Alberta Bill 208, a private member’s bill introduced by Ted Morton (MLA Rockyview), may come to the floor of a brief summer sitting in the Alberta Legislature. Though it is unlikely that the opposition parties allow debating it next Monday, the gay lobby took to the streets yesterday to protest in front of the Alberta legislature. But what exactly are they protesting?
Protesters would have us believe that the sky will fall if the bill gets debated, to say nothing of passing it. With more flair for drama than for factual accuracy, the Canadian Press bills the protest as an episode in a “pitched battle,” echoing the overly dramatic exaggerations of protestors. “This bill would make it open season on gay and lesbian Albertans,” activist Julie Lloyd is quoted as saying.
The bill does not repeal same-sex marriage nor does it erase its existence. Frankly, it takes SSM as a fact; a fact that has a potential for abuse, but a fact nonetheless. Rather, the bill seeks to introduce balance by addressing potential abuses against those who object to gay marriage on religious or moral grounds.
The bill […] would forbid anyone from being punished for refusing to officiate at same-sex weddings or for speaking out or exercising their beliefs against gay marriage. It would also put limits on the discussion of same-sex marriage in schools.
Basic protection of moral and religious conscience and the protection of expression are the marrow of Canadian liberal democratic values. Yet, the SSM lobby is in a self-induced (or effected) panic, and paints a picture of violence and persecution against them when in fact their actions do violence to the rights and individual conscience of others.
In making a case for gay marriage, proponents have argued that the state does not have the right to impose a morality, however majoritary, on its citizens. For all its troubles, this Millian-liberal argument has been widely accepted. But if this is so, should the state impose a morality based on the wishes of a minority? If citizens are protected from losing their jobs for speaking in favour of SSM, for example, should opponents to SSM not be granted an equivalent protection under the law when they exercise their right to voice their own opinions?
The attempt to silence real and potential opponents of SSM, the epithets hurled against them, does underscore nicely the need for legislation such as Bill 208. It shows that the protestors are truly no friends of equality. Further, the protest shows that the advocates of SSM are less interested in respecting fundamental rights than they are in maximising their power to cow opponents.
We need to ask why SSM proponents so harshly object to equality with others? Why do they favour silencing (or firing) their opponents?
The gay lobby have framed the search for their own privilege in the language of rights, but they seem to care little about rights themselves. Rights have apparently nothing to do with their quest. If they were interested in protecting rights equally, they would honestly concede that at present there are opportunities for abuse, and surely would be in favour of balance, in favour of equally protecting the right to voice opinions contrary to theirs.
Their opposition to protection of individual conscience clearly suggests that the protesters are not interested in fairness. They are solely interested in the imposition of their own brand of morality on the rest of the community.
Mill’s libertarianism opposed the imposition of majority views on a minority (mob rule), and by the same logic regarded the imposition of minority opinion on the rest of a community as a tyranny of the minority. To embrace the libertarian logic requires embracing both sides of the equation. One does not coherently stand without the other.
To assert a right for one side while decrying a right for the other exposes a type of hypocrisy. If this hypocrisy were private, it would matter only to those who came into direct contact with it. But insofar as this hypocrisy seeks to establish itself as public policy, its effects widely corrode the public interest. It allows for the creation of privileges because the state only grants expression as a right to one group of interests but not to their lawful counterparts.
It becomes clear that the veil of rights under which this hypocrisy operates is nothing but a strategic instrument to assert, advance and protect the power of a small group over all others in the community.
Crossposted from Civitatensis.caÂ?
Anonymous wrote:
In other words, what this bill does is give legislative legitimacy to biggotry. This is something that we should all fight against, gay or not.
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 10:15 am | Permalink
Anonymous wrote:
No one should be forced to perform a same sex marriage if they do not want to. And if someone wants to speak out against same sex marriage, so be it. However, if the types of speach used to do so fall under the types of speach categorized under hate-laws, then it should not be made legal.
In other words, what this bill does is give legislative legitimacy to certain types of biggotry and muddies that legislative framework that already exists to protect people from certain types of discrimination. This is something that we should all fight against, gay or not.
