Paul Martin a Bigot?

[JerrySeinfeld]

This merits a new topic.

In 1999, Paul Martin voted for a bill preserving the TRADITIONAL definition of marriage between and man and a woman.

Here is an excerpt from the Liberal government's speech:

"Let me state again for the record that the government has no intention of changing the definition of marriage or of legislating same sex marriages.

I fundamentally do not believe that it is necessary to change the definition of marriage in order to accommodate the equality issues around same sex partners which now face us as Canadians. The courts have ruled that some recognition must be given to the realities of unmarried cohabitation in terms of both opposite sex and same sex partners. I strongly believe that the message to the government and to all Canadian governments from the Canadian public is a message of tolerance, fairness and respect for others.

Marriage has fundamental value and importance to Canadians and we do not believe on this side of the House that importance and value is in any way threatened or undermined by others seeking to have their long term relationships recognized. I support the motion for maintaining the clear legal definition of marriage in Canada as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."

[daniel]

Love those push polls. Almost allows freedom of speech.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Love those push polls.  Almost allows freedom of speech.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Why don't you stop attempting to stear the debate away from Paul Martin's about-face and address the issue.

[Greg]

Come on, there's an easier way of making your point without having to call Martin a "bigot".

If you want intelligent discussion, you have to avoid slogging through the mud of ignorant and inflammatory statements/polls like this thread.

And no, this isn't the only poll/thread/post that has crossed the line between intellegant debate and ignorant slogging. If I remember I got upset when someone called Harper the "devil".

For the life of me, I can't figure out why some of you think defaming your opposition is going to make your point any clearer? I'll let you in on a little secret, it doesn't. It simply discredits your stance and the debate often dissolves into a childish shouting match.

Greg

Admin

[JerrySeinfeld]

Come on, there's an easier way of making your point without having to call Martin a "bigot".

If you want intelligent discussion, you have to avoid slogging through the mud of ignorant and inflammatory statements/polls like this thread.

And no, this isn't the only poll/thread/post that has crossed the line between intellegant debate and ignorant slogging.  If I remember I got upset when someone called Harper the "devil". 

For the life of me, I can't figure out why some of you think defaming your opposition is going to make your point any clearer?  I'll let you in on a little secret, it doesn't.  It simply discredits your stance and the debate often dissolves into a childish shouting match.

Greg

Admin

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the advice, Greg. But I am curious if you have offered the same advice to those such as ScotBrison, among a couple of otherswho have called Stephen Harper a Bigot for espousing the EXACT same opinion as the one quoted above from the Liberals, which is precisely why I used the term "bigot" in the poll.

Of course I don't think Paul Martin was a bigot back then for espousing the above viewpoint.

Just as I don't think Harper is now.

[Bakunin]

Paul martin lack of leadership... since he's in power, nothing is really happening... Its been years we talk about SSM, isn't it time we get over it ? or does he want to make another election about it ?

I think he trully don't care about canada, what he care about is the next election.

[newbie]

I'm curious to know if these are Paul Martin's words. Jerry, could you provide the source for this?

[JerrySeinfeld]

I'm curious to know if these are Paul Martin's words. Jerry, could you provide the source for this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These are the words of the deputy PM of the time, but Paul Martin voted for it.

[newbie]

I'm curious to know if these are Paul Martin's words. Jerry, could you provide the source for this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These are the words of the deputy PM of the time, but Paul Martin voted for it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if he was in the cabinet at the time I guess he'd have no choice. I assume it's that way in the Conservative Party as well. I think what's more important is where he stands today. In his words from a CBC townhall meeting:

"Three of the highest courts in the land have said that discrimination on the grounds of sex in terms of the definition of marriage is against the Charter of Rights. It is absolutely a question of human rights and under those circumstances there is no way that anybody should be allowed to discriminate or prevent same-sex marriage."

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/martin_paul

[cybercoma]

For the life of me, I can't figure out why some of you think defaming your opposition is going to make your point any clearer?  I'll let you in on a little secret, it doesn't.  It simply discredits your stance and the debate often dissolves into a childish shouting match.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It works for American election campaigns. *shrugs*

[JerrySeinfeld]

I'm curious to know if these are Paul Martin's words. Jerry, could you provide the source for this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

These are the words of the deputy PM of the time, but Paul Martin voted for it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if he was in the cabinet at the time I guess he'd have no choice. I assume it's that way in the Conservative Party as well. I think what's more important is where he stands today. In his words from a CBC townhall meeting:

"Three of the highest courts in the land have said that discrimination on the grounds of sex in terms of the definition of marriage is against the Charter of Rights. It is absolutely a question of human rights and under those circumstances there is no way that anybody should be allowed to discriminate or prevent same-sex marriage."

