Tag Archives: Same-Sex Marriage

News

Canadian court rules that Christians MUST perform same-sex marriages

3 Comments

Story from LifeSiteNews.

Excerpt:

Nichols, who served as a marriage commissioner from 1983 after retiring from a 25-year career in the police force, was approached by the complainant, only identified as M.J., in April 2005 to conduct the ceremony.  Nichols informed M.J. that he was available, but when he realized that M.J.’s partner, B.R., was a man, he told them that he could not “marry” them based on his religious beliefs.

[…]Nichols had himself complained to the human rights tribunal in February 2005 after he had been informed in November 2004 by the Saskatchewan Department of Justice that commissioners would be required to conduct same-sex ceremonies after the law changed to allow them.  That case was later dismissed, in March 2006.

He was fined $2,500 by the tribunal in June 2008, which decided that as an official of the government, Nichols was not entitled to have his religious beliefs accommodated.

Nichols appealed that decision to the Court of Queen’s Bench, contending that his right to religious freedom should have been protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But Justice Janet McMurtry upheld the tribunal’s decision.

Nichols’ religious views are not relevant in how he conducts his job, according to the judge in her 36-page decision.  “In that capacity [as marriage commissioner], his personal religious beliefs do not matter,” she wrote.

So much for the right to religious liberty. What this decision says is that government’s values supercede the values of individual citizens – even if it violates the fundamental right to religious liberty.

Commentary

Robert P. George explains why same-sex marriage is morally wrong

1 Comment

Famous Princeton University professor writing in the Wall Street Journal. (H/T ECM)

This is the best single article I’ve read on same-sex marriage.

Excerpt:

If marriage is redefined, its connection to organic bodily union—and thus to procreation—will be undermined. It will increasingly be understood as an emotional union for the sake of adult satisfaction that is served by mutually agreeable sexual play. But there is no reason that primarily emotional unions like friendships should be permanent, exclusive, limited to two, or legally regulated at all. Thus, there will remain no principled basis for upholding marital norms like monogamy.

A veneer of sentiment may prevent these norms from collapsing—but only temporarily. The marriage culture, already wounded by widespread divorce, nonmarital cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing will fare no better than it has in those European societies that were in the vanguard of sexual “enlightenment.” And the primary victims of a weakened marriage culture are always children and those in the poorest, most vulnerable sectors of society.

Candid and clear-thinking advocates of redefining marriage recognize that doing so entails abandoning norms such as monogamy. In a 2006 statement entitled “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage,” over 300 lesbian, gay, and allied activists, educators, lawyers, and community organizers—including Gloria Steinem, Barbara Ehrenreich, and prominent Yale, Columbia and Georgetown professors—call for legally recognizing multiple sex partner (“polyamorous”) relationships. Their logic is unassailable once the historic definition of marriage is overthrown.

You know, there’s no law that says that we could not strengthen marriage if we wanted to. Just saying. Children do better when conceived and raised in stable environments with a strong exclusive bond between two opposite-sex parents. Do we care about children’s welfare? If so, then we need strong marriages.

Commentary

Huge debate at Neil Simpson’s blog on religion and same-sex marriage

4 Comments

Neil Simpson has the best online debates. Here’s the post that kicked it all off.

Excerpt:

Here’s why I am free to support real marriage in the public square:

1. That First Amendment thingy.  We’re allowed to let our religious views inform our political views whether you like it or not. It doesn’t inhibit religious freedoms, it protects them.

2. My religion tells me that stealing, perjury, gay bashing and murder are also wrong.  Do you object to me letting those views inform my political views, or just the views you don’t like?

3. Lots of churches are thoroughly pro-gay, such as the UCC and the Episcopals.  I don’t recall you objecting to their advancement of the pro-gay cause.  If you were being consistent and if you really opposed any religious beliefs in the public square, shouldn’t you be objecting to their views just as strenuously?  Why do you just use that argument against views you disagree with?

4. You are begging the question by assuming what you should be proving.  You claim that we are denying “rights” to gays but you must change the definition of the word in question to draw that conclusion.  But the whole debate is whether to change the word and give them a new right.  You cheat and pretend that we’ve already changed the word and given them the right and then insist that we’re denying this existing right.  Sadly, pro-gay apologists commit this fallacy so reflexively that I doubt you realize what you are doing….

5. Finally, and most importantly, I didn’t bring up religion.  You did.  I can argue this topic without it — though of course, if you want to know Jesus’ views on it I’ll be glad to share the biblical view with you.

To give you a hint of how things are going over there with Neil, I’ve excerpted a sample exchange from the comments.

Sample exchange:

morsec0de writes:

Denying homosexuals the ability to marry each other has no secular justification.

Neil writes:

By nature and design [same-sex marriages] do not produce the next generation. Please don’t come back and tell me about infertile couples, those who use birth control, etc., as that isn’t the point I just made. My point is that by nature only heterosexual unions can produce children.

Homosexual couples can never provide a mother and father to a child, which by nature and design is the ideal. Again, just because there are non-traditional families doesn’t mean we shouldn’t encourage the ideal.

My own argument against same-sex marriage is here. Notice that it is completely fact-based, without even a hint of religion. That’s the way we roll on the Wintery Knight Blog.