165 Replies to “Gay activists: marry us, or else”

  1. It’s about time you bailed out of an argument you could not win. Your blabbering never made any sense and now it’s become ludicrous.
    I am paying less in taxes than WHAT/WHO? Something is missing.
    You are subsidizing my children’s WHAT and BY HOW MUCH? More is missing.
    You are making statements that you cannot support with facts. The least supported is your statement that I hate someone, while I don’t. I don’t even hate those who tried to injure, kidnap or rob me, needless to say that I don’t hate someone I never even met.
    My position is not caused by hatered, if you are refusing to understand that, than you are a very hateful person yourself and are measuring everyone accordingly.
    Now, let’s make it even simplier: suppose you were infected HIV by your densist and the virus came from a gay patient he operated earlier. How more probable is this scenario, than if your dentist worked on the straight only? Read the affidavit I posted a link to above and see. How do you feel about gay now? Excuse me, but if there is someone out there posing X times more danger to me than, I am not afraid of the term, normal person, I would object to their sexual practices. Understand?

  2. Aaron: you state “[your}issue with gays is simply accounting and medicine.”
    Yeah right, your concerns with gay folks have to do with pension plans and danger at dental offices. Sure, whatever you say.
    Me, I think the idea of gay folks just makes you feel icky. Oh…and a little superior.

  3. That’s one narrow minded comment! Nope, I just fear the threat gay bring to the world and am surprised that a sane person could underestimate that threat.
    There was a guy at my dad’s work some 25 years ago, who could not go to the bathroom without fear that his intestinal rectum would fall out. He ended up with AIDS and died young. Is that kind of future you would like for the BC kids who will attend gay sexual education classes after that famous ruling? http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060101.html
    The gay will thank you for your support with a friendly kiss, I am sure.

  4. Aaron: given your skill at making narrow minded comments, I suppose I should take your assessement of my last post as a compliment.
    “There was a guy at my dad’s work”…and his “intestinal rectum” would fall out?!?!
    So anyways, which is it: “[your}issue with gays is simply accounting and medicine” or “[you] just fear the threat gay bring to the world”…?
    (Would that threat be streets littered with fallen rectums?)
    Run and hide everybody! Here comes **The Decorator**! Ohmigawd, and he’s wearing Versace *screeeeeeaaaaaaaam* Yer a hoot, Aaron!

  5. Aaron’s very blunt–even uncomfortably so–BUT he tells a lot of it like it is. The unhealthy lifestyle of many gay men–so unhealthy that the life expectancy for them is much lower than that of other groups as affluent as they are–is a definite worry. In fact, with the low birth rate in Canada, where do people think future taxes will come from to provide health care? (Gay Baby Boomers, who do not produce a tax base in the next generation, will account for a disproportionately large amount of health $$.)
    This topic needs wide eyes and hard heads, not blurry ones–from sentimental tears, perhaps–and mushy thinking. The propaganda surrounding the whole gay agenda is stifling. Large numbers of FACTS are disregarded because they are, most definitely, quite unsavoury and not at all a pretty picture. People, like Aaron, who dare to raise them, are vilified.
    In fact, I’d say that the tables have been quite effectively turned in this country in the public square. Gay is good, questioning gay is bad: it’s both an offence against propriety and a disgrace. But the naifs who support the outre, heavy handed gay political agenda at all costs do so wearing rose coloured glasses, intentionally or not. And, intentionally or not, the damage done to the fabric of society, particularly our children, is a fact.
    (For the record, at present, I have and have had–one dead, very young, of AIDS–gay friends. We laugh together, they are welcome in my home, I’ve been on an AIDS palliative care team, so don’t accuse me of being homophobic: what tired, lazy name-calling.)
    Yes, civil unions would have been a much better idea. And, yes, common law was/is a bad idea too. (And no-fault divorce.) Why compound these child-unfriendly experiments? (Children need stability–not the high drama of the serial sex lives of the adults with whom they live.)
    Polygamy is definitely next. In Canada, one has only to self-define marriage and, le voila!, it happens: unmarried heterosexuals, serial marrieds, and gays have gotten away with it. So, on what possible grounds can polygamy be rejected? (And, what an irony that those most likely to practise polygamy have no small animus to gay “rights”. As the old adage warns, “Be careful what you wish for.”)
    Canada, wake up and smarten up!