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/martin_paul

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Harper talks academic circles around Paul Martin's claim of "HUMAN RIGHTS on the SSM issue...check paragraphs 2-4

"I remind the Prime Minister that in our system of government, the Prime Minister does not decide or define our rights. The Prime Minister does not interpret the Charter of Rights. The Supreme Court of Canada does that. He asked the Supreme Court of Canada to endorse his interpretation and it just refused. I want to address an even more fundamental question. That is the question of the issue of human rights as it pertains to same sex marriage and the use and the abuse of the term “human rights” in this debate which has been almost without precedent.

Fundamental human rights are not a magician's hat from which new rabbits can constantly be pulled out. The basic human rights we hold dear: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and equality before the law, the kind of rights that are routinely violated by the Prime Minister's good friends in states such as Libya and China, are well understood and recognized around the world. These rights do not depend on Liberal bromides or media spinners for their defence.

The Prime Minister cannot through grand rhetoric turn his political decision to change the definition of marriage into a basic human right because it is not. It is simply a political judgment. It is a valid political option if one wants to argue for it; it is a mistaken one in my view, but it is only a political judgment. Same sex marriage is not a human right. This is not my personal opinion. It is not the opinion of some legal adviser. This reality has already been recognized by such international bodies as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Mr. Speaker, I refer you to New Zealand's Quilter case. In 1997 the New Zealand court of appeal was asked to rule on the validity of the common law definition of marriage in light of the New Zealand bill of rights which, unlike our charter, explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. New Zealand's court ruled that the opposite sex requirement of marriage was not discriminatory. So the plaintiffs in this case made a complaint to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that the New Zealand court violated the international covenant for the protection of rights to which New Zealand, like Canada, is a signator. But the UNCHR rejected this complaint in 2002, in effect upholding that same sex marriage is not a basic universal human right.

If same sex marriage were a fundamental human right, we have to think about the implications. If same sex marriage were a fundamental right, then countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, France, Denmark and Sweden are human rights violators. These countries, largely under left wing governments, have upheld the traditional definition of marriage while bringing in equal rights and benefits regimes for same sex couples, precisely the policy that I and the majority of the Conservative caucus propose.

Even those few countries that have brought in same sex marriage at the national level, currently only the Netherlands and Belgium, did not do so because their own courts or international bodies had defined this as a matter of human rights. They did so simply as the honest public policy choice of their legislatures. In fact, both the Netherlands and Belgium legislated some differences in same sex marriage as opposed to opposite sex marriage in many areas but particularly in areas like adoption.

In other words, no national or international court, or human rights tribunal at the national or international level, has ever ruled that same sex marriage is a human right.

The Minister of Justice, when he was an academic and not a politician, would have appreciated the distinction between a legal right conferred by positive law and a fundamental human right which all people should enjoy throughout the world. Today he is trying to conflate these two together, comparing a newly invented Liberal policy to the basic and inalienable rights and freedoms of humanity.

I have to say the government appears incapable of making these distinctions. On the one hand the Liberals are friends of dictatorships that routinely violate human rights to whom they look for photo ops or corporate profits. On the other hand they condemn those who disagree with their political decisions as deniers of human rights, even though they held the same positions themselves a few years, or even a few months ago.

Quite frankly the Liberal Party, which drapes itself in the charter like it drapes itself in the flag, is in a poor position to boast about its human rights record. Let us not forget it was the Liberal Party that said none is too many when it came to Jews fleeing from Hitler. It was the Liberal Party that interned Japanese Canadians in camps on Canada's west coast, an act which Pierre Trudeau refused to apologize or make restitution for, leaving it to Brian Mulroney to see justice done. Just as it was Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Diefenbaker who took the great initiatives against apartheid, Mr. Diefenbaker with his Bill of Rights, and I did not see a notwithstanding clause in that. It was the Liberal Party that imposed the War Measures Act.

Today it is the Liberal Party that often puts its business interests ahead of the cause of democracy and human rights in places like China. Recently in China it was the member for Calgary Southeast who had to act on human rights while the Prime Minister went through the diplomatic moves.

