Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘marriage’

Watch this one carefully, especially if it makes it past California and to the U.S. Supreme Court. It could be big.

One of the most controversial government bills in a long time passed in Parliament tonight, legalizing same-sex marriage and ending discrimination against gay Canadians:

The bill will become official once it receives approval in the Senate, likely within days. With it the barriers to gay and lesbian weddings will tumble in Alberta, PEI, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories — the last jurisdictions where courts have not yet struck down the marriage law.

The legislation applies to civic weddings at public places, like city halls and courthouses. No religious groups will be forced to sanctify same-sex marriages if they don’t want to.

I’ve blogged extensively on this issue in the past, and I won’t rehash all the arguments I’ve already made on why I firmly believe in this issue. (If you’re interested, see here, here, here, here and here for some past posts on the subject).

Of course, the Conservatives have erased any hopes they might have had of being a viable alternative to the Liberals by marginalizing themselves as a single-issue party:

But Conservatives promise the debate isn’t over yet.

Leader Stephen Harper said he will bring back the same-sex marriage law for another vote if he wins the next election.

And with that, he’s pretty much guaranteed that he will never, ever win a Canadian election. Elections are won in the middle, not with promises to revoke a right once it’s been won.

This debate will rage on. And our American neighbours seem to be sadly heading in the opposite direction, so it may take them quite a while to get to this place.

But in my opinion, this is a great day in Canadian history. Just as we wonder what took so long for women or people of colour to be granted equal rights in the past, future generations will look back on this day.

Congratulations, Liberals. You finally took a stand on something. It took you long enough.

The Supreme Court of Canada is set to issue its ruling on gay marriage on Thursday:

The ruling will be handed down just two months after the court heard a high-profile reference case from the federal government — an unusually short period of deliberation in such a seemingly complex case.

The reference, launched after appellate courts in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec legalized same-sex marriage, asked the court four questions.

The first question is whether the federal government has jurisdiction to alter the definition of marriage. The second involves the constitutionality of Ottawa’s plan to redefine marriage to include gays and lesbians.

The third question involves whether religious institutions are legally protected from having to marry same-sex couples. The fourth question — added on the eve of last spring’s federal election campaign — involves the constitutionality of the existing exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage.

There’s a lot of speculation about what might happen. Canadians are very divided on the issue. I’ve made my opinion clear, and I don’t see how the court could really rule against gay marriage given the trends of legalization of it by province after province. But I wonder if they’ll somehow find a way to strike a compromise to avoid antagonizing the conservative right, given the precarious minority government situation of the Liberals. The Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics, but the justices live in the same world we do and see the same polling data that we do.

Here’s hoping that the court hands down a judgement that strikes down the discrimination inherent in the current definition of marrriage – of course, still respecting the rights of religions to decide for themselves.

An interesting editorial in today’s Jerusalem Post calls for the institution of civil marriages in Israel, an idea whose time is long overdue:

The obvious solution has yet to be formally presented: the institution of civil marriage and divorce for all those prevented from creating a recognized conjugal unit today. Any country that does not guarantee this essential right fails to safeguard one of the most elementary building blocks of individual wellbeing.

The issue of providing marital privileges to all is now at the top of the country’s domestic human-rights agenda. As the country continues to contend with the way it treats its minorities and the population of the territories still under its control, it can also resolve this problem.

This year Israel can finally take the long overdue step of liberating hundreds of thousands of its citizens from the confines of an anachronistic system by enabling them to join together in marriage within their own country.

Israel needs to remove religious jurisdiction over marriage and divorce. It really is that simple. Religious people can still be married by an Orthodox Rabbi – just as they can in Canada, or the US – but those either not wishing to or unable to should have the civil alternative available. Israel has the responsibility of making this fundamental right available to all its citizens.

I am in complete agreement with Jean Chretien (for once) that the majority should not decide the fate of the minority. Chretien has stated that he thinks a referendum on gay marriage would be a bad idea:

“I’ve done some referendums. I’m not keen on that,” he said, speaking to reporters in North Bay in the middle of a Liberal caucus meeting this week.