  6. I am really behind in this debate as I was AFK for a bit there.
    Joe: I never used that word in reference to you, nor would I. Any abuse you have suffered was just that. Abuse. I do not sanction, support, or apologize for those who did it. As for any difficulties I have experienced, it is not really pursuant to the discussion, so I will not share them, as they are personal. I am sure I have not suffered what you have suffered, and I don’t pretend that I have.
    However, you seem to have missed my point. I was reacting to your assertion that evangelicals are applying for licenses to be marriage commissioners simply in order to make themselves victims of discrimination so they can cry foul. I pointed out (albeit, in a bit of an asshole-ish way) that judicial activism of this sort (eg: gay activist groups suing church camps, Knights of Columbus etc. when they knew full well the religious stance of those groups before they ever began talking to them) is a well known tactic of the gay activists, but is to my knowledge something that has not been practiced (at least to this point) by the Evangelical Christian community. If I am wrong, correct me.
    BTW, I do believe in Neanderthals. And I have been known to talk out my ass.
    Adune: This has probably already been pointed out, but here goes. I think you are confusing Marriage Commissioners with the clerk in the registries office who issues the license. If I am not mistaken the issue here is that these folks are being asked to perform actual marriages which violate their religious conviction, and conscience. I might be mistaken about that. If so, correct me.

  7. lookout: I’m no socialist and I’d just as soon the government got right out of the marriage business so I have no problem you pointing out the upcoming actuarial difficulties of health care and pensions–but the impact of gay folks in that whole scheme are miniscule compared to the overall problem. If there were no gay folks, we’d still have a worrying demographic situation to deal with.
    By the same token, I have no problem with folks who have issues with irresponsible gay folks (or straight folks), but really–and you know it–the objections offered by Aaron have nothing to do with that and a lot more to do with plain old anti-gay stereotypes.

  8. Oh, and by the way, if the argument “If your religion will not allow you to comply with the requirements of the job, then you should look for a different job” were to have held sway back in the 1980’s, then there would have been no accommodation made for Sikhs to be mounties, because yes, wearing the uniform was (and is) a requirement of the RCMP. But they had the ability to accommodate Sikhs so that they might seek employment as Mounties., and so too could they accommodate those whose religious convictions would forbid them to perform a same sex marriage. Except of course that in the former example it was for the most part liberals who were arguing for accommodation, and in the latter it is for the most part conservatives. Methinks therein lies the real difference.

  9. I do–know it? Ron Good, I appreciate your civil and reasonable post but I’m not on your page re Aaron.

  11. Karl: that’s not the difference. A turban wearing Sikh policeman can still easily provide all Mountie services equally to *all* Canadian citizens–and is properly expected to do so.
    The same cannot be said for a person who is employed by the state (or acts as an agent of the state) refusing to perform a legal marriage.

  12. lookout: Thanks, I understand that reasonable folks can disagree. And I might have Aaron pegged wrong–but I don’t think so.

  13. Ron: Fair enough, and good point about the ability to provide service to the community. But we still do not (for instance) require doctors to perform procedures which might violate their religious beliefs (eg: abortions, gender reassignment), but they are still allowed to be doctors. Let’s be clear here. It is not the case that homosexuals cannot find marriage commissioners to serve them. What is on trial here is not the availability of service, but the religious convictions of those who serve. In this aspect, I contend that my analogy about Sikh Mounties stands.

  14. The doctor analogy is stronger than the turban analogy, and I’m gonna think about that. Suffice to say that right now, the fact is that many otherwise clear moral issues just get muddied up because the systems for providing services are so heavily “Socialized”.
    I will say this: I think that no minister who is also able to perform marriages should be forced to marry gay folks–and I have no problems with private aganecies (like catering outfits) refusing to serve gay folks. Oh that’s not true–I think it’s foolish–but it ought not to be *illegal* to refuse.

  15. Karl writes, “What is on trial here is not the availability of service, but the religious convictions of those who serve”.
    Karl, very well reasoned and said!
    I provide a valuable service that is not at all affected by my views on this issue. However, there are many who would try to link my views here and what I do in my job–and would then deny me my livelihood. This weasel thinking is pernicious and unjust–all in the name of tolerance.
    My foot.

