The Fight For Rights Never Stops

Canada has had legal same sex marriage for a decade.  The world hasn't ended, society hasn't collapsed into anarchy, people aren't marrying their goats, lawnmowers or anything else either.

On the heels of the US Supreme Court rulings on DOMA and Proposition 8, I found that Calgary's hardline Bishop, Fred Henry, has once again opened his yap on the subject.

But they do copy marriage and family, and in the process, they compete with and diminish the uniquely important status of both. While the culture has failed in many ways to be marriage-strengthening, this is no reason to give up. Now is the time to strengthen marriage, not redefine it.

More or less this is the standard whining that we heard from Henry during the debates over legalizing same sex marriage in Canada.

Calgary Herald columnist Naomi Lakritz wrote a letter which correctly chastises the Bishop for his criticisms.

Henry says “God’s wise design” confirms that differences between the genders matter. To which anyone who believes in God should reply that, as part of God’s wise design, He has also created people who are homosexual.

A day later, we get the following drivel published as a letter to the editor:

Legal and financial equality can be achieved through civil unions without attaching the sacred term "marriage." But the very river of life flows through the union of a man and woman. This does not occur in any samesex relationship. Everyone needs a mother and a father. Why would any caring society intentionally deprive children of that universally recognized need?

Just as there is no rest in the abortion rights discussion the same applies to equality rights for LGBT people or other minority groups.  As much as it would be nice to relax and take a break, we must remember the old saying "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".

 

A Good Decision - If Unsurprising

I can't say I'm surprised by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal's decision regarding civil marriage commissioners and gay marriages.

The logic of the decision is pretty simple - civil marriage is just that - CIVIL marriage. At that level, they are carrying out a service as agents of the government, not as agents of their particular faith community. As agents of the government, marriage commissioners are obliged to treat all citizens equally.

Predictably, Canada's right wingnut religionists have begun complaining:

“What we are seeing now is that step by step religious rights in Canada have been diminished while homosexual rights have been accelerated by the appointed unaccountable judges,” Landolt told LifeSiteNews.com. “This decision means that religious rights have been pushed to the side once again in favour of judge-made homosexual rights. If there were genuine equality between these two competing rights, then both should have equal recognition under the law which has been denied by this decision.”

“Canada has suffered a severe loss to its collective rights and identity today,” said Christian Legal Fellowship (CLF) Executive Director and General Legal Counsel Ruth Ross, in a press release.

Where, might I ask, is there any "restriction" being laid upon what an individual believes? I don't see anyone saying that an individual must like the idea of a same-sex marriage. Rather, what we see is that where government functions are concerned, they must be carried out on behalf of all citizens equally.

About That "Traditional Marriage" Thing

Ms Magazine has an excellent writeup that reminds us of just how "traditional marriage" used to work:

Arguably the most influential definition of “traditional” marriage came from William Blackstone, a well-thumbed copy of whose “Commentaries on the Laws of England” could be found on the desk of every Colonial or Early American lawmaker, judge and attorney:

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs everything.

The two became one–that one being the husband–while the bride underwent “civil death” to become his legally invisible appendage. Virtually every asset of hers–personal possessions, every penny of wages earned, the very clothing on her back, and even her children–was placed under the absolute control of her husband, though inherited real estate was restricted in that husbands could use it for their own benefit, but not arbitrarily dispose of it without her free consent, as it was meant to provide for her during widowhood then be passed on to her children. Like a child, she could not sign a contract, make a will, buy or sell a business, or sue in court (except for divorce–where legal–or for failure of her husband to adequately support her.)

Hmmm...and the "anti-gay marriage" crowd wants to go back to this? How delightful.

Horsefeathers and Mumbo Jumbo

Oh dear. I see that the religious crowd in Australia is getting their knickers in a twist over the prospect of same gender marriage.

We've heard all of the arguments in that article in Canada - and every last one of them is specious because they fail to recognize one fundamental point: Nobody is talking about the religious notion of marriage, but rather the secular and legal notion of marriage.