The Liberal Party has spent years repressing free speech rights of independent political organizations from Greenpeace to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that might want to speak out at election time. It has consistently violated property rights and has put the rights of criminals ahead of those of law abiding gun owners. The Liberal government has ignored the equality rights of members of minority religious groups in education in the province of Ontario even after international tribunals have demanded action.

I am not here to say that this party's or this country's record on human rights is perfect. It is far from perfect; we can read about it in any number of places. However, the Liberal Party of Canada is simply in no position, either past or present, to lecture anyone about charter rights or human rights.

In this debate the government has resorted at times to demagoguery, attacking our position with equal intellectual dishonesty. The government has demonstrated its fundamental disregard for the opinions of a majority of Canadian men and women of good will.

In particular, it has been unforgiveably insensitive with regard to all cultural communities in this country for which marriage is a most deeply rooted value.

Nowhere have the Liberals been more vociferous in their attempts to link same sex marriage to minority rights than among Canada's ethnic and cultural minority communities. Yet at the same time, they have clearly wanted these communities excluded from this debate. Why? Because, to their embarrassment, the vast majority of Canada's cultural communities, setting aside those groups dependent on Liberal funding, see through the Liberals' attempt to link basic human rights to the government's opposition to their traditional practices of marriage.

Many new Canadians chose this country, fleeing regimes that did and do persecute religious, ethnic and political minorities. They know what real human rights abuses are. They know that recognizing traditional marriage in law while granting equal benefits to same sex couples is not a human rights abuse akin to what they may have seen in Rwanda or China or Iran.

What these new Canadians also understand, and what this government does not, is that there are some things more fundamental than the state and its latest fad. New Canadians know that marriage and family are not the creature of the state but pre-exist the state and that the state has some responsibility to uphold and defend these institutions.

New Canadians know that their deeply held cultural traditions and religious belief in the sanctity of marriage as a union of one man and one woman will be jeopardized by a law which declares them unconstitutional and brands their supporters as human rights violators.

New Canadians know that their cultural values are likely to come under attack if this law is passed. They know that we are likely to see disputes in the future over charitable status for religious or cultural organizations that oppose same sex marriage, or over school curriculum and hiring standards in both public and private religious and cultural minority schools.

New Canadians, many of whom have chosen Canada as a place where they can practise their religion and raise their family in accordance with their beliefs and without interference from the state, know that these legal fights will limit and restrict their freedom to honour their faith and their cultural practices.

Of course, in all of these cases, courts and human rights commissions will attempt to balance the basic human rights of freedom of religion and expression with the newly created legal right to same sex marriage, but as our justice critic has remarked, we have a pattern: wherever courts and tribunals are faced with a clash between equality rights and religious rights, equality rights seem to trump.

The Liberals may blather about protecting cultural minorities, but the fact is that undermining the traditional definition of marriage is an assault on multiculturalism and the practices in those communities...."

[cybercoma]

Just for effect I'd like to cut out and quote this part of that passage (which was just beautiful):

These countries, largely under left wing governments, have upheld the traditional definition of marriage while bringing in equal rights and benefits regimes for same sex couples, precisely the policy that I and the majority of the Conservative caucus propose.

[JerrySeinfeld]

Just for effect I'd like to cut out and quote this part of that passage (which was just beautiful):

These countries, largely under left wing governments, have upheld the traditional definition of marriage while bringing in equal rights and benefits regimes for same sex couples, precisely the policy that I and the majority of the Conservative caucus propose.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yessss! Hear Hear!!

[cybercoma]

I know most of you left wingers have a difficult time accepting the fact that conservatives are not looking to discriminate against same sex couples, they simply want to uphold the moral and cultural values of everyone in the country. Forcing people who are morally opposed to same sex marriage to accept it as marraige on the grounds of "human rights" is an affront to those who have truly suffered from human rights violations. Conservatives across Canada want equal benefits and rights for same-sex couples, they just refuse to force people to call it "marriage" when there are many different cultures and religions in the country that are morally against it. Let's face it, what we're really talking about is equal rights and benefits under the law anyway. Why must the title marriage be usurped from religions that totally oppose this? Call it "civil unions" call it whatever the heck you want...leave the term marriage alone so those people in our society that hold religious and family values close are not ostracized for not recognizing same sex marriages.

[Riverwind]

Conservatives across Canada want equal benefits and rights for same-sex couples, they just refuse to force people to call it "marriage" when there are many different cultures and religions in the country that are morally against it.  Let's face it, what we're really talking about is equal rights and benefits under the law anyway.