  16. Ron: You are of course correct that the doctor analogy is stronger than the turban one. My point is more that when the argument is about accommodating religious beliefs that are of a religion other than Christianity, liberal types tend to be pro accommodation in the name of diversity. But when it is an issue of accommodation of Christian religious conviction in the public sphere they tend to be anti accommodation in the name of preserving the separation of church and state. The hypocrisy of this has always bothered me.

  17. And still I ask, just because that fruit loop turdoh changed the law about fags (remember they used to get up to 14 years for the act of sodomy) should we just leave it at that? I think it was a proper and just law and should be reinstated TODAY!!!

  18. FREE: just exactly why did you choose FREE as a handle? Were you referring to IQ in a manner similar to calories, as in “calorie-free”?
    I’d originally thought you were trying to be ironic, but that would require an intellectual subtlety I’m sure you lack.

  19. Joe, you have spun some facts from recent history.
    >> “Same-sex marriage was legalized across Canada by the Civil Marriage Act enacted on July 20, 2005.”
    Yes, through a whipped vote.
    Note, the House had voted about 80% in favor of the man-woman criterion of marital status. The Liberals at that time joined the bipartisan majority and pledged to the country that they would defend this as constitutional.
    Instead, after winning a majority government, they chose not to appeal lower court decisions which had arbitrarily abolished the man-woman basis of common-law marriage. That sent a political signal to other lower courts which then piled on.
    But the majority of Canadians opposed merging SSM with marriage. It is absurd for the lower courts to have opined that the common law required such a merger. The common law is based on the common person’s understanding of the tradition of marriage in the community. Frankly, it would a radical leap to declare, as did the court in Ontario, that the common person would have mistaken two men or two women as holding themselves out to be married. When the Liberals did their flip flop on defending marriage, the Ontario court figured it might as well impose SSM without legislation from Parliament.
    Well, the Supreme Court eventually set the lower court straight on this matter. The Supreme Court’s advisory opinion was deferrential to Parliament. Parliament was not required, by the Charter, to impose SSM on the country. The Supreme Court opined that, sure, Parliament could enact the merger but it definitely signalled that alternative measures would also be constitutional.
    Under the minority government of Martin, who was desperate to pass something — anything — during his reign, made a devil’s bargain with the socialists in the House and pushed through SSM with a whipped vote. If not for his forcing Cabinet to support SSM, the legislation would have been defeated.
    That was the first time that Parliament passed a statutory definition of marriage. The lower courts, remember, had intruded on the common-law in the absence of a statutory definition of marriage. Also note that marriage is explicitly mentioned in the Constitutional text and that it is absurd to say today that the country had approved the SSM definition of marriage when the Constitution was approved and the Charter was written. Sexual orientation was specifically raised and rejected at that time. There is no realistic legal argument that the Constitution mandated the imposition of SSM by the lower courts.
    Yes, a bunch of SSM lawyer-types made their own opinion known to the country and they presented SSM as inevitable. But that’s just their advocacy showing.
    Parliament could have done as other jurisdictions in the Western world and abolished common-law marriage in favor of a statute that protected the man-woman basis of marriage recognition. That would have impeded the SSM campaign in the courts. This would also have been constitutional, as per the Supreme Court’s advisory opinion.
    For nonmarital alternatives Parliament could have enacted a stremalined version of designated beneficiaries which already existed across the country. This would not have to presume any sort of sexualized relationship but it would have prohibited marriageable couples. That too would have been constitutional.
    >>” Before passage of the Act, more than 3,000 same-sex couples had already married in these areas. Most legal benefits commonly associated with marriage had been extended to cohabiting same-sex couples since 1999.”
    What is your source for that number? I know that in BC more than half of all SSMs included nonresidents of Canada — mostly Americans whose home states had passed state DOMAs or state marriage amendments. Ontario does not track SSMs but it is no secret that Americans also used Ontario just as they did BC. Given the SSM campaign’s tendency to exagerate, I doubt that there were 3,000 — probably more like 2,000 — and more than half were probably, almost certainly, not Canadian couples. So that number would be more like “under 1,000” Canadian couples.
    And you are correct, unwed cohabitation has undermined marriage in Canada. Adding yet another nonmarital alternative to the mix, and treating them all as if they were marriage, is not exactly a strong point in favor of the imposition of SSM. Abolishing the man-woman basis for marriage recognition is what happened and it took a very undemocratic route.
    >> “The Civil Marriage Act […] was passed by the House of Commons on June 28, 2005, by the Senate on July 19, 2005, and it received Royal Assent the following day.”
    Actually, a judge stood-in for the Governor-General who was ill that day. This legislation was Martin’s deal with the NDP for the sake of a few more weeks in power.
    The Liberals axed the public hearings that had gone across the country. They prevented the tabling of the commission’s report which has never been published. So when I hear SSM activists claim that the issue has been aired and debated more than enough, I cringe. You have got to be kidding. The country was in favor of a referendum on the issue. The majority did not favor merging SSM with marital status. If it was debated thoroughly, then, the country was not convinced.
    Also, if it was so well considered, what is the societal purpose, in Canada, of a special relationship status for the one-sexed relationship? Please don’t revert to the “me-too-ism” of the SSM propaganda. Two men or two women are incapable of forming a conjugal relationship; they cannot be husband and wife together. Marriage combines A) integration of the sexes with B) responsible procreation. This is extrinsic to the one-sex-short arrangement. So apart from piggybacking on the conjugal relationship’s special status, what is the purpose of elevating the same-sex arrangement? Is it homosexuality that makes it so important to society? Or is SSM open to closely related people who are not sexually engaged? If it is not, why? Again, don’t piggyback on the traditional taboos based on the man-woman criterion of marriage. And if this issue has been so deeply covered already, how come the clash with other freedoms now comes down to crushing disagreement?
    I take it you have ready made answers.
    And, no, pointing to false equivalencies won’t suffice. Pointing to nonexistent Charter provisons won’t suffice. Make SSM stand on its own two feet so it can stand or fall on its merits and demerits. Make the independent claim, and justification, for SSM.
    >> “Conservative government brought in a motion asking if the issue of same-sex marriage should be reopened to support the traditional definition of marriage. This motion was defeated the next day in a vote of 175 (nays) – 123 (yeas). Prime Minister Stephen Harper has since said that he “doesn’t see reopening this question in the future.”
    No such vote is necessary for the Justice Ministry to review the recently passed legislation. In fact, a review is very appropriate given the increasing clashes with other liberties.
    In any case, the vote to revisit was not a free vote. Yes, the Conservatives held a free vote but the other parties whipped their caucuses.
    The BQ and the NDP spun that they did not need to whip their caucuses because their members already knew to vote the party line. Still, a whipped vote without a singel vote of dissent or an absention.
    The Liberals were whipped by Dion who made it clear that if the vote to revisit passed he would force his caucus members to vote against alternative legislation. That would mean that about half of his MPs would have been forced to support what they opposed — on the record in a House vote on actual legislation. Some Liberal MPs who would have voted to revisit saw this as unacceptable and found a fig leaf to hide their support for revisiting — they said that the resolution did not go far enough because it would not retroactively revoke status for couples who had SSM’d under the new law. Other Liberal MPS who would have supported revisiting also understood the political expediency of showing solidarity with Dion during his first test as the newly elected leader of the Liberal Party. Dion whipped this vote just enough to ensure the government’s motion would be defeated and the issue would not be followed by alternative legislation and go to committee where, this time, it would have gone through a more productive process than C-38 which had been rushed through.
    No matter how you might wishs to spin things, this imposition stank both in process and in substance.
    All the more reason for respecting and protecting the exercise of freedom of conscience to object to performing “marriages” of nonmarital couples. Issue a license, sure, that’s an administrative procedure, but performing the ceremony, no way, that’s not a requirement in the job description.
    You know that but you view this through a homocentric filter that demotes all liberties which clash with your nonexistent Charter right to SSM in Canada.