They can blather on all they like about the "uniqueness of love between a man and woman", or how sex between a man and a woman is "designed to create life" and they still miss the point entirely.

There are a couple of gems in the midst of their fear-riddled tirade against allowing gay couples to marry.

But, as hard and painful as it is for those who suffer
from same‐sex attraction, real love demands chastity – the integration of sexual desires into unselfish love for the other person. This means abstaining from sex that is not marital and open to life. Unfulfilled sexual desires can be a painful cross to carry. But a chaste life brings us true inner peace and joy, because we are living in harmony with the way our bodies have been designed and we are treating the person we love as a gift – loving him or her for their own sake, and not for the sexual pleasure they can give us.

Oh yes, the classic Catholic dogma - tut tut tut ... no sex outside of marriage; and anything within marriage had better be about making more babies.

Then it invokes the "nobility of suffering" line while advocating that homosexuals should have no sex lives whatsoever.

What this theology fails to recognize is the importance of sexual activity as part of a social bonding process between individuals. Whether the sexual activity is heterosexual or homosexual, it has a unique effect in bringing the partners closer together over time. It isn't trivial and should not be ignored. It is, in some ways significant that when a marriage gets into trouble (and they do), one of the first things to be withdrawn by one of the partners is sex. I do not think that is any accident, since it is a very common pattern. Conversely, a healthy marriage has an active and ongoing amount of sexual activity in it - and this pattern doesn't appear to differ substantially whether we are talking about a heterosexual or homosexual couple.

Allowing two men or two women to ‘marry’ would involve a fundamental
change in the definition of marriage, from a life‐giving and sexually complementary union to a personal, romantic relationship with no true communion or connection to procreation. It will entrench, in a public way, the separation of sex from babies and marriage from children. It will move marriage from a children‐centred institution to an adult‐centred one. It will trivialize the meaning and dignity of motherhood and fatherhood. This will deeply affect children and young people’s aspirations for their own marriage.

Nice try. You missed again. There isn't a shred of evidence to back this claim up. This is a restatement of the "marriage = sex = babies" routine. I hate to point this out, but it's hardly news that there are lots of marriages without children; and lots of children born out of wedlock (go back to when clergy acknowledged their offspring, we used to call them bastards - remember?) To claim that there is some magical connection between marriage, sex and raising children is arguably false - and I dare say that most single parents would agree.

Further, I don't think that the fraction of same gender marriages that will be created will ever be big enough to meaningfully affect how most heterosexual couples live. The fact is that homosexual couples have been a part of society for at least as long as we have had recorded history - not once have those couples ever changed the behaviour of their heterosexual counterparts.

As for the qualitative arguments about the "uniqueness of love between a man and a woman", those are pure conjecture. Nobody that I know of has ever been able to substantiate that love in that context is different between heterosexual and homosexual couples. The religious crowd likes to assert it ... let them prove it.

Arguing Against SGM: The Punch - FAIL

The Punch is an Australian current affairs magazine.

One of their columnists attempted to write a non-religious argument against gay marriage

It boils down to two basic lines of argument - neither of which hold even a drop of water when subjected to scrutiny.

The first argument is that same-gender couples can't possibly have children. This is a very nice truism, but if you restrict marriage solely along the lines of procreative potential there's some serious problems.

The simple fact is that while some marriages do not produce children, no gay relationships can produce children. Children may be involved but they haven’t been produced as a result of the sexual relationship between the couple.

Throughout its clouded history, marriage has been as much about the provision of a future for a society (through children) as it has been about the relationship between a man and a woman. A gay relationship is not the same as a marriage in this regard.

Again, if one uses such a criterion for marriage, then one must assume that marriages involving Intersex individuals or those who are for one reason or another sterile must also be seen as invalid.

A gay relationship that is raising children - whether by adoption, or past relationships of one of the partners - is just as much about the "future of society" as a heterosexual relationship raising children. Who gave birth to those children is immaterial - there are plenty of children raised by step parents.