He said the reason Canada has a Constitution and the Charter of Rights is to protect the rights of minorities.

As well, he feels the job of elected officials is to make important decisions on issues such as gay marriages and to defend the rights of minorities.

“To have a referendum on these things, there would be no protection anymore.”

In my opinion, this is the correct interpretation of the role of government, and anyone who is a minority in any way (which, I suppose, we all are in a sense) should defend this role.

Democracy is a great thing. But it’s imperfect – everyone knows that. Some things are just not meant to be decided by popular vote. Things like basic human rights and justice, for example.

Someone I was talking to (who shall remain nameless but he knows who he is) said it well. What would the result be, he asked, if they called a vote in Quebec asking people whether the Jews should be charged more tax than everyone else?

Or, to put it another way, democracy doesn’t give three guys on a lifeboat with no food or water the right to kill and eat the fourth.

So when I see things like this, it really makes me squeamish:

Two federal Liberals are preparing a legal bid to have the Supreme Court butt out in favour of letting the “High Court of Parliament” settle the contentious issue of gay marriage. MP Roger Gallaway and Senator Anne Cools, both from Ontario, said Thursday they are asking the Supreme Court to allow them to appear as “interested parties” when, at the behest of the Chretien government, the court reviews the constitutionality of draft legislation redefining marriage as the “lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others.”

Gallaway and Cools oppose allowing homosexuals to marry and say they believe Canadian sentiment is running their way.

What if this were rewritten but replace “gays” with “Blacks” and “to marry” with “to vote”? Think about that for a minute.

Human rights should not be decided by opinion polls.

Mike Silverman is incensed at Bush, and I don’t blame him:

I guess I was a bit too smitten with Bush’s policy on Iraq and Israel such that I gave him a pass on domestic policy.

No more. I am wary, angry, and frustrated with the President now in a way that I have not been since September 10th, 2001.

Since matrimony is the theme of the day, let me say that the honeymoon is over and I want a divorce, Mr. President!

And Andrew Sullivan rings in on what this really means, which is all-out discrimination:

It seems clear to me that we are now headed toward a terrible and possibly definitive tempest on the issue of gay equality. President Bush said yesterday, in so many words, that he is considering amending the constitution to deny gays legal equality in their relationships – indeed to enshrine second-class citizenship for gays in the sacred words of the founding document.

In the meantime, comments over at Daimnation are going from the absurd to the ridiculous. Arguments like this one:

Aren’t religious views based on divine revelation — or, if one prefers, thousands of years of reflection and lived human experience –at least as compelling as ‘what harm could it do’ or ’studies show that…’?

Ah, the old “the scientific method can’t possibly compete with this booming voice in my head” argument. Or this one:

The same is true for gay marriage: what gay activists don’t understand is that they can call themselves married all they want, but they will not really BE married, in the only eyes that count, the eyes of God, who created the sacrament. Gay men and women are equal under the law, but their unions are not.

Here’s a thought: maybe they don’t all believe in the same god who you suggest would relegate them to second-class status! Maybe they believe in another interpretation of religion, another religion altogether, or *gasp!* no religion at all! And maybe they’re tired of having laws passed that deny them that freedom.

Isn’t the concept of “rights” itself religious? Even the Declaration of Independence says that rights are a gift from the creator. What natural entity has the authority to grant (or withdraw) basic human rights? If human rights are subject to human whims, they can hardly be called fundamental.

The old “only god can give us rights” argument. Hmmm. I guess we should take away the right to vote from Blacks, cause back when that was changed, people believed it went against god too.

The real reason behind the opposition to gay marriage is the widespread belief, supported by nearly a century of psychiatric research, that homosexuality is an inherently dysfunctional orientation influenced by a variety of social and psychological factors during childhood and/or adolescence.

You know, the only “dysfunction” is assuming that someone who isn’t like you is evil, wrong, or psychologically messed up. Maybe the teen suicide rates and the rates of “dysfunction” among homosexuals would be lessened if they weren’t one of the only minorities that it was still acceptable to persecute and oppress. Ever consider that?

