At a protest rally on Friday, gay activist Julie Lloyd said:
"This bill would make it open season on gay and lesbian Albertans. What this bill does is strip back basic human rights protection.'That, of course, is hysterical nonsense -- but still, the bill shouldn't pass.
I don't recall anyone having being fired or sanctioned for not performing a same-sex marriage and I don't believe anyone has been fired or penalized for having refused to teach on the subject of same-sex marriage. So far, so good.
It is scary that the Alberta Legislature feels the need to present a bill that would protect dissenters. Dissent should be protected under the Charter, shouldn't it? Our freedom of religion and conscience are entrenched in that document, aren't they? But still we feel uncertain that disagreement with certain laws and government policy will be protected.
I guess it's the often intolerant rhetoric of the heterophobes and the religiophobes that provokes people into feeling that this kind of legislation is necessary:
Opponents rallied on the steps of the legislature Friday to say the bill would enshrine in law the dehumanization of gays similar to what blacks once endured in the United States and South Africa.
Opponents label the legislation a malignant tumour.
“This will do nothing more than create a widespread moral panic in which gay and lesbian issues are seen as a moral contagion,” said Kris Wells, who works in educational policy studies at University of Alberta.
Ms. Lloyd said clergy already have the right not to go against their beliefs to perform same-sex marriages. She said the bill only helps civil marriage commissioners deny service “because of intolerant beliefs.”
She said the bill, if passed, would allow employers to fire gays and let landlords evict gay tenants with impunity “because they're exercising a belief against same-sex marriage.”Nevermind that the last statement is irrationally extreme -- these kinds of statements are ferociously anti-freedom, anti-self-expression, and suggest that there is only one opinion allowed in this country, and only belief system that can be used in public. Bill 208 might have brought those opinions to the newspapers this time, but these rigid attitudes are always there, festering and being fostered within our academic institutions.
The Charter says that we have freedom of religion and we have freedom of expression. Same-sex marriage is legal, but as of yet, there is no law imposing agreement with same-sex marriage -- in fact, section 3.1 of the Civil Marriage Act says:
Freedom of conscience and religion and expression of beliefsThe Charter doesn't give us freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression "except" when it comes to same-sex partnerships-- there is no 'except'. The limitations that exist in the Charter are not to our freedoms, but to governmental interference with them.
3.1 For greater certainty, no person or organization shall be deprived of any benefit, or be subject to any obligation or sanction, under any law of the Parliament of Canada solely by reason of their exercise, in respect of marriage between persons of the same sex, of the freedom of conscience and religion guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the expression of their beliefs in respect of marriage as the union of a man and woman to the exclusion of all others based on that guaranteed freedom.
And, just so we wouldn't be worried that our government was rejigging a centuries-old, universally established element of a sacred institution to conform to the radical mindset of 21st century 'liberal' elites -- parliament put in the above clause. No section of the Civil Marriage Act imposes the belief in its correctness -- only its legality.
Let Bill 208 die.
If the Civil Marriage Act is applied as written, protection for dissenters exists federally.
If ever the "freedom of conscience and religion and expression of beliefs" clause is ever challenged, and if the Charter is for real and for the protection of everybody, Bill 208 is redundant.
People who insist that beliefs should be legislated or that religion should be checked at the door of public sector jobs are the epitome of intolerance. Rather than give them more reason to name-call, vilify and proselytize about those who disagree with them, let's see how the existing legislation and our hallowed Charter fare.
canadianna
20 comments:
Legal marriage should be abolished in order to save it, there's no reason for the state to be involved in people's personal lives to such an extent anyhow.
All persons married or single should be equal under and before the law, including tax laws.
Marriage would still exist of course. Religion has it covered. Secular people could devise their own forms of marriage if they so desired.
I think this bill is meant to protect Marriage commissioners, who are not in fact covered by the Charter because they are not religious officials, but rather employees of the state.
myrddin wyllt -- things like what the BC school board is doing are exactly the reason Alberta should just wait and see --there have to be some teachers, some students, some people who will refuse to participate should the curriculum become a vehicle to advocate for gay marriage. Only when they are punished for refusal to participate will we know for sure that the Civil Marriage Act and the Charter are to protect all of us.