Similarly, if one is talking about "the future of society", we must also recognize that not every heterosexual couple produces children - whether by choice or fate. Those couples are no more the majority than same-gender couples are. To suggest that either represent any kind of "threat" to the continuation of society is ludicrous at best.

Those who argue that allowing homosexual couples to marry will somehow be detrimental to society's integrity are invited to look to Canada, Norway, Spain and other countries which have had allowed such marriages for several years now. I have yet to see any credible research to suggest that the handful of same-gender marriages that take place each year have had any such consequences.

As I said earlier, there are many long-standing, committed and loving gay relationships and I have no objection to some form of recognition by the state for those that seek it but I do not think that marriage and a gay relationship are the same thing. A gay relationship needs to be called something else.

Oh? Really? Are you prepared to go through every piece of legislation that references marriage and make appropriate references to this "alternate"? I doubt it, and it would be much more expensive than simply allowing the same term to cover both heterosexual and homosexual partnerships. Second, as "separate-but-equal" experiments in both Canada and the United States have shown, separate-but-equal schemes are seldom, if ever, actually equal.

Our definition of marriage as between a man and a woman is part of our cultural heritage as well as recognition of the uniqueness of the relationship. There’s no reason to change that.

Besides the fact that the author has utterly failed to demonstrate that there is even a smidgen of evidence to demonstrate the "uniqueness" of the heterosexual marriage relationship that truly distinguishes it from a homosexual marriage relationship.

Lastly, he fails completely to address the systemic social and legal discrimination that same-gender couples experience on a routine basis where SGM is not fully recognized in law. Among other issues that are not adequately considered are topics such as inheritance rights, access to loved partners who are hospitalized, decision making powers that would normally devolve to a spouse are assigned to parents or other members of the biological family who may be quite overtly hostile to the same-gender partner; numerous taxation rules change for married couples ... and the list goes on.

Let me be explicit here - as I said repeatedly during the debate here in Canada, we are talking about the legal construct of marriage, not its spiritual or religious forms. Arguments that fail to address the very legitimate issues of discrimination and unequal treatment that same-gender couples face are fundamentally empty arguments.

The Wingnuts Howl

Apparently, the residents of Outer Wingnuttia that write for Lifesite are unhappy about the Court of Queens Bench ruling regarding Marriage Commissioner Orville Nichols.

As a public official, she said, Nichols is obliged to perform civil marriages according to the statutes in the Marriage Act, which allows same-sex "marriages." "I am sympathetic to the argument that a public official acting as government is at the same time an individual whose religious views demand respect," she wrote. "However, a public official has a far greater duty to ensure that s/he respects the law and the rule of law. A marriage commissioner is, to the public, a representative of the state. She or he is expected by the public to enforce, observe and honour the laws binding his or her actions. If a marriage commissioner cannot do that, she or he cannot hold that position."

This is pretty much what I have been saying since day one. The marriage commissioners are secular officials, not religious officials. This is an important distinction. I hate to think what some would experience if the concept of civil servant suddenly included the right to not serve someone in the public because you "disagreed" with some aspect of their life - real or perceived.

As for the Saskatechewan marriage commissioner story, it is just another of numerous confirmations that court decisions and legislative changes in favour of "equal rights" for homosexuals consistently result in denial of fundamental rights for those who oppose homosexuality (rather than homosexual persons themselves). This is dangerous stuff that cannot but lead to great harm to any society that allows it to continue.

Wait a second. Your "fundamental right" to oppose homosexuality? That's like my fundamental right to oppose religious stupidity. Religiosity is a personal right, and nobody has a right to project their beliefs onto others. Equal rights for homosexuals does not infringe upon religious freedoms - not unless there is a "right" somewhere to treat others as second class citizens based on that religion. Religious beliefs however, when enacted as public policy, do have a nasty tendency to abrogate equality rights - whether we are talking about women's equality, or GLBT rights.