  20. >> “option 3, that would have had the government “get out of the marriage business” and into the civil-union business for everyone”
    That is the effect of the merger of SSM (i.e. nonmarriage) with marital status (i.e. the conjugal relationship, husband and wife). Marriage recognition has been abolished and in its place a substitute, restricted by the lowest common denomninator between the both-sexed, and the man-man, and the woman-woman variations of adult relationships.
    This means that the man-woman combo is to be treated as if it were a homosexual relationship.
    It means that a false equivalency is enacted between the man-man and the woman-woman combos.
    It wrips from the core of marriage recognition the societal purpose for benefiting the social institution of marriage — ie. integration of the sexes and responsible procreation. As a substitute, only secondary and teritiary aspects of marriage have been put at the center of what the government now recognizes.
    It will devolve further as the two-person limit will be attacked in various ways.
    For example, the Ontario court decision that established parental status for three parents of one child. The court, led by the same justice who had imposed SSM in Ontario, said that if the adults agreed, then, that was in the best interests of the child. And if a child can now have three legal parents, with full status, who is to say that those adults are justly barred from joint marital status as well?
    Option 3, by the way, came from legalistic radicals, not from the public hearings of Canadians from across the country. Marriage should have a preferential status and not be merged with nonmarriage.
    Designated beneficiaries had already been in existence across the country; it could have been streamlined through statutory provisions. If the issue was just about legal protections, that is, rather than forcing an new elevated status for the presumptively homosexual relationship. Designated beneficiarie does not presume a sexualized relationship and is open to combos that are not eligible to marry. If SSM campaigners out there are libertarian or hold the view that marriage is first and foremost a contract, then, this was the solution that did not require touching marital status at all.

