How Can a Conservative Support Same-Sex Rights?

I was going to spend today going through some of the 'anti' arguments that I had found - but then I ran across the following little tidbit:

Rigidity of beliefs:

We have exchanged Emails with hundreds of visitors to this web site about the Bible and homosexuality. Most fall into one of two groups:

Religious liberals promote homosexual ordinations, same-sex marriage, civil union ceremonies in the church, equal protection under hate-crime legislation, protection against discrimination in employment, etc. as fundamental human rights issues.

Religious conservatives feel that the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is always a serious sin. Allowing sexually active gays and lesbians to be ordained, or to have their committed relationships recognized by the church would involve a drastic and unacceptable lowering of church standards. The church would be condoning sin. They also oppose including sexual orientation in hate-crime and anti-discrimination legislation.

We have been unable to change the beliefs or actions of any of these hundreds of people on even one point related to homosexuality. Their views appear to be fixed. It is doubtful that much progress towards compromise on homosexual rights can be made by means of dialogue. We don't expect that the attached essays will change the beliefs of many visitors to this web site. However, the essays may help people understand opinions that are not their own.

As much fun as I might have dissecting the arguments made against legalizing same-sex marriage, I doubt that it would be meaningful to anyone opposed to same-sex marriages - they are relatively unlikely to be swayed by my arguments any more than I am like to be persuaded of their positions.

However, an interesting notion did occur to me that bears following through.

Consider that the whole gay rights movement is based on section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

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.

Okay, fine - the wording is pretty clear, and I think the direction of the 'Gay Rights' activists is equally clear.

The various 'anti gay rights' groups have a variety of arguments against this - largely based around either religious foundations or some idealized notion of family structure that has never been overly realistic. (The details are moot)

Premier Ralph Klein has been running around shooting his mouth off arguing that the so-called "not-withstanding" clause (section 33) of the Charter of Rights be invoked to reinforce a law rendering same-sex marriage illegal.

At first, this would seem to be quite the trump card - after all section 33 can be used to override any section of the Charter pretty much arbitrarily.

However, Section 33(3) imposes a mandatory sunset clause at the end of 5 years. Parliament is required to either review and re-enact the invocation of section 33 every 5 years - otherwise the 'protection' lapses.

Do the anti-gay rights people _really_ want to engage in this same debate every 5 years? I doubt it. Not only is it emotionally exhausting, but it is also extremely expensive.

Second, even if Parliament does enact a law that renders same-sex marriages "illegal" in Canada, they effectively open the government up to repeated challenges in the courts of each piece and clause of legislation that refers to married couples. Even if a same-sex marriage is not recognized in Canada, the argument around section 15 now applies to a much broader group of people.

The gay rights activists have an almost endless pool of challenges to put before the courts - the term marriage is woven throughout the texts of our laws in many places. Each clause, and law, can be challenged individually.

Now, what's the consequence of this? Each law gets challenged before the courts, one at a time, one clause at a time. Parliament is then forced to decided, one law at a time, if it is reasonable to apply section 33 of the Charter. If you think that this is expensive, you're correct.

What's being put forth today is in fact the inexpensive solution. Expand the definition of Secular Marriage, and you don't have to re-evaluate each and every occurrance of legislation for compliance with equality.

Now, of course, it is conceivable that anti same-sex marriage campaigners could demand that a prohibitive law be enacted using clauses that are sweeping in their scope to attempt to cover this hole up. However, we would still be in for a seemingly infinite series of challenges in the courts as to whether the wording of those clauses applies in specific situations. (Lawyers are amazing nitpicks over details)

The religious conservatives are, of course, going to be quite willing to spend billions of taxpayer's dollars on this. I suspect that the majority of others are less inclined to spend money like that...