The gov't could rewrite its laws to completely eliminate the term marriage from all laws and replace it with a neutral term like 'civil union' - in others the same word gets used for hetrosexual and homosexual couples so there can be no discrimination under the law. Marriage would then become a term that has no legal meaning.

Would this be acceptable to SSM opponents? If not why not?

[Chungwawema]

Forcing people who are morally opposed to same sex marriage to accept it as marraige

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can accept that forcing those opposed to ssm to accept ssm is wrong so long as you can agree that people who don't really love each other don't have a "right" to marriage, fair deal?

[JerrySeinfeld]

Forcing people who are morally opposed to same sex marriage to accept it as marraige

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I can accept that forcing those opposed to ssm to accept ssm is wrong so long as you can agree that people who don't really love each other don't have a "right" to marriage, fair deal?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm all for that!

[Chungwawema]

I'm all for that!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Gosh. Well. That ruined my point.

[I Miss Trudeau]

I know most of you left wingers have a difficult time accepting the fact that conservatives are not looking to discriminate against same sex couples, they simply want to uphold the moral and cultural values of everyone in the country.

Everyone in this country? Well then, if they're out there upholding my moral and cultural values, they'll be legislating SSM into law ASAP.

Forcing people who are morally opposed to same sex marriage to accept it as marraige

It doesn't bode well when you go off the tracks in the first sentence of a paragraph. See, you're free to believe that Bob and Dick down the street aren't married until you die and go someplace.... tropical. The government isn't.

they just refuse to force people to call it "marriage" when there are many different cultures and religions in the country that are morally against it.

And many different cultures and religions that are morally supportive of it. I'm sorry, but just because you scream the loudest doesn't mean that you get your way.

Why must the title marriage be usurped from religions that totally oppose this?

Why must the title marriage be usurped from religions that totally support this?

Call it "civil unions" call it whatever the heck you want...leave the term marriage alone so those people in our society that hold religious and family values close are not ostracized for not recognizing same sex marriages.

You've really got this all backwards. You and your religious institution can continue doing whatever it is that you do. The question is why you want to force other religious institutions to do what you want, too.

[Chungwawema]

And many different cultures and religions that are morally supportive of it. I'm sorry, but just because you scream the loudest doesn't mean that you get your way.

Could you tell me one (or more) religions that actively support SSM? I'm actually curious (forgive my ignorance) - not trying to argue against you as I suspect we agree on the issue.

[I Miss Trudeau]

I can accept that forcing those opposed to ssm to accept ssm is wrong so long as you can agree that people who don't really love each other don't have a "right" to marriage, fair deal?

Not to mention those evil people who engage in sexual activity prior to marriage. Surely we can't allow them to get married. We must defend our cultural and religious heritage! And those divorced people...err...wait a minute. They aren't really divorced. Why is the state trying to destroy the world by permitting divorce? Anyway, the state can't seriously permit battered wives to divorce their husbands, can they? Think of the children! After all, I'm sure the stick never exceeded the thickness of their thumbs!

[Argus]

"Three  of the highest courts in the land have said that discrimination  on the grounds of sex in terms of the

These would be the "highest courts of the land" populated by Liberal Party bagmen, failed political candidates, lawyers willing to offer free services to the Liberal Party, and friends and suckups of the Liberal Party, yes?

And I'm supposed to attach some moral importance to their findings - as if they were more honest or intelligent than your typical Liberal politician?

"Here comes the judge. All rise in respect. He bought his judgeship fair and square, you know."

[Argus]

And many different cultures and religions that are morally supportive of it. I'm sorry, but just because you scream the loudest doesn't mean that you get your way.

Could you tell me one (or more) religions that actively support SSM? I'm actually curious (forgive my ignorance) - not trying to argue against you as I suspect we agree on the issue.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I wouldn't mind hearing of what "cultures" support SSM either. I'm unaware of any of our ethnic groups which are particularly enthusiastic about the concept. Except perhaps Quebecois, who rarely get married themselves and don't think of it as very important.

[Argus]

Why must the title marriage be usurped from religions that totally oppose this?

Why must the title marriage be usurped from religions that totally support this?

Which religions would those be? The Scientologists?

[Technocrat]

The United Church is pretty damn accepting of gay rights... of course they are now emroiled in their own internal battle over the issue.