This Is Why It's Called "Systemic Discrimination"

I see yet another bright bulb in the Stelmach cabinet has just demonstrated the utter cluelessness that seems to pervade this bunch of politicians when it comes to treating other people with respect.

There is no reason to change the definition of spouse in the benefit plan for government employees, an Alberta cabinet minister in charge of human resources said Monday.

"I don't see the problem," Treasury Board president Lloyd Snelgrove said.

A booklet distributed to civil servants last spring defined a spouse as someone of the opposite sex. Gay and lesbian couples who are married are called "benefit partners" in the same document, even though same-sex marriage has been legal in Alberta since July 2005.

But Snelgrove said the government gives all employees equal coverage, so he has no intention of changing the definition of spouse to include people in same-sex marriages.

"Now if the government as a whole decides that they want to review terminology around a spouse, that's a little bigger thing because I would imagine there's more departments [like] justice that would use that same definition," he said.

You don't see the problem, Snelgrove? You are either blind, have never actually looked at the wording, or your brain is still paralyzed from the cabinet session where Liepert convinced to cut funding for GRS in this province!

Legally, those two people are married. The term spouse applies to them just as much as it does to Mr. Snelgrove and his wife. Assuming, of course, that Mr. Snelgrove is married.

The fact that "benefits partner" implicitly creates a second class of benefit management is one problem; the fact that it will be seen as an implicit form of hostility by any GLBT members of the civil service is another.

That an Alberta politician from the current governing party doesn't understand this is no surprise. It's not like reality bothers them much at all.

Dismantling The Saw About Polygamy and SGM

I see that a former Supreme Court Justice has a very similar take on the polygamy issue to what I have published on this blog before:

Claire L'Heureux-Dube, a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice, does not buy the argument that polygamy should be allowed in Canada in the name of freedom of religion.

"It is contrary to the equality of the sexes," L'Heureux-Dube said Thursday at a breakfast conference organized by Fatima Houda-Pepin, deputy Speaker of the Quebec national assembly.

L'Heureux-Dube, who has no problem with same-sex marriage, said the law is already clear in Canada and polygamy does not have the same acceptance as same-sex marriage.

...

"Marriage is a union of two people, period," she said, adding that Canada's Criminal Code clearly states that polygamy is illegal.

She makes one other very interesting comment, and it is one we should bear in mind when considering related subjects coming out of the United States, as well as some of the goofier things we've seen in Canada:

L'Heureux-Dube noted that in the United States authorities lay charges of sexual exploitation, rather than polygamy, because in the U.S. "freedom of religion has become a religion."

The retired high-court judge, who is still active at 81, said "reasonable accommodation" of religious differences is important, but it must be reasonable.

Revisiting the case of a Montreal YMCA that frosted its windows at the request of its Hassidic Jewish neighbours, she suggested a reasonable course for people who do not want to see women exercising in spandex.

"They should close their eyes," she said.

The simple fact is that the only people who claim any kind of relationship between SGM and Polygamy are the shrieking loons of the religious right. Nobody has ever put forth a single shred of coherent evidence that demonstrates even the slightest equivalency.

The coming trial will be very interesting indeed.

Pop Quiz Time

Quickly now...imagine that you are a public servant - in a position that puts you in regular, direct contact with the public that the government has hired you to serve. Do you have the right to deny service to that same public based on your personal morality?

If you answered 'no', then chances are you understand that doing your job means that everybody you deal with gets fair treatment and that the law applies equally to all.

If you answered 'yes', then chances are pretty good that refusing to marry a gay couple is just fine (and Canada has its own variety of this same nonsense)

The problem is that public servants are hired to do a job for taxpayers - and GLBT people are taxpayers and citizens just like everybody else. It's really simple. If you are a civil marriage commissioner, that's cool. If you are a heartfelt Christian, that's cool too. What's not cool is when you refuse to do the job that the government hires/licenses you to do because of some offense taken under your religious beliefs.