  21. It should also be pointed out that it is a bit of a misleading claim to say that SSM was made legal in 2005.
    Prior to the enactment of the merger of SSM with marital status, and prior to the lower courts imposing that merger in common-law, it was not illegal to have a ceremony, call the relationship “marriage”, and so forth. Forming a one-sexed arrangement was a liberty exercised, not a right denied. Couples were not being prosecuted for an illegality.
    The status of such arrangements was at issue. Preferential treatment based on marital status was attacked by the SSM campaign which sought to merge nonmarriage with marriage and do away with the special status of the conjugal relationship.
    The merger was enacted in 2005, after the lower court imposition in 2003. But SSM as such was not illegal. Not in the way that polygamy is illegal.

  22. I look at this issue from a decidedly libertarian perspective. I don’t think it’s any business of the government what contractual arrangements are made between mutually consenting and supportive adults, nor is it proper for the government to financially or otherwise legally favour some arrangements over others–it’s just not their business. And they mess it up anyways.
    I think churches have every right to decide who they will or will not “marry” and they should be welcome to use the term marriage with any special connotations they wish, and to afford it the level of respect they wish, and to confer any additional special status or priviledges they wish.
    What churches do not and should not have is ownership of the term “marriage” any more than, say, the medical profession has over the use of the term Doctor. Individuals and other organizations have every bit as much right to use the term to describe a relationship they feel has equivalent weight according to their values. That’s why y’got Doctors of Philosophy, Dentistry, Chiropractic, Dr. Phil and Doctor John the Night Tripper.

  23. I look at this issue from a decidedly libertarian perspective. I don’t think it’s any business of the government what contractual arrangements are made between mutually consenting and supportive adults, nor is it proper for the government to financially or otherwise legally favour some arrangements over others–it’s just not their business. And they mess it up anyways.
    I think churches have every right to decide who they will or will not “marry” and they should be welcome to use the term marriage with any special connotations they wish, and to afford it the level of respect they wish, and to confer any additional special status or priviledges they wish.
    What churches do not and should not have is ownership of the term “marriage” any more than, say, the medical profession has over the use of the term Doctor. Individuals and other organizations have every bit as much right to use the term to describe a relationship they feel has equivalent weight according to their values. That’s why y’got Doctors of Philosophy, Dentistry, Chiropractic, Dr. Phil and Doctor John the Night Tripper.

  24. I look at this issue from a decidedly libertarian perspective. I don’t think it’s any business of the government what contractual arrangements are made between mutually consenting and supportive adults, nor is it proper for the government to financially or otherwise legally favour some arrangements over others–it’s just not their business. And they mess it up anyways.
    I think churches have every right to decide who they will or will not “marry” and they should be welcome to use the term marriage with any special connotations they wish, and to afford it the level of respect they wish, and to confer any additional special status or priviledges they wish.
    What churches do not and should not have is ownership of the term “marriage” any more than, say, the medical profession has over the use of the term Doctor. Individuals and other organizations have every bit as much right to use the term to describe a relationship they feel has equivalent weight according to their values. That’s why y’got Doctors of Philosophy, Dentistry, Chiropractic, Dr. Phil and Doctor John the Night Tripper.

