Friday, December 17, 2010

Mormon Polygamy on Trial: Day 13 Media links

Professor Rose McDermott testified regarding the harms associated with polygamy - derived from a world-wide statistical study. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to remove the cultural and economic effects from an analysis like this - especially since Polygamy is most common in under-developed countries.

I did not get to the courtroom today - however from what I have seen in the affidavits, it looks like the reporters have made a good summary. As one of the reports points out - the case so far has been one of dueling expert witnesses. For every witness called to claim that polygamy causes unique harms to women children and society, another expert points out that these claims can also be interpreted from another perspective.

The court is adjourned until January 5. The first expert to appear after the break is a Dr. Walsh - surprizingly an LDS Mormon witness appearing to testify on behalf of the FLDS church. I definitely plan to be there for that day. Additional experts are scheduled for the remainder of that week, including a Dr. Witte who will testify regarding the historical roots of monogamy and a Dr. Davies - a psychologist - who regularly testifies as an opposing expert to Dr. Beall (who testified last week).

Hope you enjoy the media links, and best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Females' lives worsen as rate of polygamy increases: Researcher

B.C. polygamy hearings break for holidays - thestar.com

We may not like polygamy, but decriminalization makes sense - The Globe and Mail

3 comments:

Socrates said...

Keith,

See comments @ December 12th entry for research references...

keith said...

Thank you for the excellent links. I was just in the process of covering the Fanny Alger incident and I found Brian's page very helpful. The other sites look excellent as well and I probably would not have run across them.

I will post my take on Joseph's polygamy - hopefully tomorrow - and I would appreciate feedback.

And I am still looking for reviewers or co-authors!

Thanks again and best wishes for a Merry Christmas!

keith

Socrates said...

Keith,

By the way, I found this excellent reference ("The persistence of Polygamy") on Amazon's order site:

http://www.amazon.com/Persistence-Polygamy-Joseph-Origins-Mormon/dp/193490113X#_

A brief scan of the book and reviews portends to provide answers to some of the more controversial questions on the subject with commentary from an RLDS (Community of Christ) perspective.

Happy Holidays! Looking forward to your continued reports on the Canadian Reference Case...