and the concurrent privileging of quantitative studies that purportedly demonstrate widespread social harms associated with the practice of polygyny.

Theorizing multi-partner relationships and sexualities – Recent work on non-monogamy and polyamory

“…The increased media interest in matters relating to polygamy of FLDS communities in Bountiful, BC, was triggered by a few high profile events in the USA that included the arrest, trial and conviction of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs in 2006–2007 and the raid of the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) Ranch in Texas, which is affiliated with the FLDS, in 2008. All these events and the arrests and failed convictions of the Bountiful leaders Winston Blackmore and James Oler led to a constitutionality test of the anti-polygamy statute of Canada’s Criminal Code in the BC Supreme Court which upheld the polygamy ban in the judgment Reference re: Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada in 2011 (Ashley, 2014; Lenon, 2016).…”

Bisexuality, Slippery Slopes, and Multipartner Marriage

“…Anti-bigamy laws were core to the politics of white supremacy that underpinned the erasure of indigenous ways by settler colonialism (Lenon, 2016). The 2011 judgement Reference re: s.293 of the Criminal Code of Canada of the British Columbian Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of the prohibition of polygamy reproduces many of the tropes that have driven white settler colonial framings of polygamy since the 19 th century (Ashley, 2014).…”