  26. Chairm, your post is most helpful. Ron, you’ve overlooked the arguments there. You say, “I don’t think it’s any business of the government what contractual arrangements are made between mutually consenting and supportive adults, nor is it proper for the government to financially or otherwise legally favour some arrangements over others–it’s just not their business.” Eyes wide shut.
    This equivalency mindset’s dishonest, unhelpful, and even dangerous. The state has a stake in the man-woman model because it produces children and provides, in most cases, the most stable environment in which to rear them. Libertarians don’t convince me because they appear to consign our vulnerable kids to an equal position re competition for rights and status in the race of life. Not fair at all. This false “freedom” just promotes adult license at the expense of our children’s security. Bad. Bad. Bad. For kids and everyone else.

  27. I agree with libertarians that governments are not the answer to most problems. Yes, they usually make matters worse.
    However, recogniziong the union of husband and wife and giving some tax $$ back to families to raise their children is another matter.
    In a nutshell, re Ron’s argument about no differentiation among family models: he seems to overlook the fact that in his “dog eat dog” model, a lot of the dogs are only puppies. With no thought to their protection, what happens to them? when there are no

  29. Now, the supporters of SSM should answer one more question, without swerving and rhetorics, yes or no: if you and your wife, [any deity here] forbid, happen to die in a car accident tomorrow, would you wish your kids adopted by two gay males? Once again, yes or no?

  32. You are amazing! Now you would like to choose two good ones?! You are not getting, that it would be done without asking you – children aid society does not have budget to hire a medium.

  33. Aaron: then I couldn’t trust Childrens Aid to pick two good straight parents either. And I’ve seen some C/A picks in the past: straight & atrocious. What’s yer point?

  35. But I see yours: life sucks and in the end we die. You are a guy with half empty glass. Mine is half full, despite the gay, left and green working to make it half empty.

  36. Wrong: life is quite good and then we die. In fact, I appear to be much more generally trusting and optimistic than you.

  37. Chairm,
    Maybe I did not make my point plain enough, I think marriage is a religious term that the state has usurped for political gain.
    My only desire for option 3 is that it would prevent the state from interfering in the church. It would also prevent individuals and organizations from using state apparatus to interfere in the church, something we see happening today.

  38. Ron Good said: “I don’t think it’s any business of the government what contractual arrangements are made between mutually consenting and supportive adults, nor is it proper for the government to financially or otherwise legally favour some arrangements over others–it’s just not their business. And they mess it up anyways.”
    1. Designated beneficiares is based on the trust relationship established via affidavit. If you think the substantive issue is about contractual arrangements, then, marital status did not need to be touched at all.
    2. However, it appears that your real beef is with society, through its democratic governing processes, favors marital status. That’s a legitimate social policy concern, however, it discounts the benefit to society that comes from a healthy social institution which predates and exists apart from government. Marriage is not a creation of the state. The law recognizes marriage, it does not create it out of whole clothe. And that recognition arises not out of “mutal caregiving and support” but due to the benefits that come from the relatively non-cercive way that a social institution normalizes A) the integration of the sexes and B) responsible procreation. These are vital to a well-ordered and thriving human society. There is a strong societal interest in protecting the social institution of marriage. Society benefits marriage because marriage benefits society.
    3. I do sympathize with the notion that government meddling can do more harm than good. The Liberal government demonstrated that during the past couple of decades. But so has the bizarre role of the judiciary since the Charter was enacted. The first principle of a modern government ought to be “Do no harm”. Instead, we get this profound intrusion on a social institution that predates the Charter by millenium; and predates the Canadian state by millenium; and will exist long after even this great country has past into history. In the meantime, the least we can ask is that the government keep its nose out of “redefining” marriage to the extent that it replaces marriage recognition with something else, and keeps up the charade of calling the substitue “marriage”.
    4. So if the libertarian view was desired, it looks like we got the worst of libertarian-socialism. Sounds great, right? A replacement that treats nonmarriage as marriage (the flattening of status that you say libertarians would applaude) combined with the elevation in status of the homosexual relationship (which socialists pushed through undemocratically for the sake of expanding government into private matters). Quite the witch’s brew.
    5. The result is the devolution of marriage recognition, which goes beyond government meddling and undermines the social institution that has been abused. And this goes very deep into the culture. It already has corrupted the democratic processes for making laws in Canada. This can only serve to undermine respect for laws and, cough-cough, respect for our form of self-government. SSM is the issue that will highlight just how much strain on our culture the abuse of the Charter has introduced. That strain is not all bad; but it is mostly bad and it is getting worse.