Here’s the doozy of all arguments:

When I say gays shouldn’t (actually, can’t) marry, I am imposing my religious viewpoints on a minority. When they insist they should be allowed to marry, they are imposing their secular philosophy on me. Why does secularity trump religion? Because you are not religious? Oh, that’s fair.

Yeah, cause gays getting married is really gonna restrict your human rights. Suuuuuure. I find it amazing when people claim that it’s wrong to infringe on their “right” to infringe upon the rights of others. Kinda like the WTO protestors who claimed that it was an “infringement on their freedom of speech” to arrest them for smashing windows and trying to infringe on the freedom of speech of the people inside the conference. Hmmmm. Yes, I’m detecting a common theme of hypocricy here.

The Vatican is saying that Jean Chretien will “burn in hell” for supporting granting the right to marry to gays and lesbians. I don’t pay Chretien compliments very often, but in this case it’s to his credit that, as a Catholic, he is choosing to do what’s right for the country and not succumb to this blatant kind of blackmail:

“As Prime Minister of Canada, [Chretien] has the moral responsibility to protect the equality of Canadians,” said Thoren Hudyma, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister’s Office. “There needs to be a separation between the church and state.”

I guess Bush would be exempt from eternal damnation as he has come out against gay marriage in the US . . . except that Bush isn’t Catholic.

In the meantime, Damian Penny disagrees with me that religion should and can be separate from politics. He makes the argument that because politicians are people with their own moral codes, that they cannot separate the source of those moral codes from their daily decisions and actions in office:

I’ve heard this “you should keep your religion out of your politics” argument dozens of times (especially during the 2000 federal election campaign, when people believed Stockwell Day was going to take the vote away from women ‘n stuff), and it’s always stuck in my craw. It’s one thing to say politicians shouldn’t impose their religious beliefs upon others, but if you subscribe to a particular belief system, how on earth are you supposed to divorce yourself from it when the time comes to vote on a particular issue? Religious belief is not really something you can pick and choose whenever its convenient. Everybody has a moral compass of some kind (indeed, the lefties who usually squawk the loudest about “keeping morals out of politics” are the most dogmatic, doctrinaire people around when it comes to issues about which they feel strongly), and for many – perhaps most – people, it will be founded in some sort of religious belief. And I just don’t see how you can put it completely to one side when pondering a moral issue.

In response, I would argue that the notion that morality need be founded in religion is a wrong and dangerous one:

It’s more than possible to be a moral person without being a religious person, and without grounding your morality in religion (which is a fallacious and dangerous link to make, but I digress).

What George Bush is doing is taking his religious beliefs, which are supposed to be personal, and politicizing them by imposing his interpretation of religion on 250 million citizens, some of which may share his beliefs and many of which don’t.

Now you may say, how is that any different than a president saying “my moral code says it’s wrong to kill, so I’m going to pass a law forbidding murder”. But it is different. There are concrete, natural reasons why it’s wrong to kill (a priori) that need not be based on a faith-based religious doctrine. It’s wrong to kill because fellow human beings have a right to life and killing causes grievous harm.

But to say that’s it’s “wrong” for gays to have the right to get married, just because of blind faith in religion, well, that has no place whatsoever in politics. Nobody’s telling Bush to be gay or to marry a guy. But if he’s going to tell all Americans that they can’t do it, he ought to have a damn good reason, and “my religion says so” just doesn’t cut it.

Damian responded by saying that religious codes of morality were the source for most of our secular notions on morality:

This does beg the question, where did the concept of a “right to life” arise in the first place? Most religions have a clear prohibition against killing other people (although, as everyone from the Inquisitors to Hamas illustrate, religious people will find no shortage of loopholes allowing them to get around this inconvenient rule), and that’s why murder was taboo long before secular philosophical arguments against killing gained popular currency. This is another area where politics and religion cannot be completely separated.

I think that is a powerful and persuasive argument that merits a response. I also think it’s wrong.

Rather than discuss this at length here, I’ll direct interested parties to this link to a philosophy paper I wrote on the subject. I’d post excerpts but in my egotistical opinion it’s better if you read the whole thing.