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 10:18 am | Permalink
stageleft wrote:
In principle I have few problems with a member of the clergy not agreeing to perform the marriage ceremony of same sex couples on moral or religious grounds although it does present a potentially slippery slope for those who do not believe that inter-racial or inter-denominational marriages are acceptable to the christian god.
Limiting discussion of the topic in schools is just plain daft, what purpose is served by limiting the discussion of any fact in a school?
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 11:36 am | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
anon:
There is already legislation against hate speech, right. But just because it is so, does not justify killing speech about all things. The race and religious denomination is a red herring. Those are perfectly lawful things, though frwoned upon in some cultures Should be ban those cultures, then?
Why is opposing SSM bigotry? What is the fear of opposing speech and opinions? Generally, people with sound arguments are not so fearful of the words of others,
stage
It’s schools, not universities. It goes to the core of who should be charged with giving children a moral foundation or none. If schools are extensions of the state, and therefore amoral, should they not leave the morality business to parents? It’s that simple.
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 12:30 pm | Permalink
stageleft wrote:
kaqchikel: As soon as people moved from the relative isolation of their small homesteads they lost control over when, and what, their childern would experience, see, hear about, and discuss, at any particular time - that’s a simple fact that results from our urban environment… the more people you put in one spot the more diversity everyone will experience.
Show me the parent in this day and age who says they have the sort of control you are talking about and I’ll either show you a parent living in a commune, home schooling their children, and not letting them go to town - or show you a parent who is in denial.
SSM is a fact of life, it should be entitled to the same amount of discussion that OSM gets in the school system.
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 1:20 pm | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
Yeap. All those opponents of SSM are authoritarian, rural, parroquial, isolationists, uneducated and poor. I am familiar with that line of dismissive argument masked as sociology. You seem to have left out the part that that precisely because they are so, the state should raise them out of darkness and tell them what modern people should believe as soon as they are placed in state-run daycare centres.
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 2:41 pm | Permalink
Anonymous wrote:
I didn’t say that opposing same sex marriage was biggotry. What I did say is that the legislation is so broad in its scope, as to make certain types of oposition ok (i.e. the kind that biggots would profess to be part of their freedom of speech, and also, legitimized by the proposed legislation).
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 3:20 pm | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
Would you please show precisely what part of the legislation does that? And if it does, do we not have hate speech in the books to regulate what seems to fuel your fears.
Posted on 27-Aug-06 at 3:47 pm | Permalink
Anonymous wrote:
Why is this needed at all?
“for speaking out or exercising their beliefs against gay marriage”
Anyone can do that, as long as it is within the bounds of hate legislation that we already have, so why new legislation? To protect them from what? The introduction of this legislation is redundant if it doesn’t do anything new. But, I think that it does.
You mentioned that “It [I assume you mean SSM] allows for the creation of privileges because the state only grants expression as a right to one group of interests but not to their lawful counterparts.”
One could easily flip this around and say that this piece of legislation creates a potential “safety zone” for those who want to take their freedoms of expression further than current hate law legistlation allows, and creates legislative confusion as to where the line between expression and discrimination stands.
If this legislation passes, it will only be a short while before someone challenges it, it works it way up to the supreme court, and is over-turned. The time of our over-stretched judicial system will have been wasted, again, for something that you have said “does not repeal same-sex marriage nor does it erase its existence”.
Posted on 28-Aug-06 at 4:40 am | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
Sorry. When I said precisely, I was hoping for precision. It seems fairly clear to me that you have not read the proposed bill and that you are repeating stuff from who knows where. TTFN
Posted on 28-Aug-06 at 6:24 am | Permalink
Anonymous wrote:
I did read it, you provided a link.
(1) Amends chapter H-14 of the Revised Statutes of Alberta 2000.
(2) New section concerning those who make statements about same-sex marriage.
Which would be a new section inserted here.
http://www.qp.gov.ab.ca/Documents/acts/H14.CFM
How is that for precise? Is this not the same as your paraphrase above in the little text box?
Posted on 28-Aug-06 at 8:44 am | Permalink
Anonymous wrote:
You must look at the specific privelege or right that is being provided by this legislation, and this right is an exemption to hate laws for those who make “statements about same-sex marriage”.