Joanne -- marriage commissioners are covered by the Charter in the same way gay people are -- because they are people. We all have freedom of conscience, religion, belief and expression. To limit those freedoms, the burden is on government to show that it is justifiable and reasonable to do so in a free and democratic society.
I don't think they could meet that burden if they imposed belief or implied belief (forcing a marriage commissioner to perform a ssm).
The 'fundamental rights' section belongs to all of us -- not just minorities, and section 15 applies as much to religious minorities as to gays. Should the freedoms of one minority supercede the freedoms of another? The refusal of one marriage commissioner to perform a ssm does not prevent a gay person from being married. The forcing of a marriage commissioner to perform a wedding for a ss-couple does prevent that person from acting on his religious freedom.
And, marriage commissioners are covered under the Civil Marriage Act of 2005.
The SSM thing is going to take years to play out. Maybe Alberta is trying to force the issue, but I maintain their efforts are either redundant or futile.
You ask the questions: "Dissent should be protected under the Charter, shouldn't it? Our freedom of religion and conscience are entrenched in that document, aren't they?"
Sadly, the case of Scott Brockie in Ontario shows with no room for doubt that they are NOT, in fact, as protected as we are led to believe.
Only dreamers think that freedoms are protected by the charter. The charter is doing exactly what its designers planned - to advance the cause of "progressiveism". Pass 208 and make sure it stands up to the onslaught from the lefty nut bars.
CA,
We face a similar situation in Scotland, where Catholic schools may be forced to teach the benefits of homosexuality.
I'm not sure if the Alberta legislation is the right response, but I think you're faith in the Charter's ability to protect our freedoms is ill-concieved.
The previous anonymous commenter is exactly right. The Charter was never about protecting freedoms. It was about using the courts to circumvent legislatures to promote a radical progressivist agenda.
The only reason the premiers ever agreed to let the Charter pass was because Section 33, the Notwithstanding Clause, gave them the right to override the more ridiculous Charter rulings they knew would follow. Unfortunately, the progressivist forces have turned this clause - the very clause that made the Charter possible - into a Constitutional boogieman, to be wielded only by the most suicidal of politicians.
If the Notwithstanding clause was still considered a reasonable option, I would agree that this legislation would be unecessary. That's because this whole issue would never have gotten off the ground. Parliament would have simply overridden the unelected judges on the gay marriage issue, and made a strong statement that this is an issue for Parliament, and ONLY Parliament, to deal with. And it would have stopped right there.
If the Civil Marriage Act is applied as written, protection for dissenters exists federally.
If ever the "freedom of conscience and religion and expression of beliefs" clause is ever challenged, and if the Charter is for real and for the protection of everybody, Bill 208 is redundant.
That is simply not true in this case.
We face a similar situation in Scotland, where Catholic schools may be forced to teach the benefits of homosexuality.
Martin, this is already happening in the public system here in B.C. Two married gay men have been asked to design the curriculum to be more gay-friendly. It's only a matter of time before publicly-funded Catholic schools are forced to do the same.
Canadianna - I do not agree with you in this instance.
SSM was never about rights - it is about the definition of the word "marriage".
I have no problem with gays, the gay lifestyle, gay unions, but I do not accept that gays need to use the word "marriage" to define their unions. They do not fit the definition of a union between a man or a woman or the ability to procreate. So by loudly and actively demanding that their unions be called "marriage", they are fooling themselves that if they "force" their demands on the general public through the courts that they will be accepted.
Gay activists will not stop until they have forced their will, through the courts, on this country.
Even if Bill 208 passed, (which by the way the majority of Albertans believe should pass), gay activists would take it to the courts until those whose values do not accept the gay lifestyle are forced to perform unions(marriages), teach about the gay lifestyle. They will not rest until they have psuedo acceptance of their lifestyle.
I say psuedo acceptance because are you really accepted if you had to force someone to accept you and your lifestyle? Me thinks not?
Sorry for the rant - but this issue has been twisted and turned until the actual facts behind the debate have been lost.