If you will, think of a food inspector that happens to be a practicing Orthodox Jew. He can be offended all he wants that a restaurant's kitchen is not Kosher, but he isn't hired to judge that - he's hired to ensure that a the restaurant is fundamentally safe for its patrons to eat at. His religious beliefs have nothing to do with how he assesses the restaurant's kitchen...period.

When it comes to civil marriage ... it's the same thing. If you really can't stomach the idea of marrying a gay couple, then it's time to find another occupation to consume your time, or become an ordained minister. There's nothing in the law that places a public servant's personal morality above the government's law. Period.

I See The "Persecuted Christian" Meme Is Alive and Well

Oh goody, I see that Lifesite has gotten onto its favourite hobby horse - the one with "Poor Persecuted Christian"(™) spray painted on the side.

There's two gems that come bubbling up on their "news" site from the last two days:

CHRC Spokesman Will Not Say if Christian Teaching on Sexuality is “Hate”

followed by

Saskatchewan Marriage Commissioner Fined For Refusing To "Marry" Homosexuals

Let's explore these a bit further, shall we - after all it's always interesting to see how these people twist reality to suit their politics.

Pete Vere, a Catholic writer who has been working on the clashes between the Human Rights Commissions and Christians, asked Mark van Dusen, a media spokesman for the CHRC, “If one, because of one’s sincerely held moral beliefs, whether it be Jew, Muslim, Christian, Catholic, opposes the idea of same-sex marriage in Canada, is that considered ‘hate’?”

van Dusen replied, “We investigate complaints, Mr. Vere, we don’t set public policy or moral standards. We investigate complaints based on the circumstances and the details outlined in the complaint. And ...if...upon investigation, deem that there is sufficient evidence, then we may forward the complaint to the tribunal, but the hate is defined in the Human Rights Act under section 13-1.”

That's the bit that Lifesite wants you to pay attention to. If, however, you read a little further on, you discover what reality really is:

“Our job is to look at it, compare it to the act, to accumulated case law, tribunal and court decisions that have reflected on hate and decide whether to advance the complaint, dismiss it or whether there is room for a settlement between parties.”

In short, in a classic conservative line of questioning, a question was asked that calls for an absolute answer, and the CHRC responded with "it depends". Of course it depends on something - context and situation. When we are talking about topics such as the intersection between various aspects of the civil/human rights debate, there are seldom absolutes.

The real debate going on today (including cases like Boissoin) is about where the intersection of rights actually lands. When does "expressing an opinion" become promoting hate? Or when does "an opinion" arguably lead to violence or discrimination against some second or third party?

Of course, that isn't how Lifesite wants to frame it:

The issue before the CHRC, therefore, is whether Christian and Catholic teaching itself is considered under Canadian law to be “hate speech”.

Still more absolutism speaking here. In such circumstances, one has to ask if every utterance of someone who is Catholic is in fact "Catholic"(™)? In other words, just because a person claims to be a practicing Catholic (or member of any other faith), does that automatically extend protections to everything that they say on controversial subjects? What is the legal status of those utterances should the church decide that in fact the statements are heresy, and disavows them?

Just to muddy the waters even further, it's not as if the greater body of Christianity is unified in its teachings on sexuality at all. There is a great deal of differentiation between the various churches, so you can't even argue that there is a teaching on sexuality that is universally held within the broad spectrum of beliefs that stand under the umbrella term "Christian".

In the second article, we find the following:

A Saskatchewan human rights tribunal has fined Regina marriage commissioner Orville Nichols $2,500 for refusing to "marry" two homosexual men who approached him for the ceremony in 2005.

Mr. Nichols told the two men, identified only as "M.J." and his partner as "B.R." in the court documents, he would not marry them because it went against his religious convictions as a devout Baptist, but referred them to another commissioner, Edna McCall, because he was aware that she would perform same sex marriages.

Let's consider this for a moment. A marriage commissioner is a form of public servant - they are licensed to solemnize marriages before the law. They are not by definition ordained ministers acting simultaneously in their capacity as clergy.

