Bishop Henry - Politician

At first glance, Bishop Henry's article in the Sun yesterday appears to be his first attempt at political backpedalling. I've suspected for a while that Bishop Henry has his eye on achieving political power in this country. I thought at first that he had made an actual attempt to back pedal from a major case of 'foot-in-mouth'itis that he has been suffering from lately.

First, Bishop Henry reviews one of the most controversial statements in his January Pastoral letter:

In one of my previous pastoral letters, I wrote: "Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the state must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good."

He then goes on to argue:

The state obviously responds to each of these threats to family life in different ways as it exercises its coercive power.

The government has a solemn obligation to protect, not re-engineer, an institution that is more fundamental to human life than the state.

Okay - so far, so good. He appears to be trying to moderate the intent of his January letter.

Next, we read:

For example, in the case of marriage, federal legislation prohibits people from marrying if they are related linearly or as brother and sister, whether by whole blood, half blood or by adoption.

Specifically, a woman may not marry her grandfather, father, grandson, son or brother. A man may not marry his grandmother, mother, granddaughter, daughter or sister.

The time has come for the government of Canada to use its coercive powers to legislate that a couple being married must be one man and one woman.

This is not a fascist or Hitler-like position, nor even an anti-homosexual stance, but it reflects Christian teaching on the primordial status of marriage and family life.

Ah! Bingo - not only does the Bishop show us that his intentions are no more moderated than they were in January. In fact, he comes around and provides the weakness of his argument as well in that very assumption.

First, regardless of what various people think the preamble to this country's Constitution means, it does not specify a particular notion of God, nor does it sanction Bishop Henry's particular brand of Christian God.

He is correct in raising the issue that the Supreme Court's reference ruling on marriage does not obligate the state to allow same-gender marriage. However, there is a significant body of prior rulings in a variety of areas that demonstrate that the laws of the land are in fact discriminatory to same-gender unions.

These have turned up time and again in areas such as bereavement rights, CCP survivor benefits, "next of kin" issues, criminal law (there are some rules around spouses as witnesses in criminal cases), taxation and a plethora of other situations where the language of the law speaks about spouses and their rights and obligations under law.

As I have argued before, opponents of Same-Gender Marriage object primarily on religious lines, and presuppose either a religious or procreative (or both) role for marriage that is uniquely applicable to a heterosexual relationship. This opposition to the modification of the legal definition of marriage misses the point entirely. There is a clause in the constitution that says that we are all equal before the law.

Under this light, the state has three real choices available to it:

1. Refuse to do anything, and have every piece of legislation that provides specific rights and privileges to a spouse challenged in the courts.

2. Legislate against same-gender marriage explicitly and support it with the "notwithstanding clause". Not only does this continue to subject the country to this debate every 5 years, but it also fails utterly to address the costly prospect of every law on the books being dragged through the courts - at taxpayer expense.

3. Alter the _legal_ definition of marriage and move on.

If you argue that the primary purpose of marriage is procreative, then do you invalidate marriages with no offspring after so many years? Do you prohibit post-menopausal women from remarrying? Of course not.

Looking around, the argument that same-gender unions cannot raise families is simply false logic. There are many same-gender couples raising children. As far as I have been able to determine, the worst that happens to these children is that they might have more open minds as a result.

Even moderated by the language of his interpretation of faith, Bishop Henry continues to demonstrate wilful ignorance of modern knowledge, as well as an amazingly calcified perspective on the legal issues in this discussion.

Further, other writings of the Bishop have railed against the progressive "normalization" of homosexuality in society. Omigosh - if people think its normal, he won't have anyone to hold up as a bastion of immorality. After all, think of all the nasty things that those you don't understand must do! Bishop Henry chooses not to understand a minority group so that he can continue to stand in judgement over them with a clear conscience.

I seem to recall that happening to Jews in Europe for centuries; and before that, the Roman Empire did something very similar to early Christians. Perhaps the good Bishop should stew on that with a side order of law before he goes off writing his next public expose of ignorance.