Same-sex Marriage: Setting The Record Straight

[Neal.F.]

Christian Heritage Party leader Ron Gray hits the nail on the head with this open letter penned to the Prime minsiter. It drives home the error (or malice?) of the judges, and indeed the PM with regard to decisions and legislation on this matter.

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An open letter to the Prime Minister

Ron Gray August 25, 2003

An open letter to Prime Minister Chrétien:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Thursday, August 21, 2003 in a broadcast from the Liberal caucus meeting, you quite correctly rejected calls for a referendum on same-sex marriage; in your defence of this stance, you noted that minorities need protection from the tyranny of the majority, and said, "That's why we have a Constitution — to protect the minorities."

Mr. Prime Minister, you are mistaken. But you are to be thanked for having raised the question that makes the most important issues now before Canadians crystal-clear.

Constitutions are not for the protection of minorities; they are for the protection of principles. When a minority takes a stand for a constitutional principle, adherence to the Constitution shelters them both; when a minority takes a stand against a constitutional principle, the Constitution drives them back into the right place.

That is exactly the case in the question of same-sex marriage. The homosexual minority is wrong on principle. And in such a case, the Constitution must be used to defend the principle, not the minority attacking it.

Marriage and civil government were both ordained by God, and their roles are defined by God. Marriage was ordained long before civil government — and government's mandate does not include altering God's definition of marriage.

You, along with many members of your caucus and the judiciary, have shown this same misunderstanding of constitutional government before — notably in statements to the effect that “Canada is a secular nation.” We are not. Our Constitution — in the Preamble to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which you so highly esteem — declares that Canada was founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God. That's God with a capital 'G' — the God of the Bible. The God whose word is inscribed on the very stones of Parliament.

We are a pluralist Judeo-Christian nation. Our Head of State, on ascension to the throne, takes an oath to uphold the Christian faith. Every Canadian official, in their Oath of Allegiance, becomes a participant in the Monarch’s oath — including yourself, Mr. Prime Minister, and your fellow-MPs. There is religious liberty for the minority faiths, because that is a biblical principle, enshrined in our Constitution. But Secularism — the most bigoted faith in the world — strives to drive every other faith out of the public square; to make it into our State Religion is an open violation of Canada’s Constitution. And to cite the Constitution as the basis for violating the Constitution — as our courts have repeatedly done — is to destroy the very foundation of the nation, and of our Constitutional democracy.

I beg you to reconsider. I beg you to act quickly to restrain the out-of-control judicial oligarchy that now threatens to become a judicial dictatorship. If you will take such a courageous action, your place in Canadian history will be on a par with — indeed, it will be above — Macdonald and Laurier.

The means is simple: introduce a Bill — imagine it coming from the Prime Minister himself! — that creates a Standing Committee on the Judiciary; the legislation should arm that Committee with the authority, at its own initiative or at the request of an appellant, to review any court decision on the grounds of its conformity to the Constitution; and if the Committee finds any unconstitutionality, it should have the power introduce a Bill into Parliament to amend the court's decision. The Committee should also have authority to approve or reject any appointment to the Supreme Court bench, and to impeach any justice for moral turpitude, corruption, bias, or neglect of duty. And the legislation creating this Committee must be sheltered by Section 33 of the Charter, the "notwithstanding" clause, so that the courts may not neuter it.

This would make the courts accountable to the Committee, the Committee accountable to Parliament — and Parliament, of course, is accountable to the electorate. And it would preserve the separation of powers that are a tradition of our constitutional democracy: the elected legislatures write the laws, the administrative bodies of government carry out the laws, and the judiciary judges disputes according to the laws as it finds them written, not according to the opinion of unelected, unaccountable judges.

This is not a radical idea: from Confederation to 1947, Canadians had the right of appeal from the Supreme Court to the Privy Council. This would simply restore that lost right — but in a more open system than what we had then.

Mr. Prime Minister, this action is the only way to protect Canadian constitutional democracy from being further subverted by a judicial élite. And the time is short. I beg you to make this defence of principle, of democracy, and of the Constitution your legacy as you prepare to leave office.

Respectfully,

Ron Gray

National Leader

Christian Heritage Party of Canada