If we start granting public servants the right to deny service based on some "religious belief", we return very quickly to the days of segregation and "separate but equal" treatment. The cold, hard fact is that under Canadian law, we are all equal before the law and government. Therefore, anyone who is a public servant is obliged to respect that reality when they are delivering government services to citizens.

The tribunal ruling stated that Mr. Nichols had contravened section 31.4(b) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code and that his refusal based on religious belief conflicted with his duties as a public officer. "The Commission stands by its position that to allow public officials to insert their personal morality when determining who should and who should not receive the benefit of law undermines human rights in Saskatchewan beyond the issue of same-sex marriages."

Of course, the wingnuts over at Lifesite continue their argument by painting the commissioner in question as such a wonderful, noble and upstanding citizen, and by implication, is being downtrodden by the evil human rights commission:

Mr. Nichols testified at the hearing that he had never received a complaint in his 24 years of service as a marriage commissioner, nor had there ever been a problem with any of the services that he had provided in his capacity as a marriage commissioner, even though he had in a number of different situations refused to perform a marriage ceremony, such as marriages of convenience for immigration purposes or when he had been asked to perform a marriage dressed up in a cowboy costume.

There's quite a difference between the examples cited above and denying services to a GLBT couple:

1. A "marriage of convenience" is something that is attempting to subvert the immigration process. There are good ethical (and possibly legal) reasons why knowingly participating in such a scheme is suspect at best. (Arguably to do so is in fact to perpetrate a fraud)

2. Being asked to participate in a manner that goes beyond the solemnization of the marriage itself (e.g. dressing in a "theme costume") is also a legitimate reason to walk away. Remember, at that point, the reason for denial of service is in fact not denying anyone access to legal services that others would receive from you. No protected grounds of discrimination have been violated here.

Meanwhile, denying someone service that you would grant to somebody else - based entirely upon your moral assessment of the situation, puts you into much more dubious straights when we are talking about people acting as agents of the government.

Of course, in the minds of Lifesite's writers, these are all examples of how Christians are being "persecuted" in the public square. Never mind that what is really happening is that discrimination based on Christian scriptures is being called out for what it is - discrimination, and often unlawful discrimination.

(BTW - if Christianity were really being "persecuted", one might well imagine that the CHRC and related bodies would have long since taken the Roman Catholic Church to task in Canada for its refusal to ordain women - a clear violation of Charter Rights no matter how you twist it - however, the CHRC has not touched such cases, arguing that in fact such matters are protected under Freedom of Religion and thus rightly handled within the context of the Catholic Church hierarchy)

Thoughts on the FLDS and Polygamy

With recent events surrounding the FLDS compound in Texas, I thought I would delve a little into the discussion of polygamy and why in a North American (and perhaps more broadly "Western") context it is a social structure which does not square with either our social norms or our laws.

The argument has been made repeatedly by various people that legalizing gay marriage would ultimately lead to legalization of polygamy. I do not believe that such is the case, and I will lay out some of my reasons for disagreeing with the initial claim.

In my view, the FLDS group stands as a case study in all of the things that can go horribly awry within the context of a polygamist society that is attempting to exist within contemporary society.

(1) Polygamy creates an environment which artificially imposes a secondary status on one of the parties. In the case of the FLDS, because they permit a man to have multiple wives, it is the woman who is relegated to a secondary status in the relationship. (Among other points, one has to wonder just what happens in these environments when a woman passes beyond her childbearing years, especially when the male is permitted to establish relations with women over a full generation younger than himself.

(2) Isolation. Although this is a reaction to both the group's perception of being persecuted, as well as laws which prohibit polygamy more or less across the western world, the FLDS response of walling themselves off from the rest of the world has proven to be a social disaster, as it removed some of the other social barriers.

Although modern society is strongly individualistic (I'll come back to this in a bit), we exist within the context of a very broadly based society that is anchored in a sense of national commonality. The self-imposed isolation of the FLDS has created an artificial tribal structure which operates with a hierarchy and set of social guidelines that are distinctly separate and at odds with the greater body of society around it.