Canadianna. I have to disagree with your plan of waiting for things to go off the rails before anything is done.
It's a little like the 'no imminent threat' line people use about Iran, etc. Apparently we have to wait until they actually detonate a nuclear warhead in Washington before they are a 'real' threat.
I think waiting for the whole system to change so we can defend a 'dissenter' in the courts is exactly what the gay lobby wants. By that time things will be so far gone that nothing will be able to be done about it.
It's the line they always use: "Why don't we try this gay marriage thing with no meaningful discussion or research, and if something bad happens we'll change it then?". Sounds reasonable doesn't it? Except they know full well that if we try it out and something does go wrong it will be way past too late to do anything about it.
Ultimately, until we can be confident that the charter will be enforced for anything other than the advancement of the radical leftist agenda, I fear that things like the Alberta legislation might just be necessary.
An aside: For whoever said that no one has yet been sanctioned for refusing to bow to SSM, just ask the Knights of Columbus how their court case went.
I have it on good authority that the Charter cannot protect the religious freedom within provincial jurisdictions such as marriage, education, etc.
Check with your M.P. Be sure to ask very specific questions.
Yeah, I just double-checked on this, and the religious protection clause in C-38 only applies to clergy; nobody else.
The courts will determine all other issues on a case-by-case basis and under legal precedence.
Canadianna, you are welcome to support same-sex marriage and to be against Bill 208, but please don't say it is redundant, and please don't say that religious rights are protected, because for other than the clergy, that just isn't true.
Here's a link to how the Netherlands experiment is going:
Smoking Gun.
Canadi anna: I am afraid that I am in concurrence with most of your commenters this time. I have zero faith in the Charter, brought "home" to roost as it was, by that reptile Trudeau, with the intent, as many of your readers have said, to radicalize Canada to his own perverted vision.
Joanne is right: C-38 only applies to clergy. I had a post a while back and I can dredge up the link, to several JP's who were fired for not performing ssm's because of their personal religious beliefs.
I do not support same sex marriage, I do not support the radical gay agenda, for many valid societal reasons, none of which includes homophobia.
Canadiana, I want to correct a point that you made. Newfoundland and Manitoba have already made it clear that Marriage Commissioners can not refuse to conduct gay-marriages even if they feel that it is in conflict with their conscience.
Anyone who feels comfortable with this should realize that doctors and nurses are exempt from participating in abortions. Abortion, in Canada, has been the defining issue of Women's Rights. The UN and NGO's view women's reproductive rights as essential in human rights development. Yet, doctors and nurses are allowed to be exempt. Can you imagine forcing them to perform something that they, by conscience or religious conviction, are passionately against. Many of us do not have a problem with that reasoning, yet we see no room for conscience in the area of same-sex marriage.
The issue of the use of the word "marriage" involves the further issue of children. This has been an issue that has received little attention. There have been statements around the fact that children within same-sex relationships are unaffected by the union. This seems to fly in the face of past data stating the importance of both genders for proper social development. Within the context of a politically correct society, no one wants to do a study to exam child development within this dynamic.
This is not an exercise in proving a bigotted response. It is an essential examination that should take place when we, as a society, change traditional roles. Change for the sake of change is senseless. Change to accommodate changes in our environment is a worthwhile venture.
Anna: You're not normally this credulous. Ask Christopher Kempling if is conscience was not irrelevant as far back as 2002.
Bill 208 is the RIGHT THING TO DO! Period! End of story.
Everybody has seen that the Charter is manipulated by activists and their sycophants on the bench and in the legal community at large to cherry pick which rights will be protected and which will be trampled upon. To expect the Charter to limit the undesireable effects of homosexual group activism is foolishness.
In making a case for gay marriage, proponents have argued that the state does not have the right to impose a morality, however majoritary, on its citizens. For all its troubles, this Millian-liberal argument has been widely accepted. But if this is so, should the state impose a morality based on the wishes of a minority? If citizens are protected from losing their jobs for speaking in favour of SSM, for example, should opponents to SSM not be granted an equivalent protection under the law when they exercise their right to voice their own opinions?
http://www.civitatensis.ca/archives/2006/08/26/1434
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