Tag: Winston Blackmore

Cult leader Bert Potter dies; a look at how Jim Jones manipulated politicians in San Francisco; and Kate Bornstein is no longer afraid to speak out about Scientology.

Also in this religion news briefing: the rise of paid, online worship in India; plus: 15 years after committing suicide the website of the Heaven’s Gate cult is still online.

Plus: why more Ugandans are turning to Witchcraft, and why a lawer thinks trafficking in brides might be OK.

Winston Blackmore may have finally met his match: the taxwomen — whom he is facing in a landmark Tax Court trial.

Also on his case: Canadian author and columnist Daphne Branham.

Polygamous sect leader Winston Blackmore claims he is minister to approximately 400 followers in Bountiful and that they constitute a congregation, which should provide them an enormous break on taxes.

The Government of Canada is seeking to prove that he repeatedly understated his income on tax returns, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars being owed to the government

Canada is either on the cusp of legalizing polygamy or strengthening the 120-year prohibition against multiple marriage.

That’s what is at stake in the constitutional reference case that will begin Monday in B.C. Supreme Court and is scheduled to last at least until the end of January.

Criminal polygamy charges against B.C., Canada religious leaders Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler were thrown out last Thursday — which, Canada’s National Post writes, means they can continue to practise what they preach: Accept multiple wives, including teenage girls.

But McGill University law professor Angela Campbell isn’t too worried. While she does not endorse polygamy, her research into the religious groups suggests Bountiful is neither a community of horrors nor a utopia.

Criminal polygamy charges against B.C. religious leaders Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler have been thrown out.

Former attorney-general Wally Oppal did not have authority to appoint a second special prosecutor to the decades-long case after the first one declined to proceed, Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein ruled.

In January, the RCMP charged two prominent members of a fundamentalist Mormon sect in Bountiful, B.C., with practising polygamy.

The lawyer for one of them has vowed to cite his client’s religious freedom as a defence, leading some legal and constitutional experts to speculate the case could go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.