Lurking on CBC's website is the following article talking about our illustrious Premier's opinions on same-sex marriage. In it, Ralph, in his infinite wisdom, asserts:
I do feel that gays and lesbians ought not to be discriminated against in any other form other than marriageReally, Ralphie? What's next? You'll say it's okay to refuse service to someone in a restaurant because of their skin colour?
On top of that, Ralph tries to patronize not only GLBT people, but the citizens of this fair land in general with a classic cop-out line:
I have friends who are gays and friends who are lesbians, and they are wonderful peopleHow nice Ralph. You actually know a couple of members of the GLBT community. How lovely. I frankly don't give a damn about your friendships with other people. That line was insulting and patronizing at best. That's the classic variation on the "I have no problem with <insert group of choice here>, BUT ...." line of reasoning. Take it somewhere else - it's patronizing and insulting.
More seriously, I find myself wondering if this Z-Minus Moron ever actually READ this Country's Constitution - in particular the Charter of Rights and Freedoms???
Section 15(1) of the Charter reads as follows:
15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.I grant that I'm no lawyer, but this particular line seems pretty darn clear. Equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination seems decidedly absolute. Discrimination is discrimination - period, end of statement. Further, our courts have taken the notion of equality as something of an absolute - there is no "separate but equal" wording in the Charter - anywhere. Other than in some rarified academic arguments, I've never seen anyone argue that equal means anything less than absolute equality. (Of course, I've seen some academics argue that Black is White - I fear for their safety if they ever encounter a zebra crossing...)
I'm beginning to think that it should be mandatory for all of our politicians to demonstrate a reasonable depth of knowledge about the legal foundations of this nation - before we even allow them to run for office. This might keep the number of semi-literate twits like Ralph in our corridors of power down a bit. (Rather like rodents, the best you can hope to do is keep the numbers down, not get rid of them all - as desirable as that may seem at times)
What Ralph forgets is that Discrimination is the ugly underbelly of society. Back in the early part of the last century, it was not seen as a "bad thing" to discriminate against women based on their gender; against black and coloured peoples based on their skin etc. After all, these were clearly "inferior beings" (Does anybody else remember Adolph Hitler's "Final Solution" ? - the one that murdered some 6 million or more Jewish people?) Discrimination is plain wrong - no matter how morally justified you might think it is.
If people like Ralph - and other opponents of same-sex marriage - want to convince me that changing our country's legal definition of marriage is a "Bad Thing"(tm), they are going to have to reach a fairly high bar. What do they have to prove? That society would be irreparably harmed in some fashion by this change. Since the proposed changes merely impact the legal definition, and do not place any obligation upon religious bodies, I have yet to see any coherent explanation of what harm might be done.
So far, the lines of reasoning I have seen put forward that try (and fail) to explain a problem in secular, not religious, terms are along the following lines:
- Marriage has always been a union between a man and a woman throughout the ages.
- The use of the word marriage/married is troubling
- This is the fallout of allowing "no-fault divorces" (Ted Byfield)
- What's next? We allow marriage to gerbils?
- You cannot change the definition of a word! (after all, it's in the dictionary!)
- You are changing a fundamental building block of society's structure. What would families be based on?
On a parting note, I would point out that the estimates (and they are rather weak statistics) of the percentage of the population that is GLBT range from <1% to somewhere around 5-6% - depending on what rubber rulers you use to define who is part of the GLBT population. In any terms, that's a very small number, which makes the GLBT population not only very vulnerable to discrimination, but it also underscores that the overall scope of impact of recognizing same-sex unions as a form of legal marriage is probably pretty darned small.
3 comments:
Oh, may I help?
In regards to your "objections"
Marriage has always been a union between a man and a woman throughout the ages.
Yes, historically you are correct! Historically speaking, you also have child marriages, incest and pologamy. Should we return to 'yon better days' when live was, ahem, "nasty, brutish and short"?
The use of the word marriage/married is troubling.
Yes, I agree that the religious right would prefer to see different terminology used to differentiate between secular and non-secular marriage (which is a growing gap), and I agree that in regards to societal acceptance it would be easier to sell the concept of partnership (where partnership = marriage) in all but name.
However, calling marriage by any other name is troubling, more so than on a merely semantic level. As a friend commented to me a few days ago, the basis for our legal system, laws and judgements, even our constitutional rights are based on the semantic label "marriage". If we are to define, say, "partnership" as "equal but different" then we damage the rights of those who are within a "partnership" and open up the new label for abuse. To create true equality we need to utilize the same label that is protected by our laws and constitution. If we simply "bandaid" it by establishing a clause "Marriage = Partnership and Partnership = Marriage" then we open up the floodgates for potential abuse at a later date as the definition is further doctored. It must be an all or nothing proposition.
This is the fallout of allowing "no-fault divorces" (Ted Byfield)
Really? What does that have to do with Gay Marriage? Perhaps we ought to blame no-fault divorces instead for the current divorce rate with Heterosexual couples. The colour of tea in China is not relevant.
What's next? We allow marriage to gerbils?
A man (woman) is not a gerbil. We are not discussing animals. We are not discussing plants. We are not discussing, ahem, "devient" practices such as poligamy or child marriage. We are merely discussing the issue of allowing two consenting adults who are committed to one another to formalize their relationship in a legal and societal sense. Gerbils? Gah!
You cannot change the definition of a word! (after all, it's in the dictionary!)
Really? Then, if we return to the original meaning of Gay in the mid-19th Century, then we are really discussing "Happy or Joyful" marriage - and THAT, my friends is a GOOD thing! The connotations of words change, meanings flow like water. We are not stagnent.
You are changing a fundamental building block of society's structure. What would families be based on?
Ok. Society is, "ahem" structured on what we might consider a "traditional" family - a mother, a father, a large number of children". Perhaps we ought to outlaw single-parenthood as it ALSO changes a fundamental building block of society's structure.
Face it - times change, and society is in a constant state of flux as it redefines itself in response to our changing lifestyles. Perhaps we ought to blame technology, as it has moved our lifestyles from the farm/village into the city - from an agricultural model to a civic model. With technology (i.e. computers and electricity) our societal job 'roles' have changed - we have men and women (!) working in offices, and making (roughly) equivalent wages. So, women are not dependants to the male breadwinner. But, obviously, we were far better off (according to Ted Byfield and his ilk) at a time when women knew their place as an inferior species, and were denied the vote... or even rights as a person.
So Cracked, I disagree when you state that you feel that of the arguments, that the last one may have some merit - it is as hollow and empty as the other accusations of those who would bring back the good old days of segregation.
Fair enough. I basically agree with your analysis...
I had mild ideas that there might be some kind of argument vis a vis social structure and societal form that could be posited as sufficiently significant to suggest that actual harm to society might occur.
Your point about single parent families, however, underscores and validates my initial supposition that any such argument is readily rendered irrelevant.
Mild ideas eh? Is that in opposition to acute ideas?
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