(3) Ephebophilia

There are very serious allegations of child molestation involved here. I do not believe that the people involved here are psychological pedophiles, but legally they appear to have engaged in child molestation.

Superficially, I imagine that this has much to do with a combination of isolation, and the removal of the social barriers that would ordinarily prevent adults from expressing sexual interest in underage youth.

This is by far the most troubling aspect of the entire FLDS situation in Texas. In this situation, we have a series of decisions being made by the adults which profoundly affect their children in ways that are deeply negative to the psychological well-being of the individual.

Legal Considerations

There are significant legal considerations involved when assessing polygamy.

First of all is the fundamental principle in western legal traditions that rights are assigned to an individual. This means that the legal rights and status of each individual within the FLDS compound are in fact equally protected by law.

Yet, it is equally clear that the society that has been evolving within that compound does not in fact implement that legal equality. How can I make such a broad pronouncement without having seen the society intimately?

From where I sit, there is significant evidence from several respects. First of all, involving underage girls in sexual relationships speaks volumes about the social value that is being assigned to women in that context. The expectation appears to be that a woman's primary function in the world is the production of children, and her other attributes as a person take second place to that. One can imagine how that would translate into restricted access to education, as well as other subtle, arbitrary limitations being placed on these young womens' lives.

In general, legal rulings in both Canada and the United States have held that someone's rights cannot be arbitrarily abandoned. In other words, although you may choose not to exercise those rights, the right itself has not been removed. Polygamy, along with other tribal social constructs tends to focus upon collective rights which often conflict with individual rights and freedoms. Although our laws do reflect some sense of collective rights, they tend to do so only in areas where those collective rights are complementary to individual rights, not in conflict with.

I am certainly aware of polyamorous relationships which exist within the broad fabric of society. These are perhaps considerably different from the isolationist situation we have in Texas as they are attempting to exist within the overall norms of our culture. (How successfully is open to discussion, for I am not close enough to this subgroup in society to have any strong evidence either way)

The situation in Texas should be viewed as a caution flag when considering polygamy in the broader context of society and law. By placing itself apart from the broad fabric of society, the FLDS has created an environment where practices that are known to be damaging to individuals are sanctioned.

In many respects, this is not a condemnation of polygamy itself, but rather the Texas situation speaks loudly against any tribal social construct that attempts to hold itself apart from the social and legal fabric in society.

As with any social relationship, if the balance between the participants is not equitable, then one can expect all kinds of unfortunate outcomes. (It is not as if utterly dysfunctional or abusive situations don't happen in "traditional" marriage scenarios either) The real question is whether or not the Texas situation tells us something about the problems that polygamy can create, or does it merely show us the ugly outcome of strict social isolationism? (Just as the Jonestown incident tells us a great deal about the dangers when a religious cult goes too far)

I suspect that because polygamy tends to suggest a tribal social construct, and that it requires the gender which is on the "many" side of the relationship to accept a subservient status to the singularity (often male) that it would be hard for our lawmakers to create a law that would be able to define a legal recognition of polygamy that did not substantially infringe upon the rights of the parties involved.

Human nature is such that in any social construct a hierarchy of power will tend to emerge. This is not necessarily bad unless the hierarchy of power that emerges ceases to provide all participants with the right to decline their participation in the situation. (Someone under the age of majority is not held to have the capacity to make such decisions, and has a right to be protected from exploitation by their parents - something which the FLDS situation seems to have lost sight of)

To draw us back to the opening conversation, the key distinction I make between polygamous situations and same-gender marriages is that where most same-gender couples wish to exist peacefully within the fabric of society, we cannot make quite the same assessment of polygamy, which seems to often be associated with religious movements that wish to hold themselves apart from the greater body of society.

Just Because You Claim It...

...doesn't make it true.

Apparently the bible-beater crowd thinks that having a PhD makes everything you say correct. In this case, the topic du jour is about gay couples raising children.

The arguments are more or less the usual screed - children need married parents of opposite gender, and children who are raised in same sex households don't get that.

