Daphne Bramham is Very Upset Some Adults Love More Than One

Daphne Bramham at vancouversun.com wrote on “Polygamy and the Toronto School Board’s big mistake.” It was about this poster that showed representations of love, including what many people have interpreted as depictions of polyamorous relationships. It is part of a worthy campaign.

Toronto school board members may not have thought about polygamy when it approved a poster that shows a stick man and two stick women inside a heart.

Really? What other inference can you take from two women and a man all holding hands, even they are stick people?

That sometimes, more than two adults are involved?

Sure, Toronto is a long way from Bountiful where Canada’s most infamous polygamists live.

Those “infamous poygamists” are not the only polyamorists in Canada.

But surely someone had read about the trial in Kingston, Ont. that ended in January with the conviction of polygamist Mohammad Shafia, his second wife, Rona, and their son, Hamed, of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The elder Shafia orchestrated the murders of his first wife and his three daughters in Kingston, Ont. and couched it all in terms of ‘honour killing.’

Good thing no professed monogamists have ever killed anyone, right? I’m sure the problem with Mohammad, Rona, and Hamed was polygamy, and that if Mohammad was a professed monogamist there would never have been a problem, right? Yes, because of this case, all adults who love more than one other adult and all adults who love someone who also loves another, and all of their children must be ignored at best and persecuted and prosecuted at worst. That makes sense. Uh huh.

Yet, school board spokesman Ryan Bird has insisted in various media interviews that told the National Post that  the poster — aimed at educating students about gender-based discrimination — was “meant to show that a person can be attracted to more than one gender.”

Well, the poster does say that, doesn’t it? Oh, so it is bisexuals we should be ignoring. Got it.

The program is supposed to affirm and support “all sexual identities, biological sexes, sexual orientations, gender expressions and gender identities.”

Good for them!

But by being so stupid and so blind how the image reads to most people, the Toronto School Board appears to be promoting a practise that leads almost invariably not only to the sexual exploitation of girls, the expulsion of boys, but poor educational and health outcomes.

Hmmm, no, I don’t think so.

It is obvious from her attack that she was "blind" to the image in the lower right corner clearly showing two males with a female. That can't represent either the Muslim or Mormon polygyny.she rails against. So, does she think polyandry is OK?

Daphne Bramham is right to be concerned about domestic violence and child abuse. She is ridiculous and it is sad that she sweepingly condemns consensual polyamorous relationships and is afraid of anything anyone might construe as a positive representation of them.