  39. jgriffin, sure, marriage is treated by most religions as very special, however, marriage is not a religious term per se. It belongs to no religion in particular, for example, and even expressly athiestic states have recognized and favored marriage over other arrangements.
    In a pluralistic society, it is quite right that religious beliefs inform social policy and how we govern ourselves. I do think that religious beliefs are very powerfully interwoven with the societal esteem for the social institution.
    SSM has driven a nasty wedge between the core of marriage and the special status is has in society. The SSM campaign pushed for protection of the homosexual relationship; but marital status is a preferential status for very good reason. No good reason for demoting it to a merely protective status. There is a third status, the merely tolerated status, which Ron Good would like for all arrangements minus any preference for marriage. Well, as I watch the SSM campaign here and elsewhere it does look to me that the conjugal relationship — of husband and wife — has become a barely tolerated thing now in family law and in the bizarre way that the Charter has been reframed.
    Retreat from the special status of marriage, via the legal system, is what has been occurring at a rapid pace in Canada. Option 3 would have merely been a rearguard action during that unnecessary retreat.
    Last month the homosexualist activists in Canada claimed that marriage was being saved by same-sex unions. Trouble is, there was a decline in the marriage rate (of both-sexed couples) since SSM was imposed. Nonmarital alternatives are on a steep incline. The merger of nonmarriage with marriage would not have been stalled by Option 3. Only a reassertion of the preferential status of marriage could have done that — and still could.
    The SSM campaign does highlight your fear about further government intrusion into religious life. In Massachusetts, and now in the UK, adoption agencies are being pushed out if adoption services if they prioritize adoptors on the basis of the conjugal relaitonship of husband and wife.
    The debate in Massachusetts has included non-Catholics (usually athiests and socialists) presuming to instruct Catholic bishops on Catholicism. The only “good” religion in Massachusetts, it now seems, is the pro-SSM religion.
    So reassert marriage recognition and make sure that you put your elected representatives’ feet to the fire at every opportunity. But, more importantly, stand for your religoius beliefs and against the intrusions that are washing over the country today. Reopening this issue is not necessary for it has never been closed.

  40. Libertarians, out there, Ron especially, what about kids’ rights in all of this?
    Generous payments/no stigma for no-dad-in-the-picture moms, common law, no-fault divorce, and same-sex marriage–all sanctioned in legislation over the last few decades–all fall well short of living-with-my-own-mom-and-and dad model. (I know all about it: I’m both a step kid and step mom.)
    In fact, no-dad-in-the-picture, common law, and no-fault have generally been a disaster for kids because these situations sanction the “right” of adults to have multiple sexual partners. As this “right” is one on which gay activists claim their culture is actually based–read their own publications, like Xtra–I don’t predict that the outcome for kids in homosexual families–which GUARANTEES their separation from one of their biological parents–is going to be any rosier.
    Using our kids as guinea pigs in dubious social experiments, in order to entitle adults to their diverse sexual “rights”, is reprehensible. However, the “enlightened” elites in this country, who have allowed this to happen, don’t wish to see it. (When taking advantage of their own entitlements, they can afford nannies, nice clothes, camp, and other buy-offs to their progeny.)
    Obviously, the elites are willfully blind because the fallout of parents being entitled to change sexual partners at will is front and centre for all to see: children raised in these circumstances are at serious risk of all kinds of abuse and pathologies. A critical mass of them have become victims. (Yes, kids in two-parent families are far from perfect. However, the numbers are in: kids from intact mom-and-dad families fare far better on a host of indices than children not being raised by their own BIOLOGICAL parents.)
    Ron, I think you need to address this issue. Your idea that all dogs are equal in a dog-eat-dog world, when some are only puppies–I’ve said it again–isn’t credible. In your world, how do you propose to protect our children?
    NB: IT SEEMS STRANGE TO ME THAT THE GREENIES AND OTHER LEFTIE “LET’S RESPECT NATURE”–GOOD IDEA!–TYPES OVERLOOK BOTH THE WORTH AND BENEFITS OF THE NATURAL FAMILY.
    LET’S FACE IT, THE LESS SUCCESSFUL MODELS I’VE MENTIONED ARE ALL SYNTHETIC.
    HOW COME THE “BACK TO NATURE” TYPES RESPECT THIS LABEL FOR EVERYTHING ELSE, BUT REJECT IT FOR THE NATURAL FAMILY, THE VERY FOUNDATION OF ALL OUR HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS AND OF SOCIETY?
    (Sorry for shouting but I think this point needs to be taken into account.)
    Cheers

