Fundamentalist Mormon with 24 wives guilty of polygamy

Two notorious fundamentalist Mormon leaders have been convicted of polygamy, in a decision that upholds Canada’s existing laws against plural marriage.

Winston Blackmore, 61, was convicted of having 24 wives, while the British Columbia Supreme Court heard that his co-defendant James Oler has five. Each man faced one count of polygamy. It was the second time both men have been charged with that crime.

The pair face the possibility of spending years in jail for the crimes.

Both Blackmore and Oler, 53, are former bishops over fundamentalist Mormon sects in Bountiful, a religious commune of about 1,000 people in southeastern British Columbia. Blackmore has fathered a reported 148 children. It’s unclear how many children Oler has.

Blackmore’s lawyer has previously pledged to launch a constitutional challenge against the country’s laws prohibiting polygamy should his client be convicted. Oler did not have a lawyer in the proceedings and did not defend himself, either.

The mainstream Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints based in Utah officially renounced polygamy in the late 1800s and denies any connection to Blackmore and other fundamentalist Mormon congregations. This includes the U.S.-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), formerly led by Warren Jeffs, who is serving life in prison for multiple child rape convictions.

In 2002, Jeffs excommunicated Blackmore, who was then the FLDS leader in Bountiful, for reasons that remain unclear. Oler then replaced him, but Blackmore continued to lead his own splinter group.

The Blackmore and Oler families have been fighting polygamy-related lawsuits for decades, going back to the early 1990s, when police first investigated allegations of plural marriage and abuse against children — though charges of abuse were not laid.

In 2009, polygamy charges against Blackmore and Oler were thrown out over the method that the province chose the special prosecutor. That prompted the government to launch a constitutional case that upheld the country’s anti-polygamy criminal laws in 2011.

In that 335-page ruling, the judge acknowledged that while the law does violate freedom of religion, it’s nevertheless justified due to the harms that polygamy imposes on women and children.

While many religious and women’s rights groups praised that decision as one that would protect women and children, other civil libertarians and feminist scholars vehemently oppose the criminalization of the practice — and call for the decriminalization of polygamy.

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, in particular, has actively opposed the laws because they criminalize acts between consenting adults, something that is not a crime. The group has argued that any acts of violence, rape, or child abuse are already treated as crimes, and are mutually exclusive from the act of polygamy.

When it comes to the wives of Bountiful in particular, many in polygamous marriages told McGill researcher Angela Campbell in 2008 and 2009 that they did not feel oppressed or vulnerable in their relationships. Some said they felt empowered and confident, as the practice of polygamy is a cornerstone of their religious faith.

What does harm to the community, the women said, is the prohibition of polygamy, as it fuels stigma and isolation. This, they said, make it more difficult for women to seek help and support in times of need.

“There was a resistance to being in the spotlight, especially in the spotlight as a plural wife,” said Campbell at the time.