Black Dog

If you're going to wear the label proudly, you should consider the baggage that comes with it. ?? Hate to break the news to you sunshine, but Ralph is out of options on this one. He can strike a defiant pose for the benefit of the hometown crowd and his base, but there's not a damn thing he can do to stop gay mariage aside from scrapping marriage entirely. Given his impotence with regard to this decision any defiant rhetoric emanating from Klein is simply him "bowing down to the mouthy ingrate cause jumpers" of the religious right. Redneck Give me a break. there's nothing in my lefiy handbok that says my tiolerance needs to extend to the intolerant. Actually, since you were the one who used the term redneck, with all its accompanying conotations, technicallly, you called Ralph Klein and the right wing movement inbreeders and buggers. How about these: ignorant, reactionary, close-minded, , easily led, primitive-minded, superstitious, gullible...

Wisecrack.

Boy, you try and inject some humour in to the proceedings and this is what you get. Let me explain: I'll go slowly so you can keep up. 1) You praised ralph Klein for "sticking to the redneck ways." 2) Redneck is a derogatory term, usually used to describe backwoods hillbilly types. 3) Other than intolerance, other behaviours popularly associated with rednecks include inbreeding (ie. incest) and bestiality. 4) I opted to point out the irony in praising "redneck ways" which, presumably, would include such stereotypical redneck behaviours as inbreeding and sex with farm animals, in a debate over same sex marriage when both incest and bestiality are two components of the "slippery slope" argument against SSM.

You said: I just don't think its valid to use the reaction to a political figure's actions as an example of vilification of people who don't support gay rights or pride events.

Another point on churches being forced to preform marriages against their will. Churches refuse to sanctify any marriage that does not conform to church teachings all the time (f'r instance the Catholic Church doesn't marry divorced individuals and special dispensation is required for marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics). I wonder why this practice, which has gone uncallenged for years, would suddenly be threatened.

I thought you were against bestiality and incest?

Are you telling me that Harper's movements weren't calculated to send a message? It's one thing for him to stay away. It's another to go, on the day of the nation's biggest Pride event, and speak out against same-sex marriage while addressing a Muslim religious convention. It was a political move and elicited a political response. Incidentally, I did a quick google survey of the major new outlets handling of the even. In most, Harper's no-show warranted, at most two to three sentences, all at the bottom of the story. Only the conservative National Post made it the lead.

IMO, the better PRs trategy should have been about individual freedom. Civil marriage is a function of government and, as we are a free society, it should be as open as is reasonable. No one is being dictated too. It's a policy of inclusion, not exclusion. This would be a sound point if it ween't for people like Archbishop Henry of Calgary who essentialy called for the recriminalization of homosexuality (wasn't there a CPC MP who had a similar position). It's one thing to recognize that not everyone who opposes SSM is a raging 'phobe. It's another to ignore the 'phobes altogether. They're out there and they are real. It's weird you would dispense with one straw man in the sentence above, and then create a new one in the next. No one is vilifing those who don't participate in pride events. Nr is anyone demanding anyone who does not should. The most common sentiment is, "if you don't like it, don't go". Same goes for SSM.

By the way, anyone else remember that one of the many key and ever-shifting rationales for the Iraq war was to prevent Iraq from serving as a terrorist training ground? Mission totally not accomplished

Well, I'll use anti-SSM logic here. Marriage is "suppossed to be" between a man and a woman, right? Therefore, any union between a man and a woman would be, de facto if not de jure, a marriage. So for the Klein government to bar heterosexual couples from marriage would not only bey discriminatory towards non-religious people, but inconsistent with the principles that drive oppossition to SSM. Why should I, as a non-religious heterosexual, be barred from the institution that is suppossed to be so important to society that we cannot allow gays to participate? I also have issues with the practicality. Would religious marriages also have to be recognized by the state in order to recieve benefits? In other words would a couple have to be both married and civil union'd? No to me it would be a lot simpler just to legalize gay marriage. Those churches that want to solemnize them can, those that do not do not. Which is, surprise, exactly how it works so far. Three years of SSM, and not a single church has been forced to perform one against its will.

Why does Alberta want to undermine such an important social institution as marriage?

There's a very simple idealogical reason for this move. If you expand the size of the labour market, you don't have to increase wages. Low wages means lower costs means higher profits.