Now, as I have argued all along, not all statements about same-sex marriage would be considered illegal under current hate laws. However, some of them would be. And this is the danger this legislation poses, because one law makes something illegal, while the other provides a protection from prosecution.
You say that without this legislation that the creation of SSM “allows for the creation of privileges because the state only grants expression as a right to one group of interests but not to their lawful counterparts.” I would argue the exact opposite.
If a gay rights person said that heterosexual people were an abomination and should be routed out of society, then they should be charged under the same hate laws as heterosexuals would be if they said the same thing about homosexuals. If this law were truely fair (and I have argued that it is redundant, and probably wouldn’t stand up in court) then where is the protection for homosexual biggots (i.e. angry lesbians and fanatical faggots) under this proposed legislation?
Posted on 29-Aug-06 at 5:27 am | Permalink
stageleft wrote:
———-
“Yeap. All those opponents of SSM are authoritarian, rural, parroquial, isolationists, uneducated and poor. I am familiar with that line of dismissive argument masked as sociology.”
———-
Bit of a knee jerk reaction there don’t ya think, if I wanted to say redneck, I would have said “redneck” - my comment is not dismissive, it’s simply a statement of fact. In years gone by when people lived in relative isolation from each other parents did have a great measure of control over what their children learned, and when they learned it.
We have now moved to a more urban society and even those who do live in a rural environment are no where near as islolated from each other and urban centres as they used to be, our children come into contact with far more diversity, far earlier than they did even one generation ago, and even if there are large distances involved TV, radio, and movies, provide the vehicle for outside influence.
My suggestion to you is to put away your “there’s another leftie calling us all hicks” and reread what I typed without that particular bias…. then tell me if I’m wrong.
Posted on 29-Aug-06 at 7:08 am | Permalink
Tom wrote:
Stage Left: Yah, I agree. Those rural folks just need to get used to the new urban global reality. They should also stop complaining about multinational corporations taking over family farms, Canadian businesses, and making decisions about locals from Los Angeles, New York, Washington, London, Hong Kong, etc.. Don’t they know that Nike, Starbucks, Walmart, and George W. Bush’s plan to democratize the world are all forces for good? Those rural folks need to adjust or they’ll end up sounding like those idiotic NDPers.
Posted on 29-Aug-06 at 2:09 pm | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
Stage: Are you surprised to find a knee-jerk reaction under the circumstances? Our very parochial world is disappearing around us, and our culture is being washed away by the urbane, the universal and the global enlightened ones –with their homogeneous variety. We no longer have control over being in control of our children. We rural plebs are lucky we’re not all suicidal,… yet.
Posted on 29-Aug-06 at 4:50 pm | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
Perhaps you are right. We should get rid of laws that crimminalise certain types of opinion; the hate laws should go.
Posted on 29-Aug-06 at 4:54 pm | Permalink
Anonymous wrote:
Excellent. Then it won’t be illegal for people to teach the the holocost didn’t happen (only in Alberta), that all arabs are terrorists and should be rounded up and put in work camps, that black people are lazy, and muse openly about the re-introduction of legislation banning non-white people from moving to Canada so we don’t have to pay chinese head tax payers (since they shouldn’t be here anyway). Is this the Canada you want? Maybe. Is this the Canada you will get? Not bloody likely, as there are more of us than there are of you (you, being the people who actually hold these “opinions”).
Posted on 30-Aug-06 at 5:34 am | Permalink
stageleft wrote:
Tom: What you are talking about is what the capatilistic right refers to as “progress”, personally I think it bites the big one but folks are gonna have to take what they consider the bad, with what they consider the good…. unless of course you’ve figured out a way to have your cake and eat it to of course.
kaqchikel: I shouldn’t be surprised with knee jerk reactions, but it still happens. To address your concerns take a good solid look at what our political parties offer us - I’m willing to bet that if you voted, you voted CPoC, read their entire platform and see where their corporate and international trade (re: globalization) policies are going in relation to the “family values” they so often talk about. They are not compatable - do the same thing with the Liberal and NDP complete platforms and you’ll find the same things. Yet election after election peopel get sucked into the same old thing.