All else being equal, children do best when raised by a married mother and father.
...
First, mother-love and father-love—though equally important—are qualitatively different and produce distinct parent-child attachments.
...
Secondly, children progress through predictable and necessary developmental stages. Some stages require more from a mother, while others require more from a father.
...
Third, boys and girls need an opposite-sexed parent to help them moderate their own gender-linked inclinations.
...
Fourth, same-sex marriage will increase sexual confusion and sexual experimentation by young people.
...
And fifth, if society permits same-sex marriage, it also will have to allow other types of marriage.
...

I'm going to make a couple of opening points here:

First, this is entirely argument by assertion. There isn't a single place where Dr. Hansen actually cites corroborating peer reviewed literature to back up her claims.

Second, she is basically doing little more than raising the usual collection of half-baked ideas that the religious right throws around.

Her first point - which hinges primarily on the reality that men and women tend to socialize with children somewhat differently. While I generally agree that there is a 'naturalness' to this, I do not accept the blind supposition that it is "necessary" for the children. There is evidence that speaks quite to the contrary. Additionally, the APA's basic commentary on gay parenting does not suggest the "socialization" problems that Hansen suggest in points 1 - 3.

Point number four is pure assertion. The claim that a child's sexual orientation - or experimenting is influenced by a parent's sexual orientation is simply an assertion with no evidence to support it.

The last claim - namely that allowing gay marriage will open up the gateway to all sorts of other things is a classic slippery slope argument that fails to examine the differences between gay/lesbian couples who marry and the social context in which (for example, polygamy) exist. To associate one with the other is simply intellectual hackery and fundamentally dishonest.

Additionally, the entire argument rests on some pretty amazing gender stereotypes that just don't hold much water in real life.

In short, even though the author of the article possesses a PhD in a relevant discipline, it's quite clear that she hasn't even done the basic research to substantiate her claims. (of course, when a mere few minutes with Google turns up significant - and impartial - evidence that contradicts her argument, one might imagine that finding corroborating evidence would involve borrowing from Paul Cameron or other researchers who are regarded in a similar light.

[Update 18/10/07]
Over at "The Blend", Pam has posted a well written letter on the matter she received from another psychologist.
[/Update]

The Zombie Bill

[Update 9/3/07]
It seems that Burke has changed his mind - I wonder if he started to actually think about the laws of the land a bit further.
[/Update]
I really must be more careful about mentioning certain people in my blog - it seems as if within days of the somewhat snarky mention of Ted Morton, we find out that he's being channeled by other legislators - this time in New Brunswick.

It seems that Conservative MLA David Alward is proposing legislation that would "grant rights to commissioners who are opposed to same-sex "marriage" on religious grounds. ".

New Brunswick Attorney General T.J. Burke spoke out in support of the amendment, saying he saw no conflicts with the Charter of Rights an Freedoms regarding same-sex equality issues.

"We're not going to oppose the bill. The bill provides preference in choice for individuals who wish to perform same-sex marriages and who wish to decline. There's nothing really that's going to change with respect to the amendment," Burke said.

Ummm...let me put this in one word - BullSh!t.

As soon as you put a bill like this into law, you create a situation where someone acting as an agent of the secular government (and thus, the government itself) is able to discriminate against someone on religious grounds. Although less sweeping than Ted Morton's Bill 208, this amendment to the marriage law in New Brunswick still ultimately enacts legalized discrimination by the state.

Now, last I checked, Section 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms reads:

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.

Last I checked, there was a considerable body of case law established since 1983 that severely curtails the government's right to act in a discriminatory fashion. Remember that Marriage Commissioners are performing Civil Marriages, not religious marriages, and thus are acting not as agents of a church, but as agents of the State. I don't know how much law background Attorney General Burke has, but I suspect his understanding of the interpretation of the Charter in the courts is somewhat weak. (Or either that, like Ralph Klein, the man is fundamentally hostile to the equal treatment of GLBT citizens under the law)