  41. If society truly favours traditional marriage then, regardless of the laws, traditional marriage will survive. Nothing in new legislation makes marriage a less attractive option except that now it doesn’t really carry any *special* benefits available only to those who toe a traditional line. In other words, traditional marriage is still every bit as good as it once based purely on its own merits.
    Watch how far you want to run on this: “In a pluralistic society, it is quite right that religious beliefs inform social policy and how we govern ourselves. I do think that religious beliefs are very powerfully interwoven with the societal esteem for the social institution” Radical islamic folks, for example, think much the same way and love to use democratic action to increasingly enforce adherence to Islamic code, at which point things then become less democratic, certainly, and much less tolerant of even Christian sensibilities.

  42. I never said that “all dogs are equal” and I actually have no doubt that, for the most part, the traditional responsible bio mom-dad intact family is optimum for kids, all other things being equal.
    But all other things are not equal, and I’d much rather things like this got decided on a case-by-case basis because (for examples) some gay parents are better for kids than some straight parents and some single parents are better for kids than intact but dysfunctional couples.
    Positing a government/democratic solution is pointless. We already have way more government than we need, certainly no shortage of *democracy-uber-alles*, and it’s not really helping much, is it.

  43. Case by case? Ron, by the time (and $$ spent) the case is settled–litigation, legislation?–the kid’s a screwed up adult. Case by case actually means all kinds of government intervention as the advocates for each synthetic model vie for legitimacy and more.
    So why not give the benefit of the doubt to the tried and true, “natural” (green) model?
    P.S. How many kids do you have?

  45. One child–a son–whom I love, and who did not get the benefit of a traditional fully-intact bio mom-dad upbringing due my immaturity and consequent divorce from his mom. Luckily for him, dad #2 was much better at being a good, loving and *there* father than I was, for which I will always be exceedingly grateful.

  46. Thank you, Ron, for your frank and gracious response. My father (now dead), with whom I didn’t live for most of my childhood, for some of the reasons you mention, was very dearly loved by my sister and me–more and more, actually, as we got older and knew him better.

  47. My son and I now get along very, very well (I spoke with him at length just this week in fact) and I am grateful to both his parents for never once making my son feel bad towards me. They have been more than I may have deserved, but they have both also been everything my son deserves.
    Thank you, lookout, for your comments regarding how things went with your dad. I’m pleased for you, for him, and for the reminder to all out there that folks ought not to be fully judged merely by their mistakes, shortcomings and/or differences.

  48. Chairm,
    jgriffin, sure, marriage is treated by most religions as very special, however, marriage is not a religious term per se. It belongs to no religion in particular, for example, and even expressly athiestic states have recognized and favored marriage over other arrangements.
    Marriage, as our society understands it, has its origins in the Judao-Christian tradition so I think it is safe to say it is a religious term. The fact that other states use it is irrelevant for this discussion. If this were a multi-state discussion I might agree with you.
    In my opinion, Canadian law views marriage as nothing more than a business arrangement. It is an economic contract between two individuals for the purposes of sharing resources for mutual benefit. With that viewpoint in mind you can see why I don’t believe that the Marriage Act accurately defines what marriage is and why the government should get out of the marriage business.
    I will go out on a limb and say that this was not always the case. Marriage used to be a sacred institution that was supported by the state. Sadly, those days are behind us.

  49. You’re most welcome, Ron. I’m very pleased to hear of your situation with your son. Good news, indeed!
    One of my favourite prayer book passages, in terms of grace and who we all are is: “And although we are unworthy, we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences”.
    Whether a Christian–I am–or not, I think this is a very good way to order our personal lives. Wouldn’t things be different if more of us could manage to perform this–very difficult–sacrifice?
    Best wishes to you.

  50. lookout: Thank you.
    Expanding on your point from the prayer book, I’d be a lot more pleased if, rather than trying to write legislation/rules on who can/can’t or should/shouldn’t be parents, we instead just concentrated on doing what we could as individuals and as churches and organisations, to help those who have taken on this challenge be successful.
    For example, the last thing a child of gay or single parents needs is to hear insults and continuous debates about the generalities of gay marriages or single parents; what he or she needs to know, instead, is that people are willing at least to respect the good intentions of their parents and (better) to help when they can.

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