Several British papers report from Scotland that a local Muslim restaurant owner recently caught speeding in an urban area was given a lighter-than-usual sentence: instead of losing his license, the normal punishment, he had to pay a fine and get penalty points. Why was he speeding? He was traveling between wives. He has two, you see, and shares their bed on alternate nights.

What’s striking in the news reports is that, though it is acknowledged by reporters that polygamy in Great Britain is illegal, the offender’s lawyer actually used his bigamous status as an extenuating circumstance, and that the court bought this argument. It should, in my opinion, have prompted the judge to have the man arrested for a much more severe criminal offense than speeding: bigamy. Does this decision mean that Great Britain tolerates polygamy de facto and de jure?