It’s Boys Behaving Badly Week. On Wednesday, I wrote about Roman Polanski, the creepy movie director (take it either way) trying to elude the consequences of a former propensity for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.
Today it’s Winston Blackmore, the dirty old elder in Bountiful who claims his religious freedoms are being violated if he isn’t allowed to keep a couple dozen wives.
Blackmore was accused of having 19 wives, many of whom were allegedly younger than 18 when he married them.
What Roman and Winston have in common, apart from a core lack of humanity, is a talent for avoiding consequences.
It’s true Roman is in custody at the moment, but he spent more than 30 years dodging the law.
Winston is still at large, riding herd over his plural wives, the patriarch of a twisted little fundamentalist sect that requires women to be enslaved and tethered to the menfolk in bunches.
The way things are going, he’ll be free to start marrying the next generation of poor defenceless girls because the B.C. legal system doesn’t have a lick of sense.
Former attorney general Wally Oppal tried his best to get Blackmore prosecuted but he couldn’t find a prosecutor who would take the case forward. When one finally did, Blackmore and his co-defendant, James Oler, protested he was interfering with the law by “prosecutor shopping,” and last week, a judge agreed and stayed the case.
So now, as the legal system wrings its hands, Blackmore and Oler get to keep their wives, and there is no hope for those women or their children, especially the little girls, who represent the next crop of plural wives.
Instead of worrying about Winston Blackmore’s rights, why don’t B.C. authorities start worrying about those poor kids? Winston has subjected these young women to himself for their entire lives, and that’s a form of torture that should no more be tolerated, never mind respected.
New Attorney General Mike DeJong is considering his options, and could appeal Blackmore’s legal victory. Mike, a word: Do the right thing. Finally. Every day in Bountiful is another day in Hell on Earth, B.C.