It’s one of the reasons I look for an independent candidate that I can get behind instead of voting for a political party. If I can’t find an independent I can back, my ballot gets spoiled - something that has happened for a number of elections in a row.
Posted on 30-Aug-06 at 5:53 am | Permalink
Greg wrote:
Anonymous, you need to chill out, read a book and get some perspective.
You seem to be blinded by your own hate and ignorance.
Posted on 30-Aug-06 at 7:45 am | Permalink
Anonymous wrote:
I find it extremely interesting that when people make a good point (i.e. that there is a direct contradiction between this proposed bill and legislation that already exists and that perhaps advocates against the proposed legislation are not the whack jobs that they have been painted to be by the above posting) they are told to chill out and read a good book.
If you must know, and I hope this makes you feel better, that I do read very good books every day. Presently I am reading Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. A facinating read on how the dogmatic hatred of the number zero by greek philosophers (Pythagorus and Aristotle in particular) set mathematics back almost 1500 years. Zero is a stunning chronicle of the denial, heresy, and grudging acceptance of zero and its companion concepts, infinity and the void.
Ironically, some of the dogmatism displayed in many of these conversations tend to be similar.
Posted on 30-Aug-06 at 11:44 am | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
Although I am Canadian by choice, I am not sure I want any Canada when I read stuff such as yours –even less if you are the majority. I know for certain that the Canada you want is not the Canada that I would like.
There is something priceless in your writing. You are as silly as to resort to the majoritarian argument (more of us, less of you) and at the same time stand vehemently to defend SSM. You likely don’t get the irony in that. Similarly, you read great books everyday as you say. The question is “great” by whose standards? Your majority?
But here is the one that takes the cake: You claim to be reading a book about how status quo or majority opinion can be stultifying of thought –just prior to having declared yourself a part of the majority or the status quo in the present setting.
Anyone can read books, but do they understand them?
Posted on 30-Aug-06 at 1:27 pm | Permalink
kaqchikel wrote:
Anon: On comment 8 I asked for some precision to your claims of biggotry. None came. Finally, you’re prepared to give a hint of some detail in comment 22 (four days later). It’s taken you that long to get what I was asking for, but it’s too late. As of your “only in Alberta” comment” you lost all credibility with me.
I don’t mind talking or debating with people who can debate or who get what they read. You’d know that from my last comment. But you didn’t get that at all either.
Last, but not least, I don’t debate with thugs, and this is a pretty thuggish attitude:
Auf wiedersehen!
Posted on 31-Aug-06 at 8:08 am | Permalink
Lyndon Simmons wrote:
It appears as though I have come into this debate too late. Summer holidays got in the way of a “good” debate. Oh well, next time.
Kaqchikel: up to your old tricks I see. “You are too dumb to talk to me so the discussion is overâ€?, trick, eh? Give me a break. Even though Anon didn’t formulate his arguments extremely well, or answer your silly question about bigotry, that doesn’t mean he was wrong about the inherent contradiction of the proposed legislation vis-Ã? -vis other federal and provincial laws, cut him some slack.
Anon, try putting your legal name next to something; it lends more credibility. Actually, that goes for any of you who hide behind pseudonyms. Right Tom? Which university do you teach at, or is that a big secret too? At least someone can canada411 me if they want to know who I am.
Greg, I mean Holden, I mean Greg: “you need to chill out, read a book and get some perspective?â€? As a founder of the Politic I thought you would be able to do better than that.
I thought the Politic was “a collection of minds from across the country committed to free speech and intelligent discussion of important issues, who aim to use these qualities to provoke independent thought and debate. Our intention is to provide an intellectually honest viewpoint on the topics of which we write, in order to nurture public discourse and the free flow of information which all of our contributors cherish as the foundation-stones of a free society. It is our sincere hope that readers of this weblog will leave with new ideas, new viewpoints and new avenues of thought.�
My sincere hope is that the contributors will also leave with new ideas, new viewpoints and new avenues of thought. Debate / discussions are not a one way street.