It's an important distinction to make. You're making it sound like gays are demanding they be able to throw orgies in the pews. But the KoC are not the Catholic Church. In many cultures (including our own) heterosexual marriage is oppressive to women. What's your point? Alberta may stop solemnizing marriages: Klein So in order to avoid opening up the institution to gays, Klein wants to close it off to straight people (IIRC, the majority of marriages in Alberta are civil: that is non-religious). 'course, if "marriage" means a union of one man and one woman, any heterosexual civil union in Alberta would be, according to the the logic of SSM opponents, a de facto marriage. Gay civil unions, on teh other hand, would remain civil unions. What kind of tortured logic do these people employ?

We're not talking about a church. We're talking about halls operated by organizations affiliated with the church that regularily rents out their facilities for secular purposes. How does gay mariage set a precedent for polygamy? What's super-fun-fantasitcally ironic is that if polygamists ever do make a play for legal recognition, it wil be on the basis of religious freedom (that's why the B.S. cops won't go after Bountiful's Mormon polygamists). And really: what's wrong with polygamy, anyway?

They can sue. Doesn't mean they'll win. IANAL, but it seems to me there are reasonable options for gay couples wishing to marry in a religious environment (ie. Unitec Church, the largest Protestant denomination in Canada). That would certainly factor into any judgement. Pish posh and poppycock. There's not a single social change of this nature that wasn't hailed as the begginning of the end. And guess what? We're all stil here. No divine smitings, no chasms opening up beneath out feet. No church burnings. Gay marriage has been a fact of life in this country since 2001. Yet the love between a man and his dog (the love that dare not bark its name) remains unrecognized by the state. Cletus and Mary-Sue will have to wait.

I'm glad you cleared that up Argus. Now, I hope you can answer this other question that's been really bugging me for a while: which is the One True Faith? Depending on how church size is defined, the United Church of Canada is either the largest or next to largest Protestant denomination. About 3.1 million Canadians identify themselves with the United Church of Canada. The church reports 684,000 confirmed members. Fewer (about 2.2 million) Canadians identify themselves as Anglicans, However, the church reports 737,000 confirmed members -- more than the United Church. So, the United Church is either the largest or second-largest protestant denomination in Canada.

um....citation?

Well, I did say "take it as you will". From the Ipsos-Reid poll above:

It's already happening. Or haven't you been reading the papers? Mayhem in Iraq starting to look like civil war (login required)

Bush to offer clear answers on Iraq....or something.

To be replaced with what? What will Alberta do if oil drops to $5 a barrel? Well, it doesn't matter because it won't happen. Oil supply is shrinking, demand is increasing. You don't have to have an economics degree to figure out what that means. You might want to try addressing the facts instead of your perceptions of what my beliefs are. Deregulation was sold to Albertans on the premise of being cheaper. yet prices shot up (in some cases, tripling) to the point where the government had to institute its own Regulated Rate Option (RRO) for electricity consumers, which has been consistently cheaper than the rate soffered by the power companies. WHat's more is that deregulation, a major step, was undertaken with almost no public consultation. For starters, there's the outdated electoral system that distorts outcomes. In the 2004 election the Tories got 47 per cent of the vote, which somehow translated to 73 per cent of the seats: this in a election where only 45 per cent voted, which means that only 21% of eligible voters cast a ballot for the Klein Conservatives. Think on that a second.

The word "marriage" in the conext of this debate is a legal term. It's Parliment's prerogative to redefine legal terms in order to adapt to social changes. (Don't make me bust out the 1929 Persons case again.) Whle I recognize this was in response to another poster's false assertion, I still have to give this point a big "SFW?" Either we're getting into argumentum ad populum territory, or Argus is just being fatuous. Or perhaps he's changed his tune and decided to make moral equivilance with folks who's society and culture (he has said) "reinforces ancient attitudes" and who's "cultural value system (is) sunk in the sixth century." *

This Ipsos Reid poll establishes trends seen in the Environics poll above.

Environics poll December 14, 2004 to January 5, 2005. Here. Strong in BC. Fairly strong in Ontario. Together, these provinces contain 41 per cent of the population. Add in Quebec 66 per cent of Canadians live in provinces where gay marriage enjoys its highest levels of support (and incidentally, where gay marriage is legal). Other interesting demographic facts: support for SM is highest in urban areas, lowest in rural ones. Levels of support also increase as income and education levels go up and age (as I mentioned earlier) goes down. Take that as you will.

I'm pointing out a data point which is echoed in numerous opinion polls on the subject. Where are you deriving your information that the 55+ crowd values marriage more than the 18-34 crowd? I would speculate that this indicates supporters of SSM have a generally more live and let live attitude towards individual rights (that is: "no harm, no foul") where as the No side is driven by ideology.