The decision this month by B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal to prosecute two leaders of the polygamous community of Bountiful could end up causing serious damage to both marriage and freedom of religion in Canada.

Winston Blackmore and James Oler face charges of practicing polygamy under a law – Section 293 of the Criminal Code – passed in 1892 that makes it a crime for a man to enter into multiple marriages. Claiming “religious persecution,” Blackmore has vowed to defend himself on grounds that the law violates his right to practice his fundamentalist Mormon faith.

Blackmore and Oler lead two rival factions of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Bountiful. The sect was founded in 1890 after mainline American Mormonism had renounced polygamy as a precondition of Utah being granted statehood.

The courts will have to decide whether or not Section 293 is a justified limitation on Blackmore and Oler’s freedom of religion. Oppal, a former judge, believes Section 293 is “valid law.”

But others are not so sure. “I think you are going to have a very firm, vigorous constitutional challenge to this section that will go all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada,” Toronto lawyer Steve Skurka told CTV. “This case will not be over, in my view, for at least five years.”

“Once we redefined marriage as something not strictly confined to a man and a woman, all bets were off,” wrote National Post columnist John Oakley. “And with a Charter guarantee of freedom of religion, you knew it was only a matter of time before this particular right got tested by some interest in the multi-religious-cum-cultural polyglot that now comprises Canada.”

Andrea Mrozek with the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, writing in the Toronto Sun, believes this is a case that “those of us opposed to polygamy will most likely lose.”

Canadian society, through changes in marriage law, “already collectively accepted [that marriage] needn’t be for life and it needn’t be between members of the opposite sex. . . . It looks like hypocrisy to extend marriage to everyone – everyone except, polygamists and say, polyamorists,” she wrote.

Douglas Farrow, associate professor of Christian thought at McGill University, also worries this case may prove harmful to freedom of religion, as both sides adopt polar opposite positions on its relevance to determining the guilt or innocence of the accused.

“The argument of the people in Bountiful that freedom of religion should entitle them to do this is, I think, an over-stretch of that concept. And when you stretch something too far, it eventually snaps,” he told Today’s Family News. “At the same time, people on the prosecution side may push too far the other direction, saying, ‘Freedom of religion just gets in the way of cases like this. Let’s just set it aside and not consider it.’ ”

Despite the complexities and challenges this case poses, family and faith advocates are refusing to throw in the towel. As Mrozek noted, “legalized polygamy is another strain [on society] we just don’t need: It hurts women, children and families.”

Blackmore, 52, is said to have 26 “wives” and 115 children.