And for anyone who isn’t yet asleep, further reading can be found here, here, and here, among other places.

The Federal Government has announced legislation to legalize same-sex marriages by redefining the term “marriage”:

The landmark legislation will be drafted within weeks, then sent to the Supreme Court of Canada for fine-tuning and put before the House of Commons in a free vote by MPs months from now. But the prime minister made it clear Ottawa would not impose the new law on religious groups, who can still refuse to perform same-sex weddings. Canada would join Belgium and the Netherlands as the only countries allowing gay and lesbian weddings.

“What we’re doing at this moment might put Canada at the forefront of any solutions that exist,” Chretien said.

I guess I should join other bloggers such as Damian Penny on weighing in with my opinion on the subject, which is that this is one of the best pieces of legislation tabled by the Liberal government since . . . well, in a long time, anyway. And it’s long overdue.

I’ve heard a lot of BS arguments against allowing gay people to marry, usually by thinly-veiled homophobes who spout a lot of claptrap about “definitions” and whatnot. Some argue that it’s a slippery slope to allowing other forms of marriage, such as marriages involving more than one person. Others seem to be perfectly happy to restrict the right to marry to heterosexuals, perhaps afraid that if gays can marry, we’ll no longer be allowed to. I don’t know. I’ve thought long and hard trying to come up with some rational explanation for their objections, and came up with nothing. It’s not as though granting basic rights to someone else means that we have to give up any ourselves.

Especially considering no religious institution will be compelled to marry a same-sex couple, in much the same way that the Catholic Church won’t recognize or remarry divorced people. If you want to follow the tenets of a faith that discriminates, nobody’s stopping you, and there are plenty to choose from. Even Judaism discriminates broadly in who can be married in an Orthodox synagogue. But there are plenty of ministers (and even rabbis) out there who will gladly marry a same-sex couple, or else gay couples can be married in a civil ceremony. So why should the Federal Government be allowed to get in the way?

Marriage is essentially a contract. Sure, a religious marriage is considered holy, and any marriage is an affirmation of love and commitment. But why shouldn’t same-sex couples be allowed to have that love or make that commitment? And why shouldn’t they be granted the same privileges as heterosexual married couples?

I’m reminded of some of the arguments that were put forth before black people had the right to vote in the United States. “Voting is just for whites” or “Why would they even want to vote anyway?” or other ridiculous assertions like that one. Well, here we are again, in a time when we can no longer deny basic rights to 10% of our populations. Let’s end discrimination once and for all.

With the gay marriage debate back in the papers, it seems like the idiots are crawling out of the woodwork once again.

I honestly don’t understand why people are so opposed to allowing gays and lesbians to marry. Fine, I can understand if certain religious institutions don’t want to accept it. After all, religion is all about arbitrary prescriptions and proscriptions of lifestyles.

But marriage itself – in the civil definition – is mainly a legal contract, and any law that discriminates against a portion of the population based on something they can’t help ought to be scrapped. I mean, what is this, the eighteenth century? I thought we’d progressed beyond blaming homosexuality for the “immorality” of society.

Being gay is like being a redhead, or being left-handed. As I myself am both red-haired and left-handed, I certainly wouldn’t want any laws discriminating against me on either count. Just as I can’t help those, gay people can’t help being gay – nor should they be made to feel like they’re somehow inferior, or less deserving of the same rights as the rest of us. If they fall in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together, what’s so wrong about giving them the same rights to marriage as the rest of us?

Comments like this one baffle me beyond belief:

Supporters of same-sex marriage cannot guarantee a secure future, for they have no historical, moral or scientific basis to do so. No one knows what the fall-out will be from having in essence a more gay society, as people increasingly accept and engage in homosexual behaviour.

Oh yeah, cause gay people are out there in numbers trying to convince us unenlightened straight people to be more like them. Oh no wait, that’s not gay people . . . that’s religious people – people who think that somehow their “morality” needs to apply to everyone else and that they somehow have the right to dictate to others how to live. What does this person think, that if gays are given the right to marry, suddenly everyone will think it’s such a great idea and decide to be gay?

Some people are just really stupid.