Posted on 31-Aug-06 at 8:53 am | Permalink
Greg wrote:
Nope, this is Greg, not Holden. Holden does not blog with this weblog anymore.
And no, there was no need to “do better than that” as kaqchikel was doing fine debating the finer points of the legislation with Anonymous. In comment 17, Anonymous was becoming ignorant, I was simply stating a fact.
If you want to claim Anonymous’s comment in comment 17 wasn’t ignorant, that’s your prerogative. However, the “founder” of ThePoltic, I reserve the right to step in.
Posted on 31-Aug-06 at 9:49 am | Permalink
Lyndon Simmons wrote:
Agreed. Post 17 was pretty silly. If read on its own.
Just as silly as kaqchikel’s suggestion in 16 that “the hate laws should go.”
Posted on 31-Aug-06 at 10:15 am | Permalink
George Freeman wrote:
Anonymous:
How could any opposition, peacefully made, to SAME SEX MARRIAGE ever constitute bigotry?
People oppose same sex marriage because it is offensive to common sense, reasonably justified, not out of some silly notions of historical conspiracy or race theory.
As I’ve said at other times on this subject, SSM was justified by the courts, and therefore harkened into Canadian law, as part and parcel of equality rights under the Charter. But in order for equality rights to apply to SSM, vis a vis traditional marriage, one must assume there is some basic standard of equivalency to begin with; something more than just the number of people involved (two), because that standard alone would equate umpteen human relationships.
But there is no equivalency! They are fundamentally different types of human relationships, and I can’t think of any possible opposition to SSM, peacefully made, that would constitute bigotry of any sort. Simply put, homosexuals can’t marry, even if it is legal! Whatever they call marriage, isn’t marriage, and in no way could it ever be.
To refuse to play the game of SSM is to refuse to go along with a fantastic lie, to refuse to compromise the dignity of human intelligence in a world shared with other humans. And this should be everyone’s right, particularly on this issue, considering that marriage has always been treated with much sanctity, believed by many to be a convenant made with God.
Besides that, if a homosexual couple is denied “marriage” services by some public official, it’s not like being denied an education or sent off to Auschwitz on a train. And there are lots of unprincipled people in the world, or more public officials with no common sense, willing to jump at any opportunity to go willy nilly on things traditional and sing along with whatever popular fetish reigns at the moment … hmmm, same-sex marriage.
Posted on 01-Sep-06 at 8:31 am | Permalink
Lyndon Simmons wrote:
Why were a lot of the comments that were here yesterday erased?
Posted on 01-Sep-06 at 8:59 am | Permalink
Greg wrote:
It appears that the database dump that I restored (after the outage yesterdady) did not contain the most recent comments from this thread. I apologize for this loss, and hope that everyone who contributed can return and repost their comments.
Posted on 01-Sep-06 at 11:34 am | Permalink
Greg wrote:
Ok, comments have been restored! For some reason they were not properly restored when the others were. In the future, if you see comments that disappear, please contact me and I’ll get to the bottom of the problem.
We do not delete comments unless they are threatening.
Posted on 01-Sep-06 at 3:00 pm | Permalink
Lyndon Simmons wrote:
It looks like there was nothing to worry about after all.
http://www.tedmorton.ca/news.asp?newsID=3
Although, if he is elected leader, there still is the independence of the judiciary to over-turn any such bills Morton will try to bring in.
Unconstitutional is still unconstitutional. Klein realized it, why can’t Morton?
Posted on 20-Sep-06 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
George Freeman wrote:
In a parliamentary democracy the final say on what is constitutional and what is not should always reside with Parliament. And in a well-functioning Parliament, your Upper Chamber is usually an independent check on judicial power.
The Canadian Senate doesn’t do this, and governments don’t use s. 33, so the Canadian constitutional order is fundamentally out of balance. There is no check on the Supreme Court when it gets carried away and any criticism of it gets branded an attack on judicial independence.
Morton has a better understanding for how constitutions work in practice and the need for a realistic separation of powers doctrine; as the Americans say, checks and balances.
Posted on 20-Sep-06 at 9:02 pm | Permalink