Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told the Commons that ``religious faith is being diminished'' in the wake of legalized gay marriage. For instance, marriage commissioners are being disciplined or losing their jobs for refusing to perform ceremonies, he said.
Of course, Day is distorting reality here. I'm not personally aware of any cases where marriage commissioners have been disciplined or dismissed for refusing to marry a gay couple, however, let us consider the possibility that it has happened.
The first point that I would like to bring forward is the fact that Marriage Commissioners are not religious leaders. We are not talking about ordained ministers of any recognized church here, but about secular people who are officiating the creation of secular (non-religious, but legal) marriages. In Alberta, anybody can be a "24 hour marriage commissioner" simply by purchasing a temporary license from the government. Marriage commissioners signed up to officiate legal marriages, not religious marriages.
Let me put it into a different context - let's assume that a commissioner is approached to marry two pagans. His religious beliefs tell him that pagans are apostate, and he should not do commerce with the apostate. If we allow the notion that he is permitted to not officiate a gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, we then must find similarly that a pagan marriage bears can also be refused on the grounds of 'religious belief'.
What Stockwell Day is suggesting is that marriage commissioners should enjoy the same "freedom to refuse" that an ordained member of the clergy enjoys. This is a little troubling though - in essence, Marriage Commissioners are government employees (or contractors to the government). The courts have been very, very clear since the Charter of Rights came into play - the Government does not have the right to discriminate on civil matters. What Mr. Day is proposing would open the door for other government employees to discriminate against GLBT citizens "on the basis of religious faith".
I do not wish to see people forced to officiate over ceremonies that they are uncomfortable with. I don't think this does either the commissioner or the couple being married any favours. In Alberta, Marriage Commissioners are in a "contractor" role, rather than an "employee" role with respect to the government. They have "licensed" the right from the government to officiate marriages. They do have some right to decide which couples they are going to marry on a given day (if nothing else, they can only do one or two ceremonies in a day). However, I don't think they have a right to refuse service entirely on the basis of "religious belief". Once an agreement for service has been reached, deal with it - you aren't a minister, and you aren't being asked to give "religious blessing" to the marriage.
In coming months we can expect to see a lot of "code phrases" being bandied about as the Conservatives build up their campaign for DORA. These code phrases will be carefully designed to sound reasonable, but still resonate with the evangelical crowd.
"Religious faith is being diminished" is one such phrase. It sounds almost reasonable, but what it really means is that the right to act like a bigot based on your religion is being eroded.
The "conservative" religious world doesn't want to believe that GLBT people are "real". They think of it purely as a matter of "moral choice", and ignore the rational evidence out there. They like to claim that the "Gay Lobby" has taken over organizations like the APA. They point to "ex gay" groups like "Exodus International" that claim that it is "possible" to change, and disregard the those whose experiences suggest otherwise. They look at those who have been through an "ex-gay" program and claim that they are changed, therefore..., instead of recognizing the rather high likelihood that the "success" cases were more likely bisexual to some degree or another.
The "Bill C-38" "documentary" that Stephanie pointed me to the other day is another example of "code phrasing". If one watches, it is easy to develop the impression (correct or otherwise) that it is quite "reasonable". It isn't until one steps back a bit and starts to ask a few questions - such as why it is that most of the "quoted authorities" are religious people? Where are the mental health professionals whose work takes them into the world of gay families?
Not unlike the constant whining from evangelicals about evolution, and any evidence that might call into question a literal interpretation of Genesis, there is a persistent denial of real facts and evidence - they're too messy and inconvenient.
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